Okay, so I missed a week, but I’m back. It has been a fun last few weeks filled with Joss Whedon, U2 and some downright strange politics.
First, there was The Guild/Dr. Horrible screening at the Egyptian Theatre. This was a fun night! The crowd was great and after the screening all the Whedon brothers, Maurissa Tancharoen, Sandeep Parikh, Vincent Caso, and Felicia Day came up for a panel Q&A. The Q&A went for about half an hour and then when it was over, they all stayed and talked with the crowd, answering more questions and taking pictures. It shows they really do care about their fans. Joss Whedon’s fans are known for their loyalty and tremendous support. Aside from a connection to the material of the shows, it is moments like this that have earned him the fan base he has. Seeing someone who has had that kind of success, and is also busy working on a show, take the time to hang around after a Q&A says a lot about Joss Whedon and his family/team. Also, for any Dollhouse fans reading this, Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman were there just hanging out. I talked to Enver afterwards and this guy is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I’ve met in LA. The man is proving to be one hell of an actor on the show too. I didn’t speak with Dichen; she was posing for pictures with fans. The whole night was a lot of fun and it was great to meet people I respect and admire and have them turn out to be amazingly nice people.
So, my next weekend was filled with U2. Yes, I was at the Rose Bowl show along with 97,000 other people. I got there at 7 AM and was number 495 in line. It was well worth the wait. They had us segmented in groups of 250. At 5:00 they let the first 250. It went smoothly. Then when they decided to let our section go to the gate, security forgot to have someone stationed at the back of our section. All hell broke loose and a line of over 2,000 people bum rushed the gate. It is a wonder no one got hurt. Despite the line crash, we still ended up in the inner circle of the pit. We were between the drum set and the right side of the stage, about four people back.
The Show opened with the Black Eyed Peas. I wasn’t wild about having them as the opener. The tour dates before us had the band Muse and I had been looking forward to finally seeing them live. They turned out to be a good opener though and they gave us a surprise guest that made them worth it. Slash came out and played Sweet Child O’ Mine with them. Not a bad way to start off the night. They finished up and everyone was ready for U2. We had YouTube’s live feed cameras swooping over us keeping us entertained. It amped up the crowd knowing we were not only being filmed for a DVD, but being broadcast live on YouTube. Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity” started playing and we knew U2 were coming onstage. The show was incredible! You can still watch the rebroadcast on YouTube. YouTube did a surprisingly great job with the recording. The quality and the camera work is impressive.
I won’t give a blow by blow of the show, but I will share one highlight. The set has bridges that rotate around the circle. A few times the bridges would stop over our heads and we’d see Bono or The Edge’s feet walking over us. During the song “Until the End of the World” the Bridge stopped just to the right of us. Bono was just a few feet from me and he leaned over the rail and sang a verse directly at us, reaching out to us at one point. I’m not one to get star struck, but it was the coolest moment of the show and a bit surreal. I snapped a picture right before he reached out. No, this is not using a zoom, he was that close.
Tomorrow I’ll post about yesterday’s election results. The NY 23’d congressional district, the Republican takeovers in Virginia and New jersey, and the deep disappointment I have in the state of Maine for what was Prop 8 all over again.
