U2 in The City of Blinding Lights Escapade

I am proud to annouce that I saw U2 last wednesday night. :) All the risk my friend Mike and I took on was rewarded to us fully. Although it cost maybe an arm and a leg, we got to see Bono.

So right after work on Wesdnesday (at 2:00) we headed for Kyoto to get the Shinkansen. For those of you who don't know, the Shinkansen is a type of train here that is unbelieveably FAST. It usually takes about 6.5 hours to get to Tokyo, but on the Shink it's 2.5. It's really incredible, and an experience in itself. It's kinda pricy of course, $127 each way...but it's probably the same price and time to fly there.

So we got to Central Tokyo at about 5:00. We then jumped on another Shinkansen train to go North to Saitama...the concert was held at Saitama Super Arena. We got to the Shinkansen Terminal there at about 6:00 because we had to wait for our train and figure out where to go. From there we had to take another local train back a stop to arrive at the Arena. We thought the concert started at 7 so near the end we were cutting it close...but it pretty much worked out perfectly. We arrived at The Arena at 6:50 after running from the station. We were SO EXCITED.

Then...things got a little frustrating. We walked around and couldn't easily see anyone selling tickets. I thought we wouldn't end up getting tickets at all. We wondered if they did it a little differently in Japan or how we would even talk to the scalper...all we knew was 'makete ku da sai' which means, 'lower please'. Just as we were scoping out where the best place was to chill and look ticket-hungry, this gaijin (foreigner) appeared right in front of us. She was selling for tonight. Now Mike and I were prepared to spend maybe 20 000 yen or $200. The tix were $100 face value, and she gave them to us for $150. She claimed they were standing room on the floor and then she apologized for probably standing beside us and screaming in our ears. We didn't care even if she was lying and they were super far back...we were in.

After many people telling us we were up at the top, we eventually realized that the crazy lady was right and we were on the floor!!! about 10 feet from the arm that came out from stage left. They didn't have a heart shaped thing anymore...just two big arms where they would walk out and perform from.

So once in, it was simply a blast. Here's the set list:

Main Set:
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo - She Loves You
Elevation
I Will Follow
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Beautiful Day - Sgt. Pepper's
Window In The Skies
Walk On (acoustic)
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
Bad - 40
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet The Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo
Pride
Where the Streets Have No Name
One

Encore(s):
The Fly
Mysterious Ways
With or Without You
The Saints are Coming
Angel of Harlem
One Tree Hill

Window In the Skies was premiered at this concert! That was exciting, it's a good track for sure...looking forward to it's release. Also, Love and Peace or Else was dropped...too bad.

I took tons of pics at the show, all of which can be seen at meganinjapan.spaces.live.com.

After the show we weren't sure of what to do with all the trains in Osaka not running past 11:30 pm. If we took the Shinkansen back, we would be stuck in Umeda and not able to get home until 6 am. To remedy this we just took the overnight bus back to Osaka. It was cheaper than the Shink and we arrived at home at 8:18 am. We also were able to sleep all the way back so as to not mess up our sleep schedule. So before jumping on the bus we ate some food and took a short rest. The bus left at 11:50 pm.

So that is the story of U2 in Japan. Probably should have made a bigger trip out of going to Tokyo, but we'll do that next time! Mike had to work on Friday and I had basically run out of money anyway...

I hope you all enjoy the pictures. Although I spent waaay too much money, there are no regrets in taking this chance!