U2 Live in Dublin 24th July 2009

This Friday I will travel down to Dublin to watch U2 Live. It has been over tens years since I last seen them play. That was during the Pop-mart Tour, which involved the band emerging from a giant lemon come space ship- really bizarre but fantastic stuff!

After the Pop Album, I thought the band lost their way a bit. I am all for experimenting and trying new things but I felt that the band lost their consistency. Still, there have been some great songs written since then and their last release, No Line On The Horizon, is their most consistent album since Zooropa. It takes a while to get into, but it is a subtle album. The songs have many textures that hint at different influences from Led Zepplin to Arabic chanting. (See especially the vocal phrasing on Breathe.)

I don't really know what to expect. That is part of the beauty of going to a U2 concert. I have seen some of the other 'biggest bands in the world'- but nothing surpasses the stage show at a U2 gig.

I have been told that this will be something spectacular and been advised to check out You Tube. I'd rather wait and see. I want to be blown away.

The creative urge and the desire to learn.

I started writing poetry when I was sixteen after watching the U2 film 'Rattle and Hum'. There is a point in the film when it changes from black and white into colour. The stage backdrop turns a blood red and Bono starts giving it loads! I remember rushing up to my bedroom afterwards, finding a scrap of paper and starting to compose.

The funny thing was that I didn't identify with myself in the poem. It was a deeply personal verse but I didn't sense I was feeling the way the poem described. It is true that I was not use to 'expressing my feelings.' That had only become cool a few moments before. But more important than the poem was the window this opened up for me.

Until I was sixteen, I didn't read anything unless I had to. I took no interest in things that were not of my immediate concern. My school grades probably reflected this. I lacked curiousity. That year, however, I started visiting a secondhand book shop in my home town. I would at random pick up things that I knew very little about- whether that be Italian poets or a biography of a London school in the early eighties.

This all delighted me and was worth a hundred years of compulsory schooling.

I was smitten. I had caught the bug. This desire to learn is worth more than intelligence or riches. It is the factor that makes sure that things get done. It also teaches moderation for one begins to learn that the world is a wonderful and strange place. Before I had lived within myself, cut off from so many possibilities. This had changed all of a sudden. I began to look outwards.