September 2001 

Sent:                Wednesday, September 05, 2001 1:35 PM

Subject:                Elevation

The week was a rough start for everyone - the kids had to head back to school this week, so traffic in the greater Cork/Ballincollig roads is filled with congestion and chaos as the grey sweater and skirt clad kids hit the books for the fall semester.  As awful an inconvenience an extra minute or two of traffic is in the morning, the problems in the south pale in comparison to the troubles the Catholic kids are going through in the North.  Those Protestant numbskulls aren't allowing Catholics to cross over their roads on the way to classes, and kids are getting pelted with objects, schools are used as shooting galleries (and not in the American disenfranchised white suburbanite shoot-em up manner), and the pictures of the screaming horrified 5 and 6 year olds desperately clinging to their mothers as they pass by the British terrorists really are indescribable.  Needless to say, Rockwell's famous painting of that little black girl striding past the hostile hillbillies in Alabama doesn't really hold a candle the emotional powder keg in Belfast.  I still haven't stepped foot in the North just yet, despite being 30 minutes from the border this weekend when I headed up to Slane in County Meath and saw the concert event of a lifetime: U2.

Johnny Clifford, Neamh and left the comfy confines of Cork and started the trek towards Dublin after a tiring day at work, one that was not helped any by being out on a couple of serious sessions the two previous nights.  Lately it seems each week the number of weekend nights outnumbers the weekday nights at least 4-3.  My energy level was hanging in there, worn down by the drink, worn down by the road, and worn down by Johnny's Irish driving.  Surprisingly, the trip to Dublin only took about five hours, and as far as road trips go in Eire, this seemed to be an easy one.  We found our way to the posh suburb of Killely on the coast south of town to meet up with Johnny's older sister.  I really realized this weekend just how much a difference multi-generational families means to the Irish lifestyle.  It's amazing when siblings can range from 16 to 40 in the same family, and everyone heads out and parties together for the most part as well.  I guess American families were more like that a couple generations ago, mostly before all the European blue blood got mixed into the giant melting pot.  Anyway, we met up at a pub and the spirits started soaring (and pouring, how awful was that segue?).  Quickly, Bono stories started spilling out (groan) and the fact Bono lived up the road was not lost on any of us.  Johnny's sister also reported that the pub we were in was one of Bono's locals -  she said she sees him there 3 or 4 times a year.  I didn't refute her claim, but if I see the Hairy Lemon more times in a week than someone sees a pub others deem their local, I think some definition is skewed somewhere.  I also noticed that the more time I spend in the trendy sphere of Dublin the more I feel like simple country folk.  The night was capped off with some gratuitous Irish hospitality and even more gratuitous glasses of Brandy.

I slept like a baby, and the day was upon us - the gates at Slane swung open at 11:30, the first band (Nelly Furtado) started up at 2, and the Irish National Team was scheduled to take on Holland in a World Cup Qualifier Match in Dublin at 3:30.  We got the deluxe Irish fryup treatment for breakfast, where I challenge anyone to find a wider variety of artery clogging variations of pork and pork products in one place at one time, and then headed out to Bono's house.  It was hard to notice anything behind the giant wall and the tall trees, but we knew we were there when we saw the Irish version of the Wailing Wall (which is also mirrored by the graffiti-laden wall in front of Graceland).  The wall, a small stone wall leading up an alley in the shade of the tall trees, is covered in such profound musings as 'BONO ROCKS' and 'BEAUTIFUL DAY' and 'THANKS FOR JUBILEE'.  There was also a nice portrait of Bono's Fly days, with his rock star glasses and jet black hair rendered perfectly by a thick Sharpie marker.  We hung outside the impressive golden gates and laughed before heading back to the car up the road.  As we were making our way past the Wailing Wall, a gian 2001 black BMW slowly pulled up past us, with Bono's wife behind the wheel chatting away on a mobile phone.  The gates opened and she drove right in. 

On that nice note, we headed out to the congestion and chaos that always is Dublin roads, making our way north to Dunboyan to settle our accomodations for Saturday night, at another one of Johnny's sister's houses.  The sky was an unsettled Irish grey, and the misty air made the thought of rain never travel far.  Fortunately, the rain would never come.  After more unabashed Irish hospitality, we finally hit the road for Slane around 4:00, listening to Ireland lose a man to a red card to start the 2nd half.  It took an hour to drive 9 miles, mostly because of two exceedingly rude farmers driving giant tractors of hay through the small streets.  It was because of this we missed the opportunity to catch the Ireland match while at Slane - they broadcast it on the large screen TV set up for the crowd - and Ireland scored with a man down and scored an inconceivable upset victory 1-0, almost ensuring a berth at the World Cup in 2002.  You could tell this was the biggest day in Ireland for quite some time.  The rest of the roads into Slane were no sweat - the rest of the journey was a deluxe 20 minutes - until we met up with another local farmer who was making few punts on the biggest concert event in Ireland.  We got to the Castle (or close enough to start looking for a parking space) when a farmer was herding folks into his lot - he said the castle was a half mile away.  We drove past, but retreated when the traffic stopped in front of us.  We parked right next to his entrance, and he warned us they'll tow the cars if we park there.  Laughing we headed up the road to see the miserable bastard's friend driving slowly to cause a traffic jam to get some unsuspecting concert goers to park on his farm. 

We headed up to the show and walked the mile and a half in.  It was exceedingly organized and well planned, and the buzz in the air was priceless.  We walked on in at the main gates, with the castle on a hill right in front of us - surrounded by green cow pastures and the River Boyne.  Helicopters zoomed through the sky dropping off VIPs as we walked past a manure filled barn on the castle's property.  Turning the corner, the field opened up to a festive vista of 85,000 people surrounded by green fields, beer stands, and giant television screens.  Tricolor flags were everywhere, and the buzz about the Irish victory drowned out the best efforts of Ash to entertain the crowd.  Soaking up the atmosphere a bit, the three of us headed through the crowd to get the best view of the stage we could - it was set at the bottom of the hill the Castle was on, at the bottom of a larger valley that acted as a natural amphitheatre.  We sniffed out the well organized beer stands and started downing the brew - poured at 6 pints a second (I drank a second and a half of beer all day) and met up with some other folks and laughed at the crazy drunk folks, the victims of too much drink, heard rumors of the Irish soccer team flying in, and just had a blast waiting for Moby to take the stage.  We found a great location to watch the show - to the right of the stage, on the grassy hill, proably 35 yards away.  Moby absolutely rocked, lifting the crowd higher than they already were, as his techno set was filled with the right mixture of high energy techno-rave beats and technical prowress that just doubled the vibe.  I can't imagine a better crowd for an outdoor spectacle like this than the Irish, who live hard, drink hard, and party harder.  At one point, I thought of the concert as Woodstock without the petty hippie pretension, but that'd be insulting to Slane.  Fences made for the best jacks all day, and those VIPs who were lucky enough to be flown in were also unlucky enough to have their fancy shoes watered on through the fence. 

Moby's set ended, and the only ones left to rock were U2.  They played Slane the Saturday before, but it was two days after Bono's father's funeral, so reviews were mixed, as were the emotions.  Replacing a funeral with the Irish soccer victory produced the expected results.  As the roadies prepared the stage, (a stripped down version of the elaborate stages the past 9 years have left them with - simple lighting, no lemon disco balls, towering TV screens, only four simple black and white screens above the stage that faithfully recorded each of the band members during the show), and as things got close, 'The Boys are back in town' started up over the loudspeakers.  The crowd roared (Bono would later tell everyone they were his 'tribe')  That song was followed by the Chili Peppers version of Higher Ground, which would've been a nice beginning to the Elevation tour, but was followed up by Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, as the sounds of Elevation slowly sneaked out over the loudspeakers.  The crowd hit fever pitch, and absolutely erupted when the boys made their appearance and for the next two hours it was a virtual U2 jukebox as every hit of their past twenty years was rolled out, topped off with some slinky guitar work and incredible bass and drums.  Bono never held back, and took on new meaning singing 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' knowing everyone was in a field stuck between Belfast and Dublin.  Bono read out the 29 victims of the Ormagh bombings a couple years at the end of the song, punctuated with a few 'No war' and 'No IRA' chants in between.  Mysterious Ways was the slinkiest number of the night, filled with the Edge's guitars hitting new highs and Bono's 11 year old daughter doing a bellydance in front of the massive crowd.  New Year's Day and With or Without you were drop dead standouts too, mixed in with the best live performance I've ever seen.  A few encores later, and the night unfolded like a daydream - when their first encore ended, the dark night sky cleared up, revealing the full moon and its blue hues that filled the sky to the left, to the right Slane Castle was lit up bright red.  And then U2 took the stage again, singing 'Bullet the Blue Sky'.  Mind blowing doesn't begin to describe things. 

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