You should all know by now that U2 doesn’t surround itself with dummies. They were well aware of the all the phony wristbands that people used during the Elevation Tour to get into the heart, but it was too late in the process to really do much about it then.

They have apparently taken a different (and smarter) approach for this tour with the aim of making it much harder for fans to create their own wristbands and get into the bomb shelter illegitimately. This is from a friend who will remain nameless:

———-
also important: there are ‘invisible’ target logos on the wristband, which can be made visible with black/uv light. they didn’t use black light to check the authenticity of the wristbands on opening night, but if the targets are there they most probably will in the future. so this time around, it looks like messing with the wristbands is not for the faint at heart…
———-

Don’t claim you weren’t warned….

Dan E., who is a good friend and part of the @U2 staff, wrote this up after making some observations about the process used to determine who gets into the bomb shelter and who doesn’t. Dan has a scientific background, and is a keen observer of things, so there’s pretty much no one I’d trust more to do this kind of thing.

————-
I spent about 1 hour standing next to the GA entrance area last night in San Diego and learned a few things regarding ellipse entry that I thought I’d share.

* As usual, you get a primary GA wristband upon entry to the arena.

* The “ellipse” process is controlled by 4 PC laptop computers with attached barcode scanners.

* Local security run the barcode scanners, but U2 tour personnel do all of the stamping of tickets for ellpise entry. In addition to “U2 roadies” doing the stamping, there are a few other “U2 supervisors” on scene. You know the type, well dressed and enough laminates to cause back trouble.

* As mentioned elsewhere, once you win, and your ticket is stamped, you are sent to a second table for a second color coded wristband. For example, San Diego II’s wristband combo was pink GA wristband with green and white checkered ellipse wristband.

* The ellipse “winner” is NOT predetermined based on your ticket barcode. In other words, it has NOT already been determined before you arrive that you ticket is in fact a winner. Winning is based randomly on your position in the GA line as you enter. This was confirmed by the “U2 Supervisors” and by observation.

* The number of people the ellipse holds is appoximately 400. I had this confirmed by the “U2 supervisor” running the GA area last night. This will vary depending on local fire codes, and the number of VIPs that get access to the ellipse.

* The odds of getting into the ellipse are about 1 in 5. However, since each “winner” gets to take ONE guest, about 1 in 10 people should be “winners” on average.

* I watched over 200 people go through one particular scanner, and in fact, about 1 in 10 to about 1 in 12 people seemed to be “winners” of the coveted extra wristband.

* The process appeared truly random (technically pseudo-random since most computers don’t actually do real random numbers). I noticed that MOST winners were every 10th to 14th person at a given scanner/laptop. There were also clusters of winners happening closer together. For example, once two “winners” were only 4 people apart, other times, more than 14 apart.

* The two wristbands per “winner” rule was strictly enforced, however, I did see the “U2 supervisor” on scene make a small number of exceptions and let in 3’s when people clearly explained that one person would be left behind. This did not happen very often and only when the winners complained and asked to speak to somebody directly.

* There was little if any “sweet talking” of the U2 security folks. Many people tried, I saw none succeed at the table where I was standing. Money didn’t seem to help either, based on a few drunk losers that I saw try.

* People were “winning” up until just before U2 went on stage. Second wrist bands were being given out until 10 minutes before U2 hit the stage last night.

* If you do not win upon entry, there is a slim chance you can still get into the ellipse. According to the U2 supervisor running the GA area last night, they do a count just before the lights go down. If they feel they are short, say, 20 people, they grab people from the STAGE RIGHT barricade entrance to the ellipse (Edge’s Side).

* I saw very little “corruption” of the process. One guy and his girlfriend snuck through because security was too busy to notice. Probably a few more people got by as well. At the end, the U2 folks grabbed a few extra wristbands and took them (maybe to give out on the floor, maybe to give to friends). Otherwise, it looked about as fair as it could be under the circumstances.

————-

Thanks Dan!

As the sun rises on a Thursday, my ears are still ringing from the rock music thousands of us heard last night. Opening night jitters were definitely a thing of the past. This band ROCKED! The vibe was different from the get-go - there was a fan vibe going on.

The @U2 crew (Steve, Phil, and myself) as well as a few friends (Joe, Becky and Sandy) decided to spend the day in the GA line, tailgating. We saw on the local FOX-TV news that there were only 69 people in line at 8 a.m., so we knew we’d be reasonably close in the line. When we arrived at the arena around 9:00, I met the keepers of the GA line, and had written on my hand “151″ with a sharpie. Not bad, considering that for opening night, there was over double that at that time of day.

After several trips across the street to the local Target to buy various items (chairs, sports drinks, aloe), we were set for a day in the GA line. The local security team was outstanding. They kept everyone in the line well informed, and well behaved. U2’s security also did a fantastic job in setting up the GA line and making sure that the fanclub folks were able to have their own line. Personally, that’s a great added benefit for your $40 annual membership fee.

We had a hope that because the band didn’t stop on opening night to sign autographs that they’d do it when they arrived - seeing as the “pure, unadulterated fear of opening night” was a thing of the past (according to Paul McGuinness). So, we strolled over to the band’s entrance. There, we saw the same folks who were waiting so patiently on opening night, including a family who’s daughter’s one wish was to meet Bono. By the time the band arrived, there were well over 60 people lined up behind the barricade. Edge came out and met with everyone, signing autographs - not stopping as time was of the essence. (There never does seem to be enough time when your rock idols meet with you, is there?) Edge did take the time to meet with this family and spend the time with their ailing little girl. After he left, she was in awe of who she just met.

Bono arrived, sitting in the front passenger seat of the vehicle, and rolled down the window. The fans kept asking him to come out, so he checked how he looked in the mirror, adjusted his shades, then made his way out of the car. By this point, he was already 15 minutes late and really didn’t have time to be doing the “fan thing.” We were towards the front of the line, and unfortunately, the car dropped him off in the middle of it - the family at the front of the queue saw what was going on and wondered if he’d come down to our end. Security said no, and that her only chance to meet him was to go to where he was - quite a distance down the line. Thanks to the help of many fans who knew how important it was for this little girl, they were able to make their way through the group - Bono was so generous with his time for her. He signed her hat and her sign that spoke of her dream to meet him. He signed it “2005 is our year, love Bono.” The joy in her face after meeting him was contageous. I was so happy for her and her family. Here’s their photo:

Another fan, Iker Dupeyron from Mexico City was so excited to meet Edge and Bono. He gave Bono his rosary beads while getting his shirt autographed. Iker was lucky enough to win “bomb shelter” access when his ticket was scanned, finding himself front-row, center inside the ellipse. When Bono saw him during City of Blinding Lights, he tugged at the rosary beads and showed them to Iker - he was wearing his rosary beads! Then, during Miracle Drug, Bono asked if anyone knew any spanish and could translate “Love is the drug” into Spanish. He motioned to Iker, and without hesitating, Iker leaped on stage (stumbling at first) and proceeded to translate for Bono. Bono told him to speak calmly and clearly, which was what he did. After the show, I caught up with Iker, and he said that the shirt he wore has been to 4 different U2 tours, and now it will need to be framed and never worn again. He said this was the best day of his life. (It would be too if I were him!). Here’s Iker on stage, and afterwards:

The concert goers were also different - you didn’t have the Opening Night crowd consisting of industry/media types. Just about everyone there could be classified a “die-hard fan” of one type or another. The show U2 gave us last night was full of surprises - Gloria and With or Without You (my apologies for the people around me when I was screaming “Oh my GOD!!!”). The show flowed beautifully - far better than opening night. You didn’t have a chance to catch your breath - each song came at us with a force that couldn’t be contained. The fans were singing along - helping Bono at times, Larry was laughing (can you believe that?). There were veterans of rock and roll in front of us, and they were still performing in the wrong key during 40 - and it all seemed so right (even though in Bono’s ear, it was so wrong).

You’ll read the fan reviews on U2Tours.com and in the various mailing lists you may be a part of. The relaxed nature of the band coupled with the exuberance of the fans made this show rock! Seriously - what we all witnessed last night was a ROCK CONCERT pure and simple. I can not wait to see them in Boston next!

I do have a special word of thanks for someone who generously took their time to ask “why?” when told that last night’s show was better than opening night. Paul, thank you for letting this fan give an on-the-spot concert review.

It’s been a pleasure reporting from sunny San Diego - this is where I get off the tour route for a little while. Thank you to all who came up to me with their thanks for @U2 and stories of how the band has changed their lives. Truly inspirational. I look forward to catching up with it again in Boston - if I thought last night’s show was loud….the Boston crowd will bring the house down. More at the end of May! Take care everyone

Vertigo blimp close-up
Originally uploaded by mattmcgee.

We’ve started posting some pix from the GA line at San Diego 2. Things seem to be running pretty smoothly down there now that they have the “Yes-we’ll-do-two-separate-lines-after-all, even-though-we-don’t-really-have-a-good-way-of-figuring-out-who-really-belongs-in-the-U2.com-line” decision made.

Sadly, I’m told the blimp shown here is not, I repeat … not for sale.

We’ve had some great concert pix from Monday uploaded by other fans to our @U2 Flickr Group, so be sure to join and check ‘em out!

How does one EVER sleep when the tour is underway? The saying goes - one sleeps when U2 is in the studio

Just getting my bearings straight after all of the opening night festivities. A lot has been said about the concert with all of the reviews coming out from various news agencies and fans, so I think you all will get a pretty good idea of the production and the theme of the show.

My thought on opening night was that it was one of the better opening night performances - but you could feel that pressure of it being opening night. The media area was a tent in the middle of the parking lot - and the surge of people entering that media tent was daunting. My heart goes out to the publicists with the tour because they had to deal with *a lot* of demand last night - and to be stuck outside of the arena in a tent the size of a Dodge Durango (well, it was a little bigger, but not by that much). Opening night means that the world is now watching, and if you don’t have your game face on, well, it’ll be reported on.

U2 had their game face on from the get-go. We saw them arrive - Bono and Larry in the first car in the entourage. We were hopeful they’d come out and say hello - at that point, there were only 20-30 of us outside. However, opening night being what it is - it was about getting the production right for the world to see.

Having GA tickets and no access to the elipse (and being about 900th in line), we decided our best vantage point would be towards the back of the floor - we wanted to catch the visuals as best as we could, so there was no point in being up with everyone else (and being the size of a leprechaun, I can’t see much anyway). The game faces were on the crew too - a lot of smiles, hugs, “how you doin’s” were going around with people catching up with each other. You’ve probably seen the photo of me with Joe O’Herlihy - he’s a very gracious person, and despite all of the pressure of opening night, he was generous to allow a photo and to answer my simple question “are there any surprises in store for us tonight?” - he said “that we’re even here!” Enough said

Opening night means that the crew are still getting accustomed to the technology and how it plays to a full audience. There was a lot of scrambling going on at the desks at certain points of the night. One thing was for sure - during Love and Peace or Else, both Steve Lillywhite and Gavin Friday were jamming away! Both Gavin and Edge’s wife, Morleigh, had notebooks and were jotting down notes during the show.

I do have to say - Love and Peace or Else is one awesome song live. There are so many overtones in the song…and the way the drum is used - not only for the music that comes out of it, but it’s being used as a symbol too. The way Bono was drumming reminded me of the time when I witnessed an Orange Day parade in Glasgow - the passion in the drumming of the marchers. The way Bono was blindfolded while drumming - and the symbolism of going out there and banging a drum for change. There are SO MANY layers to that performance - I could write about this all day! For me, that performance is a key highlight for the entire show. That is *the* show stopper at the moment. (It was just as passionate during the rehearsal on Saturday - just without the blindfold).

It’ll be interesting to see how different the 2nd night will be tomorrow. Remembering Elevation, the 2nd night was far more relaxed, and things flowed more freely during the performance. Methinks it’ll be the same tomorrow night.

Some points of interest:
An Cat Dubh/Into the Heart was one of the big songs that most women chose to go to the bathrooms for….the queue was pretty big. Many were also asking “What was that other song…electric something” - the diehards were rocking to it (and were ecstatic), but it was lost on many who came because of what they hear on the radio. (I was walking around taking photos at that point).

Merchandising: word was that Edun was producing the concert tshirts. I did not see any Edun-label shirts at the merchandising areas. Also: for the ladies….the ladies’ shirts are pre-shrunk and come in sizes: small, tiny, and not-so-modest. I bought an extra large ladies’ shirt and it’s tight on me (and I’m petite). Also, in my opinion, I have no idea who would pay $80-$90 for the retro shirts - some of which look like they’ve been in the washing machine so many times that you can’t even make out the design on it. I *am* thankful that the tour book remained at $20, and the average concert tshirt was in the $30-$40 range.

GA line ups: it looked like the computers were provided by TNA. What happened when you arrived was your ticket was scanned, then you were told to go to a table where a black line was marked on the ticket, you got a wristband, then your ticket was scanned - the screen either said “Proceed to the General Admission Floor” or an image with the black and red Vertigo 2005 came up - a TNA representative then stamped your hand (and your guest’s hand) and then you were told to go to a different table where the checkered wristband was added to the ticketholder’s wrist. The GA line was very calm and peaceful where we were. Two groups of people in front of me were lucky to get access to the “bomb shelter” (offical word is ellipse, but I like the bomb shelter - thank you to whoever coined that term!). NOTE: bring your U2.com membership card (or keychain) with you to shows that there was not a presale for. That’ll allow you to line up in the “fanclub” line of GA. See…there is value for your membership afterall! (This came from Craig Evans, TNA Tour Director) He said that fans weren’t given access in the presales for the add-on dates, so the fanclub code would have only been printed on the tickets for the first night in a city. For the other nights, just show your fanclub membership card.

We plan on providing similar coverage (perhaps not as detailed, though - our cell phone batteries can’t keep up!) to tomorrow night’s show - we’re still figuring it out. Thanks for checking out our photos and reading the updates! At some point, my audioblog should be arriving - I called in during Running to Stand Still when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was being introduced to the audience for the first time - people were clapping and cheering when Article One popped up. It was a moving moment in the show too.

More to follow - thanks for reading

Hey Gang–

It’s 10:20 local time. U2 has just finished playing “Elevation” down in San Diego, but I’m stuck up here in God’s Country (No. Cal.). However, bayareaken is on AOL IM and sending me messages from his phone. When a favorite song comes on, he calls up to let me listen. I’m also in a chat with M2, and u2vox, each of us has someone at the show calling and we’re discussing and correcting each other’s setlists and snippets.

Yes, we are utter and complete geeks. And judging from the smoke coming out of the @U2 servers, there are more than a few more of you out there as well.

I’d like to hear from everyone who got a cell phone call during the show. If you’re in India, maybe it’s early morning, in Europe, it’s before dawn, east coast North America–why aren’t you sleeping? What song(s) did you hear? Could you decipher the lyrics? Were you called during a special song?

I’m wondering if anyone that entered the San Diego Arena tonight did so without a cellphone in his or her pocket.

What did we gain by following along as it happened?

Discuss…

[Added after “40″ at 11:00]

I am really touched. I just finished listening to “40″ from a cell phone. My two best U2 friends were also listening to calls from other people. We are in three different states, but took turns typing what were hearing to each other. If listening to a crackly cell phone and typing to friends can bring a tear to my eye, I can’t imagine what will happen when I finally get to a show on April 9th. I again congratulate myself for, as M2 would say, “picking the right band” way back in 1983. Thanks especially to Ken R. for calling/texting, and Sherry, Steve, and Phil for putting me on speaker today.

Audi.

AG.

From: http://www.tvlatina.info/newscurrent.php?filename=telehit328.htm

Loose translation:

“Telehit will broadcast the beginning of Irish band U2’s world tour live tonight from San Diego. The broadcast will include songs from the concert, interviews, and images from the arena screen.”

So … anyone able to watch/record this tonight?

Update: A couple folks have emailed to let us know that Telehit is available as Ch. 868 on the DishNetwork’s Spanish language channel package.

U2 - Vertigo Tour merchandise booth
Originally uploaded by mattmcgee.

The @U2 gang has sent back a set of photos showing some of the merchandise being sold today outside the ipayOne Center in San Diego.

Tourbook = $20
T-shirts = $25 to $90
- long-sleeve “retro” shirts with old album covers (War, UF) are $90
- blue “baby-doll” shirt with JT cover = $80
- Vertigo tour shirts (with spiral logo and/or red “V” logo) are generally = $35
Black “hoodie” = $65
Vertigo cap = $25
SD concert poster = $10

You can see the full set in @U2’s Flickr Group. More to come later today and tonight from San Diego….

As of shortly after 2:00 pm PT, U2 has arrived in their small caravan of vehicles, with Bono and Larry riding together in the front vehicle. One guess which of them was waving to fans??? (Yeah, Bono.)

Steve Lillywhite made his arrival shortly thereafter, apparently in a convertible Mustang. Niiiice.

On a completely unrelated note, it appears the Audioblogger system is slowly coming back to life. Sherry’s audio recap of the dress rehearsal, which she phoned in on Saturday night, just now made it to the blog! Yikes! So don’t be alarmed if a bunch of additional, outdated audio posts also show up soon — we’ve been testing and notifying support that it needs to be fixed. Hopefully that’s happening.

We’ve received official confirmation from U2’s publicity staff on the procedure being used for the GA lineups:

“There are 2 lines: one for U2.com, one for the others. The U2.com line will be allowed in first, tickets scanned, and random selection will determine if the ticket holder gets into the ellipse or not.

Once the fan club line has been exhausted, the other GA line will go through the same process.”

Now you know….