Strange Pulse

U2 - “New Years Day”

I hated U2 when they first started getting radio airplay with their WAR album. I think just because I got so sick of the song. And of course, after a bit that hate flipped around and became love, love, love.

U2 was my first big love. WAR was the first album I ever got. I was fanatical up until whatever came after Rattle and Hum, I think.

I got to meet U2 when I was 16. I had a penpal in San Francisco who got us tickets for an Amnesty International benefit show they were playing. She lived right downtown and knew where bands would stay and how to meet them. So we just went and sat outside the Four Seasons Hotel for about 10 minutes, and they drove up in a van.

Sting got out first. (He was headlining the show.) Then Bono with his wife, Ali. He looked so tired. But when he saw us waiting to meet him, he just looked at his wife, and she nodded and went into the hotel without him. He came over and my penpal’s friend Sherri gave him this big flag she’d made. He didn’t want to take it, he told her he’s given so much stuff when he’s on tour he couldn’t possibly keep it all, and he wanted to sign it and let her keep it. But she wanted him to look at what she’d put on it. So he took it.

This was back when he’d regularly pull a girl out of the audience and give her a hug during the song “Bad.” When we saw the band play the next night, he pulled Sherri out of the audience. My penpal and I were sitting much further back than Sherri, and we freaked out when we saw her up on the big screen. I figure he recognized her from us meeting him and her giving him the flag.

I took a picture of him when we met him, with my penpal Laura. I haven’t been able to track Laura down, I hope she doesn’t mind that I’m posting it.

I still love Bono. And U2.