Friday night the G, Robert, and I all went to the U2 concert in Houston! Some Jamaican band opened up for them, which we missed most of. Whoever they were, they had one guy up on the stage dedicated to just waving the Jamaican flag around and jumping up and down.

It took about thirty minutes for the crew to setup the stage for U2, and we had a very enthusiastic U2 fan a few seats away from us who was standing the entire time they were setting stuff up, shouting in an Italian-New York-type accent: “Let’s DO it!”.

Finally, the lights went low, and people started cheering as U2 came out on stage. We were in the nosebleed section, so we couldn’t see them too well, but it didn’t bother us any. We had discussed which song they would lead off with–I was sure it would be “Vertigo” since it’s the most energetic song off their latest album, but I was wrong: they opened with “City of Blinding Light”.

Their second song was “Vertigo”, and both songs featured some cool light displays around the circular stage and in the streamers of lights hanging down in sheets around the band.

We stood up almost the entire time, singing just about every song at the top of our lungs. I danced around a good bit, not caring what people thought of me, as I was enjoying being there with my friends and listening to U2, whom I like a lot.

They surprised us incredibly when, late in the show, they started playing a slow song, which I immediately thought was “All I Want Is You”, BUT as they began singing, I realized with shock it was “The First Time”–an almost unknown song from their Zooropa album. I knew the whole song, and so did G, so we were pretty much the only ones standing up and singing it! The song is cool because it is draws heavily from the Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son.

There were other cool things that happened during the concert, but I will leave the rest to the G to talk about later. After the concert, my best friend growing up, Nathan, and his wife Jamy hosted me and Robert in their new home, and the following morning they made breakfast for us!

It was just the start of a God-blessed weekend with many friends. But I’ll leave the rest for some other posts.