The Bolt

I went with a friend of mine, Tony; we drove from Saskatoon to Edmonton in June of 1997. Being on the road is fun enough, but going to see U2 in a different city - well that was certainly a big part of the allure.

When we got to Commonwealth Stadium and finally located our seats, we were disappointed to learn we had about the worst seats in the place. No kidding. While we were sitting there distressing over our poor placement, a stadium employee came up and gave us better seats, exchanging our tickets for others. Great!

We moved to the improved seats, which were still on the second balcony up, but now much closer to the stage. This turned out to be a horrible viewing angle, since the Popmart stage had a huge video screen, and we couldn't view the screen properly.

We walked all the way back down to the main level with the intent of roaming around for better seats and just squatting, but the security was heavy. We stood there and wondered how we were going to get past security when some other people tried to break their way in.... the security guards were all over them, and so while security was distracted we simply walked right past! We found some great seats on the main level, and we were all set.

The open air feeling of commonwealth stadium was quite enjoyable; I'd gladly go to another outdoor concert like that. The sense of space was much different than an indoor stadium, the sound wasn't reflecting off of concrete structure, and the air was fresh and clean. Quite enjoyable.

When U2 finally took to stage, I was overwhelmed by their large-than-life presence. It was like no other band I'd seen in concert before. I have no idea how many people were in the stadium at the time, but you would have been hard pressed to find anyone sitting in their seats. Thousands of screaming fans, all standing and cheering. Wow. Just wow.

In ten years since that concert, there have been only two other times where I've experienced something close:

The first was the CMT Country Music Festival in Nashville. The stadium in Nashville is larger than in Edmonton, and that same outdoor concert feeling was great. But the acts on stage there simply were not as overwhelmingly awe-inspiring as U2.

The second was recently, in Saskatoon, where Keith Urban played in concert. This time the venue wasn't wonderful, but the act on stage was powerful. Keith Urban is popular because he has "it" - he has an undeniable stage presence, just as U2 does. He has it in a smaller way, but it's definitely there, and he certainly kept a packed arena of fans up on their feet, dancing clapping and screaming all night long.

I still can't help but think that if I had seen Pink Floyd on their Wall tour, then that would blow all of this away.