U2001: 25 Years Later

I had a dream about a year or two ago where I was my present-day self — late 40s, could stand to lose several pounds, bald for two decades, a rapidly greying beard — standing side stage at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Ky. However, in my dream state, I had transported myself back in time to May 4, 2001, when the legendary rock band U2 was performing for a packed house, walking out with the house lights up. As in many dreams, some things don't make sense — like how I had traveled through time and managed to score a backstage pass to witness this show. But what struck me most vividly was when my present-day self scanned the crowd and spotted a couple sitting on the second deck up, pretty dead center in the back of the arena, from the heart-shaped stage.

There, my present-day self spotted Daniel and Shannon Ross, circa May 4, 2001.

It may have been the most vivid and surreal dream I've ever had. In my dream state, I was observing my wife and me two decades-plus younger with many major life events on the far horizon. Past and present didn't speak to one another, but we shared memories of one of the greatest concerts I've ever witnessed — one that, apparently, left such a mark in the pathways of my brain that I managed to revisit the scene, now fairly far removed from my youth.

U2, May 4, 2001, at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Ky. This photo was found online somewhere years ago. This was our view, only much further back and higher up. In retrospect, we had a great view of the full stage and the entire general-admission floor.

In the spring of 2001, Shannon and I were just more than six months into our new lives in southern Indiana (which might as well have been Mars as far as we — native Volunteer and Peach — were concerned). I had started work at The (Dubois County) Herald newspaper — back when it was still humming with award-winning photojournalism and midweek 36- to 48-page editions, packed with revenue-heavy advertising. September 11 was four months away, but we, like everyone else, had little idea that the attitudes and era of the 1990s (despite the actual calendar) was going to come to a screeching halt at 8:46 a.m. EDT.

We were (barely) 24 and 28. Children were still a future reality. We had been married just shy of three years. We were also among the working poor, financially, though, as many country songs would attest, rich in love. 

In a phone conversation with my brother, I mentioned that U2 was coming to Lexington, Ky., a two-and-a-half jaunt from our duplex in Huntingburg, Ind. However, I lamented not being able to afford two tickets at the lowest-priced tier of $45. My college-freshman brother recognized the importance of the show to me and sent us a $100 check he probably couldn't (or shouldn't have) spare. Ticketmaster was called on a Saturday morning (either Ticketmaster wasn't selling online yet, or I couldn't trust our dial-up Earthlink internet connection to do the job), and tickets in the second deck in the back of the arena were secured.

The day of the show, we left after work on Friday and headed to the Bluegrass State, somehow unaware we were already an hour behind schedule and would miss the entirety of PJ Harvey's opening set (there's a whole side-story about Indiana and Daylight Saving Time and the unwillingness to change clocks along with the vast majority of the country). Despite this momentary panic and printed MapQuest directions, we made it to our seats shortly before the band strolled onto the stage with the house lights still up and launched into Elevation, track three of their latest album, All That You Can't Leave Behind.

If you've seen the band's post-tour DVD, recorded live in Boston the same year, you've seen — roughly — the same show we saw that night. In fact, several years ago, I found a video bootleg of the show (see below), surreptitiously recorded via a hidden camera. It's wild to see in this age, with a majority of crowds now holding up cell phones to capture various moments of a show, totally living in the moment of a show. Arms raised, voices belting with Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. 

Digression: As the years add up, it's getting tougher to remember life pre-smartphone. Seeing both pro-shot and bootleg videos of this tour reveals just how much we've lost to our glowing rectangle gods.

The crescendo of the show was the one-two punch of Bad into Where The Streets Have No Name. U2's lead singer Bono has often described Streets as the moment when "the Spirit enters the building." After The Edge's iconic guitar intro and Bono's recitation of Psalm 116 and 51, the band takes full flight, and all the lights turn on for a moment. From our vantage point in the back, upper deck of the room, I could see 90% of the crowd in front and beside me illuminated with a blinding light. It was, truly, a breathtaking moment and not an experience I had ever had at a concert prior to that moment. It was the moment I went from being a fan of U2 to a life-long fan of U2. That moment captured the essence of the band — a unifying force for a Higher love and transcendence. At the time, I believed it was a Holy Spirit moment — a momentary glimpse of the thin veil between heaven and earth peeled back. Maybe it was the Spirit. Maybe it was great lighting design combined with an intense emotional reaction to an amazing song. Regardless, it was ... a moment I can't forget.

There, of course, were other moments in the evening that have stayed in the memory bank, but that moment was one I've never been able to re-live at any other show — including hearing the same song at two more U2 shows (2011 in Nashville and 2017 in Louisville).

I've thought about that show often in the past 25 years, including that surreal dream not so long ago. That tour was the one in which the band was "reapplying for the job of best band in the world." They had come out on the other side of 1990s experimentation and re-emerged as a band able to connect with one another and its audience on a level I've never seen any other band match.

Looking back via memories, a generation removed from that night, I can see a young couple standing at the cusp of new life experiences. I can see a unifying moment with thousands of other people near our age (it was strange to see how much older the crowd had gotten at the 2017 show), just months before a world would forever change.

Since I had that dream a year or two ago, I often wondered what it meant. Perhaps it was synapses firing at random and connecting old memories with current reality, but I also think there's something deeper there that I haven't fully grasped. It was, pardon the pun, a moment you can't get out of your head. Perhaps I was granted the opportunity to step outside of myself for a moment in that dream to see a younger us with middle age nowhere in sight, before children came along, before sorrows, before many joys — revisiting a moment that is now — 25 years later — far away, but so close.