My wife has now seen U2 19 times, and walking out of Staples Center after the 2nd L.A. date of Vertigo, leg III, I asked her to rank it.

“Second,” she said, which surprised me. We were fairly floating away from the experience of a lifetime – front row, center stage right at the rail, inside the ellipse.
“What ranks first?” I had to know.
“The very first one,” she said, and I understood.

When you don’t know what you’re going to see or feel or hear, and you get blown away, you can never recover from it.

Such was our day. Much was unknown from the time we arrived at 9:30am. Our 2 best friends had purchased 4 floor tickets, 2 sets of 2 from separate sources, and invited us as a way to jump the gun on 2 birthdays within our group. We’d all been together with a larger group (including our kids) for Phoenix night #1 of Vertigo leg I, but this time it was just the four of us, and we were hoping for at least a good floor location – together.

All four of us getting into the ellipse was like having lightning strike twice; having arrived early enough in the morning to be among the first 40 people inside it – to get slots on the rail – was like a miracle.

Later on, when we all convened to eat after the show, I asked everyone to report on what each thought was the biggest surprise of the night. All agreed that it was the perspective. None of us had ever had a comparable location at a U2 show (maybe any show). Everything changes at arms-length range. The proximity alone made it a life-changing evening. Not just being so close to the band, but being close to each other at that range to the source.

Being surrounded by such a mixture of other personalities in the audience really enhanced the experience for us, as well. Even outside the arena. Inside, we made friends with a wild assortment of individuals, all of whom lived it up in the ring. It gave me a picture of Los Angeles I’ve always hoped to compose, and I’m grateful for it, grateful to the band, but pleased and proud of L.A., too.

I’ll never forget the communication. The songs speak a language all by themselves. Some of those conversations have been running for decades. But the little things you cannot see except up close – these will be permanent memories for me. The ‘interoffice memos’ being sent between band members, watching the effect of the masses change the emotional temperature onstage.

Getting caught off guard by certain songs was especially rewarding. The idea of making a sacrificial deal with God, hypothetically trading romantic love for the cures to human disease and misery, is an intriguing component of “Miracle Drug.” I’ve wondered if I could write that line with complete honesty. I’ve wondered if Bono is completely honest in it, even as he sings it publicly. This performance exploded that thought – my head has been in the wrong place – way too far from my heart.

Overwhelming joy came upon me, and I found myself singing it in exultation, until tears muted me. The word ‘Miracle’ began to take precedence over the word ‘Drug’ and I could worship the God whose healing we all seek, even seek it in medicine. Bono had introduced it as a song of faith. Among other things, “…faith in the God who inspires doctors.” And something in the phrase, “There is no failure here, sweetheart…just when you quit,” brought such encouragement to my heart. I, who so frequently feel like giving up, took heart in the love of the one who would define my life in such terms. Do I matter, and to whom? Answered best by a resurrection lullaby, I became engulfed in the ferocious, shrieking Edge solo, he, strangling his fretboard; and realized how much I need to believe in the victory of life over banishment, of love over apathy.

Rare for me is the occasion when I can successfully suspend my disbelief. That resistance evaporated, and time with it this evening. My curiosity, my internal predictions about what songs they might or might not do, what they might say or not say…it all vanished, and I fell into the flow of the river, trusting the shape and pace of the water.

Each of the older songs surprised me. The contagious, bounding elation of the Edge playing “I Will Follow” knocked me out. Conversely, “Pride” and “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” – volcanoes in ages past, ran thick and slow.

But even the band seemed unprepared for what happened during “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

I can't describe it, but nearing its end, there arose such a combined roar from body and band alike, such a unified, seemingly unsustainable crescendo, that it felt to me like the wash of the rain heard in the song, and it quenched my thirst for community and communion. In my heart, this song speaks of the southwest in America, where I have lived my entire life in several states. The desert spaces and dirt roads of New Mexico and Arizona are, to me, those nameless streets, no matter where in Africa Bono got his inspiration. But the song is like a prayer, crying for someone to dig a well, and the drink was especially delicious tonight.

I don’t know if I’ll ever enjoy a concert more. Target-lock eye contact with Edge, Bono and Adam gives me something tangible to treasure. The feeling of giving something back to them, face-to-face, for all their art has meant to me over the years – I might have closure with U2 now, if that’s not too ridiculous.

At the end, Bono named us for what we are, and he used life-affirming words, “Los Angeles. City of Angels. City of inspiration. City of Creation.” And we are what we are. But I realized he wasn’t just being poetic, he was exhorting us, asking us to live up to the brightest aspects of our history, to the best of our reputation, to our calling as a city filled with the expressions of artists.

Thankfully, others have blazed some glorious trails. Oh, that I might, too.

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