Some people don't understand how hard it is to capture a moment with only words. Most people will tell you that the some of the greatest moments in life cannot be described through words. They are right. That is why my job with writing my stories down is very hard. All because my passion behind the words I let out is just so overpowering at times. If you are a reader out there, and you truly do feel my expressions, my words, and my stories. Then I thank you. You have made me feel and be apart of something I've always dreamed of. You can't buy that stuff.
While growing up in my earlier years, most of what I remember musically was stuff like R.E.M, Soundgarden, Pearljam, Queen, and U2. Among these groups was one in particular that stood out for me. My dad has always been such big U2 fan. If you weren't the most popular kid back in the seventies and eighties, and you built models of planes and cars, and had hobbies? You most likely listened to U2. Here's my story.
To many people music just isn't a way out, but a way of life. Music is a way to get out of your bedroom when your mother is yelling at you. Music is every screaming man and woman out there who want a new life. Music is every face of ours that grins or frowns upon any moment in our life. Most of all, music is in our hearts. I was about 12 years old, sitting in my dads greasy spoon restaurant. I always used to listen to the radio with him. I thought changing through the frequencies while driving through the city was the coolest thing ever. Just me and my dad. I remember hearing a radio DJ one time ask people out there. "If you were stranded on an island with one woman, one kind of food, and one album, what would it be?". I will always remember this day. I asked my dad the same question while sitting down with him eating. Vividly in my mind I remember my dad saying "Pam Anderson, (i don't remember the food), and U2 - Joshua Tree. If anybody out there doesn't know what Joshua Tree is? I insist that you go ahead and look into it. Joshua Tree is an album that U2 was released on March 9Th, 1987. It is said that the album is inspired by American and Irish roots of music and the bands "love/hate" relationship with the United States. It is also said that the lyrics in this album are one of the most socially and politically embellished spiritually and imaginably so far. Joshua Tree spoke for every man and woman living in the world. This album was a way out for so many people. This album was a door locked behind you boarded up so your mother couldn't get inside. This album spoke to people in ways albums will never get a chance. Joshua Tree lives inside me, it lives inside you, and it lives inside every person that gives it a chance to. Music is about standing for something. It's a way out of any problem any man or woman could think possible.
Growing up with my fathers influence in music has molded a very interesting person out of myself. U2 will always have an influence on my life. U2 will always have reasons for why I get goosebumps when I hear music that takes me to another place. The first time I ever heard Where the Streets Have No Name, I felt like I was going to cry. 12 years old? That's real. Maybe it was my parents divorce that created such meaning to music. Maybe I was hurt. What ever it was, it was meant to happen the way it did.
It was a Sunday, on May the 29Th. It was a long awaited day for myself. It was the U2 show in Winnipeg. And it was finally here. I got there early to see the opening group The Fray perform. It was really good. I spent the next hour while the set up was being performed, looking into the binoculars. We sat in the first upper deck section on the west side of Canad-Inns Stadium. Shortly after that there was a vibe going around the stadium that the show was about to begin. Suddenly smoke began to float around the South West gate of the stadium. 4 men walked out of this smoke. It was them. It was really them. They walked out as if it were their last performance ever. That gave me the most un identified feeling I have a ever felt. All of these years, and now this. They took the stage and Bono just stared at the crowd for about 15 seconds. He did a slow 360 style dance move as he felt the crowd seep through his pores. And the show went on..
I remember thinking in my head for a good hour and a half of their set "What if they don't play it". The stadium brought out such a great sound, as Bono's familiar humming echoed through the west side of Winnipeg. If your still with me reading this, I thank you. Because your a real person, and real see real. For every single song they performed they had 50,000 people up in their seats living life. There was a quote on the CBC news where one person said something that made incredible sense of it all. "I don't think I've ever experienced a band that is able to connect with their audience quite like U2 does, and in such a massive setting as this as well. Yet they seem to somehow bring it down to an intimate level". One woman in the Free Press commented saying, "U2 makes us feel as though they like us. Like we mean something". You can't buy that sort of stuff.
After about a close 2 hour set, The Winnipeg Free press writer said it the best. it was followed by the quintessential U2 classic Where The Streets Have No Name, which closed the regular set as 50,000 voices burst into a tidal wave of cheers and shouts and cries.
If you don't want to believe the facts that there were people crying, then don't. But this all happened. I remember bursting out of my seat, and I swear over anything in life I had my entire section jump with me. It was because I didn't care. I was there for that reason. The guitar picking in the start of Where the Streets Have No Name is a sound that will forever be my weakness. I remember putting the binoculars to my eyes instantly because I felt like I was going to cry, and that's exactly what happened.U2, for the first time in my life brought me to tears. I clenched these binoculars and thought of my dad. 15 years of my life flashed before my eyes. I thought of everything in my life that has hurt me and everything else that has healed me. This song has a way of grabbing you. This song stands for every person out there still pushing. Still pushing when they tell you no. We don't settle for no anymore. We are the fire inside that's constantly pushing. That's what this song meant to me.
In the end, people are going to tell you what they want. But we have to stand for something more at the end of each day. I'm 25 years old now. When I was 12, and my dad told me about Joshua Tree, I had no idea what it stood for. I didn't know how political U2 was. I just heard them on the radio. There was one thing I did create for myself, and that was standing up for what I believed in. Now, 13 years later I have a rich admiration for this band, and this song in particular. Don't ever let anyone ever tell you can't do something. Don't ever settle. Don't ever settle for something you feel isn't enough. When they say no, say yes.
There isn't a good enough version of this song from the live footage in Winnipeg, so I have chose to show a different one. This is the exact song I have been talking about, so imagine it live. RV I know you were there, so you know all about it. Anyways, here it is.
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