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Tropical Depression: Arena Rock
Oh my god I am procrastinating. Butterflies in stomach, sleepless nights procrastinating. Made an appointment to get a haircut in the middle of the day procrastinating.
So why ruin a good thing.
Last weekend I got an early Christmas present. An old friend came into town for a concert at Aloha Stadium and since I wasn't busy (procrastinating is cool) I went along (free ticket for sleeping over and driving). Pearl Jam opened. U2 was the headliner. It was the last concert of their Vertigo tour.
Now, I have never owned a U2 album or a Pearl Jam album and if you asked me to name more than one album by either band I would be hard pressed to do so. But one does not turn down a free concert ticket to see two superstar bands right down the street at an outdoor arena.
Rock and Wow.
The lights: Holy cow they were spectacular. I had no idea lights could be silver.
The visuals: They had Hi-def screens with more square footage than my entire house.
The sing-alongs: Damn that was fun.
Parking: I got rockstar parking (right at the entrance).
The seats: Kick ass. Though my neighbors on the right were the people who go to a concert to sit down. No yelling or clapping or W00Ting. These people were seriously lame and even left before the first encore.
There were certain U2 protocols that I was not familiar with, for instance during "Pride(in the name of love)" the audience sings the "oh-oh-oh-oh" back ups and NOT the actual chorus. Who knew? But somehow I knew the words to almost all of the songs. How they make everything so damn catchy I do not know.
The steady hard rocking of Eddie Vedder and crew was an undeniably fun wall of sound experience. And Eddie got some serious street cred by doing a cover of a very meaningful Hawaiian song and sending shout-outs to different local neighborhoods. They also did a really great cover of Baba O'Riley (teenage wasteland) that made me remember how much I wish I had a time machine so I could see The Who in concert.
And the beauty of an outdoor show. A cloudless sky. Stars dotting the canopy.
Three encores. Dude from Green Day showed up. And at the end everyone played "(Keep on) Rockin in the Free World".
And the crowd went wild.
