{"id":1027,"date":"2015-12-28T00:12:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T00:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2026-06-28T00:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T00:15:07","slug":"u2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=1027","title":{"rendered":"U2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 1985, Hollywood Sportatorium, Hollywood, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can understand people\u2019s disdain for U2, longevity will do that. It feels at times like the band, and Bono in particular, is the guest at the party who just won\u2019t leave. Sometimes it\u2019s enough already.<\/p>\n

But every time I run into someone who says they don\u2019t like U2, I always ask the same question: Have you seen the band play live? More often than not, the person who doesn\u2019t care for Larry, Adam, David and Paul (yeah, I\u2019ll use their real names) hasn\u2019t seen what they can do on a stage. There\u2019s no way to go to a U2 show and not feel invigorated.<\/p>\n

I have seen U2 four times now, in three decades, and while each time was slightly different, it was always somewhat amazing. But this show, as the band toured on The Unforgettable Fire<\/em> album, sticks close to my heart and remains one of my best concert memories.<\/p>\n

The Unforgettable Fire<\/em> is my favorite U2 album. Yes, Joshua Tree<\/em> is a force of nature, as is Achtung Baby<\/em>, but Fire<\/em> is weird and beautiful, atmospheric and spiritual. It really had just one hit (\u201cPride\u201d), but \u201cBad,\u201d and \u201cMLK,\u201d and \u201cWire\u201d (how I love \u201cWire\u201d) are timeless, I never tire of them.<\/p>\n

In May 1985 U2 was on the precipice of unparalleled international stardom. Sure, it was a band people knew about, but in two months it would appear at Live Aid and become a household name. When Joshua Tree<\/em> came out, there was little doubt this was one of the all-time great bands, playing to 80,000 people at a time. But in 1985, it was a successful band, but one that still belonged in a crowded mass of alternative\/popular bands which included INXS, R.E.M., XTC and other various bands with just capital letters in their names (but not you ABC). Man all those bands are great.<\/p>\n

I went with several friends to this show, coming at the end of my junior year in high school. We had a convoy of eight (may have been more), and we listened to U2 songs while making the trip on the one-way road to the Sportatorium.<\/p>\n

I saw the video of U2 at Red Rocks, and didn\u2019t think the band could create that kind of atmosphere in the airplane hangar that was the Sportatorium. But U2 is so damn good live because it makes the audience an intricate part of the show, and leaves everyone feeling a certain way. There were three moments of \u201cDid you see that?\u201d on this night.<\/p>\n

The band opened to \u201c11 O\u2019Clock Tick Tock,\u201d Bono\u2019s lyrics of \u201cIt\u2019s cold outside, it gets so hot in here,\u201d bringing a well of shouts from the crowd. He might be a total douche and the whole sunglasses thing all the time is annoying, but the man can sing a song. \u201cTick Tock\u201d is a rollicking good one, and for it to meld into \u201cI Will Follow\u201d so early in the show was spectacular. But at this point, I had enveloped Unforgettable Fire<\/em> so much, I wanted to hear those songs as much as any other, so when the title track started up, I was screaming as loud as anyone.<\/p>\n

And then, a minute in, the song stopped. Bono grabs the mic angrily and looks down at the front of the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody gets kicked in the face at a U2 concert,\u201d he shouted at two boys in the front rows. \u201cNobody. Now you all behave yourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was unbelievable, I\u2019ve never seen or heard anything like that at a show. The crowd erupted in a spirited sound of disbelief. You\u2019re damn right Bono, nobody should ever get their face kicked in at a U2 show.<\/p>\n

The band did the things we\u2019ve seen before \u2014 the waving of flags for \u201cSunday Bloody Sunday\u201d \u2014 but enthralled us in the things we\u2019ve never seen. Two of those instances involved bringing in people from the crowd, and hugging.<\/p>\n

The first occurred during \u201cBad\u201d (the best U2 song in my opinion), when Bono, imploring a young woman in the audience to \u201ccome on down,\u201d stepped into the audience and embraced her with a full hug, an intimate moment surrounded by 10,000 people. I remember him doing this during Live Aid and was surprised it was a thing he did during shows. On this night it felt spontaneous and real, though learning it was part of the act didn\u2019t make it less meaningful.<\/p>\n

It was the second surprise that hit me in one of those \u201cwhy could that not be me\u201d moments. Bono talked of learning how to play guitar and how easy it was to do. All you need to know are G, D, C and A minor and you can play one of the all-time great songs, he said, then grabbed a guitar and Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cKnockin\u2019 on Heaven\u2019s Door\u201d started up.<\/p>\n

He stopped singing midway through the song and addressed the crowd: \u201cAre there any guitarists here tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n

Wait, is he bringing someone up to play guitar?<\/p>\n

Tons of people shot up their hands, and Bono settled on a young man, looked to be in his early 20s, who came up on stage and strapped on Bono\u2019s guitar. After it was determined that, yes, he can play guitar, the song resumed, and the new member of U2 stood alone on the left speaker jutting out into the crowd. Dammit, that should be me. The man on stage was our proxy, and we were with him. When the song ended, the man slipped off the guitar and gave Bono a tremendous hug. I may have been crying. I play guitar now because of that night.<\/p>\n

We sang for Martin Luther King in \u201cPride,\u201d smiled when \u201cParty Girl\u201d took hold during the encore, yelled during \u201cGloria,\u201d and kept singing \u201c40\u201d walking back to the car in the Sportatorium parking lot. How long to sing this song? On an unforgettable night in May 1985, as long as I live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 1985, Hollywood Sportatorium, Hollywood, Fla. I can understand people\u2019s disdain for U2, longevity will do that. It feels at times like the band, and Bono in particular, is the guest at the party who just won\u2019t leave. Sometimes it\u2019s enough already. But every time I run into someone who says they don\u2019t like U2, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[194],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-u2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1029,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions\/1029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}