City of Brotherly Lights

DVD Preview will be up a little later (but if you wanna see it now, click here). First, I gotta tell ya…

Just got back from U2. Second time seeing them this year. First time seeing them twice in the same tour. It was worth it. I could go into the fact that seeing them from the bleachers is a completely different perspective than the floor (and is very indicative of my age, though Dr. Fiance and I were not the oldest folks there by far). I could go into the surprise addition of “Miss Sarajevo” to the repertoire and the fact that Bono inexplicably hit notes usually reserved for the likes of Pavarotti. I could go into the fact that during the encore, Bono and the Edge did an acoustic rendition of “Walk On” and then the whole band did “Fast Cars,” a bonus track from HTDAAB. But what I need to tell you about is this…

Bono points at a guy in the crowd who was holding up a “People Get Ready” banner and says “This one’s for you. But we need a guitar player.” At first I’m thinking they’re going to pull the whole get-someone-from-the-audience-to-play-guitar schtick, but then I see that someone new is already on the stage. My next thought is, strangely, is that Kevin Bacon? The reason this is actually not so strange is that (a) Kevin Bacon does, in fact, play guitar and (b) he was presumably at the same art show I was the day before.

But it’s not Kevin Bacon. Then I start hearing “booos” from the audience and I wonder if Mayor John Street has learned to play guitar. Bono tried to thank the mayor for his support during Live 8 earlier, but the audience was having none of it. Then I start to recognize the scraggly new guy on stage and I realize they aren’t saying “boo,” they’re saying “Bruuuuce.”

No. Freakin’. Way.

Bruce Fucking Springsteen is on the stage with Bono. They break into “People Get Ready” and the house goes apeshit. Then, during the closing chorus of the song, they bring out The Boss’ wife, Patti Scialfa, and she sings a verse!

Now, to the best of my knowledge this particular pairing of icons has only happened twice before (including one particularly historic performance at JFK Stadium in ’87), but I could be wrong. In any case, holy crap!

So, needless to say, this made up for the fact that they didn’t do “Original of the Species” or “Bad.” I think I’ll live.

Bruce is the one completely facing the wrong way. Photo courtesy of someone named “B.” More here.