Monday, December 19, 2005

U2 at St. Louis - Part 1 (everything before the show)

The date is Wednesday the 14th of December 2005. It is a little after 11a.m. and BB arrives at my house. My sister Lou and I have packed everthing in my car and we are ready to head over to St. Louis. I can't believe the moment is finally here. It seems like we bought theU2 tickets 9 months ago and the wait has been forever. But now we are leaving...

But first, we get some lunch. A quick stop at Oklahoma Joe's for some fine Kansas City BBQ and then we are on our way.

BB had to leave early the next day to get back for a job interview, so he had to drive seperate. He did a good job of keeping up, although I think he complained about going to fast. I don't know how fast grandma usually drives but wer were keeping up with the flow of traffic going about 80 mph.
In the outskirts, we finally see signs of our destination city. We are close and I am ready to get on my feet.


We pull off I-70 on Broadway street to find our hotel and to do a quick drive by the arena to see if we can walk.



A nice view of the arch from our 8th floor window at the Hilton St. Louis Pavilian Hotel.

More views from our window.

Each bus stop had a huge poster of tonights show. I wanted to take one but they were locked behind glass. It seemed like all of downtown was buzzing about the show tonight. The hotel staff wanted to talk about the show before we left. We walked over to Union Station and grabbed a bite in their food court. We met other people from Memphis and Indiana going to the show. U2 has some nice fans.

Our seats are at the end of this aisle and we couldn't be any more centered than this. I was on one side of the rail and my sister was on the other side.

Come to find out that the same crazy coldplay fan is also a crazy U2 fan, but he is happy as he just came back from buying some t-shirts.

Kanye West was the opening act. Before he came out on stage, Bono suprised everyone and came out to introduce Kanye. It was cool that Kanye didn't have a posse. Just him, a dj, and an all female string section: 2 cellos, 4 violins, and one harp. The girls were dressed in black dresses except for the first violin who had on a white dress. She deserved the special attention because this little asian girl was getting down. I have never seen hip-hop moves on a violin, but it was cool.
Now we are waiting for U2 to come on stage. The arena is black except for 6 red lamps over the stage. (a red-orange glow!)

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

I love the view from the hotel room. You're making me want to go on vacation.

f o r r e s t said...

It is fun to get away. Vernal is taking a weekend trip to New York City in a couple of weeks.

Doc said...

Is Vernal going for New Years weekend? She should get in touch with my sister. Call if she needs a phone number.

f o r r e s t said...

Doc, I think she is going the following weekend. She is meeting her sister there who is flying back from Isreal.