Vertigo

Before I start a big hug to MrHush on his birthday, sorry I don't have $750 for your present but I'm thinking about it.

Very busy week end indeed…Funny how some can be void and others so busy. I don’t know where to start. Maybe, with the most obvious event as everybody and his dog talked about it for a whole week, U2 in concert.
I saw them live in Nice on Friday 5th, a friend of mine got me a ticket in February or something and I had to schedule my holidays BECAUSE of the concert, can you believe it?
The event was to take place at the Nikaia stadium and 53 OOO people were expected. I never realised U2 were that popular, their last LP isn’t very good and what the hell, they don’t play any fashionable R ‘n B music. I think they represent what the Rolling Stones stood for in the nineties, some sort of golden age rock band, when music wasn’t all business, I don’t know. Bullshit anyway.
I’m not really a U2 fan, it’s just that I ‘ve fallen in love with their live music. Somebody got me this live at Slane Castle in April and I kept listening to it. I was expecting to find that spirit, for Bono sounds a bit like a minister sometimes.
I reckon Bono has really this theatrical quality that makes good performers, but I must say that I was a little disappointed by the performance. First, because when you have to walk one mile from your car to this Nikaia place, you think the performance’d better be good. Second, because, while treading on 3 inches of plastic bottles you think “Wow, people have been queuing since 5 in the morning, it must be out of this world”. I couldn’t help but wonder why they weren’t any containers to collect all this trash. I suppose it’s to avoid bomb planting, reinforced Vigipirate, as the government calls it, London bomb attacks are still in everybody’s minds.
As far as the staging of the concert was concerned, the idea was not to see U2, the huge rock band but only a four-piece playing in some club in Dublin. That was the first part of the show bottom line. I think being humble is a good attitude, but that’s not why people paid 6O euros, at least, for. I wanted something more glamorous, the stage all sparkling and glittering in the distance. I was so disappointed to notice that the lights hadn’t gone and plastic bottles and greased papers were laying on the concrete floor. I sort of achieved a climax on ONE, which I think was one of the best songs ever written, but the last encore was the ill-called VERTIGO, which brought me downhill . No “staring at the sun”, which is one of my favourites, or “walk on”, which so beautifully closed the Slane Castle live.
I must say that I was more impressed by Keane’s set, an hour before U2. I mean, to see these kids so enthusiastic, come on, there were fucking nobodies one year ago, playing in front of a 55 OOO people crowd, made me enthusiastic too. It was touching to hear the singer say that it was his first time in the Côte d’Azur, while U2 live in Eze-village which is 3O kms from Nice, most of the year. I could see his eyes smiling on the giant screen, this baby-faced boy and I would have given anything to feel what he felt at this precise moment. The keyboard player was amazing, didn’t stop moving and dancing, giving as much energy as some sort of a guitar hero. I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks, during “Everybody’s changing”, I’m a dumb chick, I know, and Keane ‘s probably a chicks’ band.

Later, after I’d brought my over-tired ass to bed in Antibes, a friend of mine called me, U2 were in St Tropez, at the Papagayo. Perfect link to my next post.