Bono, Me, and the Kids

About a year ago I was going to go to Seattle to see a U2 concert.

Let me tell you more: my youngest son, as a Father's Day gift, purchased tickets that he and I (and two of his siblings) might attend the U2 concert scheduled for June of 2010. I was excited to be included and excited to be with my kids for an event I knew they would love.

Then there was the emergency back surgery. Not mine, but Bono's. He was in the Netherlands and had to have emergency back surgery which resulted in the postponement of the Seattle concert (and several others).

Now it is a year later. I am just recovering from my own little medical emergency, and the concert is at hand. The four of us drive to Seattle (I am driven by my children!), find what we hope to be legitimate parking and we walk to the stadium, dining along the way (sometimes a hot dog has to pass as real food). Along with thousands of others we enter the stadium and are overwhelmed with the scale and crowd and the stage and the everything else. It is an event and a large event at that.

The warm-up band plays and we enjoy it ... mostly. Then, the road crew begins to rearrange the stage and at 9 p.m. the show begins. We see the band enter, we are on our feet clapping wildly and cheering. They begin to play and we all go nuts and cheer more and clap more and we never sit down.

I can't begin to describe the joy of the evening: joy at being with my kids, the joy of knowing that they were doing something for me that they knew I would like, the joy of them being there and seeing the band play and soaking up the performance that was flawless and awesome. But most of all it was my joy in seeing my kids so enraptured, so entranced, so absorbed in music that spoke to them, that moved them. It brought such a joy to me to be with them, to be part of this experience, to be a part of their lives.

And that is the best Father's Day gift ever!

Live Music; it's Really Alive!

So, having just come home from a concert, I was asking myself "Why do people go to concerts?" I mean, after all, we can buy the CD's or download the songs and listen to them on our computers or some other more sophisticated sound system.

But listening live, now that is fun! It is a really stupid thing to say, but the music is so alive! The artists have the chance to share their stories, they talk about the music, they play extended versions of the songs and we as an audience get to interact with the artist and interact with the music as they share it with us.

So, after the cost of the ticket, the wait in line, the obnoxious fan, the sticky floor and the sigh at the end of set that seemed too short because I could have stayed all night -- it is fun to listen to the CD but it is great fun to be at the concert and listen, taste, touch and smell the experience.