Dec 14 - No Oprah, but Lots of Jay-Z and U2

Woke up early this morning (despite being up really late working on my book) because we planned to go see Oprah's taping. Well that wasn't happening, wow, so tired and kind of sick was the story for the both of us. So back to sleep until noon, then up for a shower and a breakfast of crumpets/jam, fruit and milk. What a healthy (albeit late) start to the day. Spent some time on the internet again and I finished my book and ordered it (keep your eye out parents, coming your way soon). Brennan called a guy on Gumtree (their version of kijiji) about some tickets to the U2 concert tonight and he said he would meet us out front of the stadium with the tickets at 5 (when the doors opened). Ate some sandwiches for lunch then zipped over to a hair salon and I got my hair buzzed off. Feels/looks much better now I think. Then we had to walk over to the train station to go to Sydney Olympic Park for the concert. Took 2 trains and eventually got there and went out front of the stadium to meet the ticket guy. He wasn't there so Brennan called him and he said he was just getting some food and would meet us in 30 minutes. So we stood around and 45 minutes later Brennan texted him and asked what the deal was and he said on his way in 15 minutes. 30 minutes later I called him from a payphone (the cell phone ran out of credit) and he said oops I'm at a different gate, meet him at gate J. So we walked over to Gate J and looked around for the guy "in a white shirt" and finally found him. Can we get our tickets? "Nope, it works a bit differently" he said as he handed us crew passes and said "here put these on and follow me. If anyone asks, you're part of the light crew." So we followed him through the gates and flashed our passes to the security guards. On we went down to the floor level and flashed them again to get onto the floor. Now we had a problem, because we need wristbands to stay on the floor, so we had to follow the guy outside again as he asked a security guard for three wristbands. "You can get onto the floor with crew passes" she said. "Oh it's just for a souvenir" replied the guy. So she gave us the wristbands. He led us back onto the floor inside ANZ stadium, we gave him our money and the crew passes back and walked up into the crowd by the stage. So sketchy, wow. Not even sure if the passes were real or not, but it goes to show how easy it is to get into an event if you seemingly have credentials and walk with a sense of authority. Felt a bit guilty about getting in this way, but they wanted $100 at the gate for the tickets, so we saved $25 each and we had assumed we would be getting legit tickets. Alas, we weren't caught and got to enjoy the show.

Before it got underway, we bought a hot dog and beer each. The hotdogs were delicious, the beer was terrible (and cost $6.30, how weird of a price is that?) and we consumed them on the way back down to the floor level. The stadium has an open roof and the huge 360 degree stage looks like the giant spider from Wild Wild West crossed with an alien spaceship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Jay-Z came out just before 7:30 and played a real good set of 50 minutes. Most of the crowd was obviously there solely for U2 though and many were not impressed to be listening to cursing and rap (the horror!). After Jay-Z finished his set of new hits and old classics, there was a set change of instruments, etc. that took 50 minutes. The wait felt like forever and finally U2 trotted out onto stage. It was worth the wait and then some. What ensued was a performance that made it clear why these guys are the biggest rock band in the world. Lights, smoke, huge sound, crowd involvement on singing songs and a super cool moving video backdrop all contributed to the show. They played for 2 and a quarter hours and went through all their hits. There were a couple cheesy songs/video segments about contributing to the One organization and about freeing political prisoners in Burma which didn't tickle my fancy. And the last few songs dragged a bit, all being of the ballad variety, so the show didn't end on the high note it began with. But besides these two minor issues, the rest of the show was outstanding. We crowded out into the street with somewhere between 60 and 80 thousand other people and crushed our way to the subway trains to get home. Had a snack and a shower at the hostel then hit the sack. That was the most exciting night in quite some time.