This Saturday was finally, FINALLY the U2 concert. Guess when we bought these tickets? Before Annie was even BORN. Back in November of 2009, it was supposed to be my 28th birthday present. Now I'm almost 30 :) The last time U2 was here was the day of our rehearsal dinner for our wedding, so we obviously couldn't go (although I was offered tickets for work... dang! tough choice! :) I'm sure most of you know that Bono hurt his back before the tour was supposed to start and thus it was delayed a year. I'm happy to say that it was definitely worth the wait!
We started off our weekend on Friday night - Annie was originally just supposed to go to Ben's parents house on Saturday night for the concert, but they wanted her to come on Friday so they would have more time to spend with her. AOK with me! Normally I of course love to have my time with Annie on the weekends but I was JUST FINE giving her to the grandparents for an extra night this time :) I know it is just as important for them to get to spend time with her too, and they seriously LOVE it, and so does she! Ben's dad didn't get to our house until nearly 8 on Friday night to get Annie - but she was so excited, squealing and yelling - it was so fun! I love that she's now at the stage of recognizing family, it definitely makes their days when she's so happy to see them!
Saturday, I lazed around on the couch in the morning, watching multiple episodes of Sex & the City like I used to do back in my pre-kid days. It was actually quite heavenly. I have watched the entire series probably 4 times, but really haven't watched at all since Annie was born. I started off at Season 3 (my personal favorite tied with Season 4) and remembered how much I love the show, even if it does have it's many flaws :) After lunch, we packed up to go to the Graves 601 hotel, where Ben surprised me with a room! He had originally told me we were going to stay at the Westin but when I started making firm plans to go to dinner somewhere super close to there he had to fill me in on the secret :) I have wanted to stay there for a night for a super long time, so this was the perfect occasion. Luckily Ben got a deal on priceline because that place is ridiculously expensive!
View from our room - that's Target Center in the foreground - who knew they had a green roof??
We were able to check in early, and I set about making SURE we got our money's worth out of that room by immediately taking a nap and just lounging in the bed - I wanted to save my energy for that night (and it was a VERY good thing I did, as you will soon see...) and the bed was seriously the most amazing thing I've ever experienced - better than ANY other hotel bed by far (Hilton, Hyatt, etc are pretty nice but not even close to how nice this one was).
Amazing showers! I made sure to use this multiple times because our shower at home sucks.
I really love hotel robes
At 5:30, we met the neighbors at Lyon's Pub for some drinks and dinner. Since we were away from the concert, it wasn't that busy which was nice.
We miraculously got a van cab to the concert, and once we got close walked the last few blocks in because traffic wasn't moving. That area is DEFINITELY not built to handle that amount of people! We saw a bit of the opening band, Interpol, who were pretty okay but I wasn't really paying attention to them too much. Our seats were great, directly facing the stage in the lower level (section 119 for those familiar with the stadium). Not super close, but we had a great view of the entire event, definitely.
Walking to the concert. Oh these Lions. We had some good times with those back in college.
I LOVED the concert. It was definitely the best large concert I've ever seen (I've been to Dave Matthews Band a few times, Coldplay, Rolling Stones, and probably more than I'm forgetting because they weren't that great). I'm not really that big of a fan of concerts, honestly, really preferring to sit in the comfort of my own home listening to music, but U2 are such good performers that it was definitely worth the crowds and the standing for many hours, and rain, and the cost of tickets. It started raining pretty hard halfway through, and THANKFULLY some amazing woman behind us offered Ben a disposable rain poncho, which he obviously gave to me, so I luckily stayed pretty dry. The rain was honestly like an awesome special effect and didn't seem to slow the band down at all. Apparently there were some sound issues but I didn't notice in the slightest. The Aquatennial fireworks were going off in the distance (we couldn't see the actual fireworks because we were too far down, but I saw some amazing photos of them over the edge of the stadium from the upper deck) and it was also lightning a few miles away which you could see on the other side... pretty cool! They played City of Blinding Lights, which I was hoping they'd play AS the fireworks went off - but they were a little late :) Still awesome. There was a really cool version of Stand By Me that Bono did with some dude from Somalia, and several times Bono broke into Singing in the Rain. They also did Stuck in a Moment as a tribute to Amy Winehouse - I missed that it was a tribute at that time but saw that later. Ben had no poncho so got soaked, and since he wears glasses really couldn't see anything, but still liked the concert despite not being a U2 fan at all - I'm glad he stuck with it :) They really do put on a great show, so I would definitely encourage forking over the high ticket prices if you are at all a fan for their next tour!
This is one of the best videos I found to see what the experience was like in the rain - crappy audio obviously, but you get the idea! (Side note: I was SHOCKED at all the people recording with their phones in the rain. Hello people! Put those AWAY! It's going to suck anyway! Although I'm glad this dude did I guess)
Look at all the PHONES! This was the first concert I've been to since smart phones became huge (so yeah, it's obviously been awhile) and it was kind of strange/cool to see them all up around the entire stadium.
The real story begins AFTER the concert... so there were approximately 58,000 at the U of M campus, all pouring out of the stadium at 11:30pm on a Saturday night, combined with all the people who were just out normally, and all the people downtown for the Aquatennial.... a bit of a mess. We met back up with Nate & Molly and 2 of their friends they ran into after the concert. Even finding them was tough! We somehow all had to get back downtown, because their car was there, and us and the friends were both staying at the Graves. We decided to walk up 4th Street because at least then we'd be going in the right direction if we found a cab or a bus. Every bus we saw wasn't even stopping because it was so full, and any cabs we saw (which were rare) were definitely occupied. We decided to stop at this random Chinese restaurant on 4th Street because we saw they served beer, had many open tables, and it was open. The idea was just to get some drinks and food and wait it out a bit to see if things calmed down. They ALMOST didn't even let us in because they were closing (it was nearly midnight by then) but they decided to let "just one more group" in, thankfully. We got some food that actually turned out to be delicious (cream cheese wontons! they hit the spot), Ben got an entire dinner for some reason, and then we were back on our way.
Ben's full meal... that he munched on throughout the rest of the night and very much regretted the next morning.
We had decided the bus was probably our best option - left the restaurant, Dinkytown was STILL a mess - no buses in sight (well, we saw one, but it was really far away and didn't even get there in the time we were waiting) and definitely no van cabs to accommodate 6. Sooo we just started walking down 4th Street, again thinking at least we're going in the right direction. We saw no buses the entire time (we walked from the restaurant to 8th Avenue) and no unoccupied cabs. Nate CLAIMS now that he saw unoccupied cabs that we "just missed" but I think he's dreaming. I then suggested we just walk across the Stone Arch Bridge into downtown, because then SURELY we could find a cab. So we did just that, turning on 8th Ave and going to the bridge, walking along Washington - again, seeing no unoccupied cabs. This city does really suck for cabs. By that point, we're still walking and we know we're just going to end up walking the entire way. It ended up being 3 miles, which I mapped the next day. I was in flip flops, everyone still had wet clothes and shoes... it wasn't fun. The only positives were that it had stopped raining and was actually quite pleasant weather, we had company to chat to, and I definitely am not feeling like I need to exercise (as if I ever do) for at least a month.
Starting to walk over the bridge
Just a few blocks left....!
When we finally got to the Graves, the bed had been re-made and our room had been turned down - the most welcome sight in the world! We didn't have anywhere to be the next day so thankfully we got to stay in bed until 10am - AMAZING. The room service was more expensive than I could stomach, so we ended up not doing that, sadly... maybe someday we'll be rich enough to blow $90 on breakfast in bed at a hotel, but I doubt it! The Graves was super nice but I doubt I'd ever stay again unless I got a smoking deal - it really is true that the more expensive the hotel, the less you really get (free breakfast, free wifi, etc).
($90 would be with the mandatory 18% gratuity and delivery charge...)
All in all, it was an amazing weekend - I'm so glad we decided to get a hotel and really do it up in style!
4 comments:
Glad you enjoyed the show! It was definitely memorable!
We were there too and I felt like the rain made the concert better than it would have been. It seemed that the rain helped the crowd and the band really get into it. So fun and worth the 2 year wait!
Your trek to downtown sounds miserable though. We walked to the West Bank and that was far enough for me.
Arg gonna kick blogger's ass- deleted my comment. To summarize: glad you had fun and double whaaaaaat???? To the breakfast price and beef tenderloin option.
Wow-that pic with the smart phones, and then the one with people everywhere as if they were walking through a jam packed cow maze was crazyyyy!
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