The presale commenced less than 30 minutes ago for U2’s next Toronto concert on July 3 next year. I just got 4 floor tickets, again, for this. Cameron, who is 8, is excited, because after the concert last month I promised I would take him to the next U2 concert in Toronto. I didn’t expect it to be so soon again, but that’s okay. However, it’s going to be a long 8 months wait now, but at least it’ll make the winter more bearable!
The night I’d been looking forward to for a long time came and went on Wednesday when I got to go to the first Toronto show of the U2 360 tour. I wasn’t disappointed and came away fairly happy and quite hoarse!
I travelled down with three friends from Elliot Lake, two of whom were attending their first U2 show. We had floor tickets, so we made sure that we got there fairly early and found a decent place to stand. The crowd was 58,000 so we were glad to be as close as we were and kind of felt sorry for those in the nosebleeds.
Snow Patrol opened up for U2 and they put on a good show, with a little humour thrown in.
Reading about the tour and the ’spaceship’ stage don’t fully prepare you for the experience of being there and seeing it all from a close distance. I’ve wondered how U2 would be able to top some of the previous tours I’ve seen them on, but I’m glad to say that they managed it again.
My personal highlights were:
There was good mix of old and new stuff and it was great to hear seven songs from the new album. I posted some pics and short videos on my flickr. They’re not the best of quality, but they might give you some idea of how awesome the night was, although they really can’t do it full justice. You just had to be there! Here’s the set list for the show (courtesy of U2gigs.com):
I wish I had tickets for some more of the shows on this tour, but I’m not that rich, I’m afraid. At least I was fortunate to get to this one.
The current economic situation should bring us freedom and simplicity, but for the people that I work for it seems to be bringing a barricading in mentality.
A cold shower first thing in the morning can be a good thing, but it’s not best if it is spraying out of the back of the toilet.
I dislike being told that I ‘have to participate’ in something that I believe is not good for me or for those around me.
The one good thing about the Leafs always missing the play-offs is that it frees up my evenings after the first week of April.
Reading books can seriously challenge one’s complacency and that’s what I like the most about it.
If I’d known what I know now, I may not have chosen the path that I did, but did I really have a choice at the time?
‘Unknown Caller’ is one of the best U2 songs ever.
It all boils down to ‘Love God and love your neighbour as yourself’. Without that nothing else really matters or makes a difference.
“What is the difference between Tradition and Traditionalism? Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.” (Jaroslav Pelikan from The Vindication of Tradition)
“…the truth will set you free.” (Jesus in John 8:32)
I just spent over an hour composing and sending an e-mail of ‘truth’ to someone higher up ‘the system’ than me. I felt relief as I openly shared in this way. There was freedom in sharing like this. I never quoted Pelikan in the e-mail, but I did touch upon what he says in this quote. I’m not sure where the e-mail will go, but I just wrote what I felt needed to be written and left it at that. Maybe it’s something I should do more often, who knows.
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A month of not eating meat and it’s almost like it’s all I ever did. I’ve lost weight, I feel fitter, and talk of juicy steaks no longer induces mouth-watering.
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If you haven’t listened to No Line on the Horizon yet, then why not? I can’t stop listening to Unknown Caller. It’s definitely the best track on the album, maybe even one of their best songs ever. Listen to the last couple of minutes – just awesome!
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This Sunday will not, after all, be our last gathering in our present location. By mutual consent, Easter Sunday (12 April) will be instead. Not sure when our first gathering will be in the new place. The work is a little behind, but it will be ready well ahead of the grand opening on 23 May.
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Looking forward to seeing Monsters vs Aliens with the family on the weekend. Looks like it’ll be lots of fun.
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(P.S. Don’t look for any hidden meaning in the inclusion of the demotivational poster at the top. It’s just the one that made me laugh the most today)
I took out a subscription at U2.com last year with some money I got for my birthday. As well as an exclusive t-shirt and double live CD, this membership gave me access to the first round of the pre-sale for any of the concerts on the forthcoming U2 tour. So, at 10.05am this morning I was able to complete the purchase of 4 tickets for September 16 at the Rogers Centre, which is great because the general sale doesn’t start until next Monday. So, membership can sometimes have benefits! Looks like it’ll be a great show. Hope they play ‘Unknown Caller’.
Cameron is a little sad and disappointed that he can’t go, but I promised I’ll take him when he’s older. He really want to go to an As I Lay Dying show sometime, too, although their upcoming tour doesn’t work out for us at all. He did tell me that when he puts his band together they’ll tour every year. I asked him if he would need me to play bass guitar for him, but he declined, telling me that I’d be too old by then and that he doesn’t want any grandpas in his band. Oh well.
Well, today was the day I finally got to download ‘No Line on the Horizon’ the latest offering from U2. There’s certainly been lots of hype leading up to this release, and on the whole it does live up to that hype. After all it is their first full studio offering in over 4 years, so there’s been a long wait. My favourites so far are ‘Magnificent’, ‘Moment of Surrender’ and ‘White as Snow’. It’s hard to pick out a weak track, so I won’t.
Next Monday the tour dates will be announced. I had to go to Auburn Hills to see the Vertigo tour, as I missed out on getting tickets to any of the Toronto dates. This time I should be okay, because as a subscriber to U2.com I’ll get a heads up and chance for pre-order. I’ve only missed one tour since the Joshua Tree and I have no intention of missing out on the forthcoming one.
Just a random collection of thoughts and events of late…
Always around this time of year I feel ready for a rest. This year is no exception. It’s been a busy time lately, what with a trip to Winnipeg for some study time, the purchase of a new building for our church, building committee meetings, the sale of our present church building, birthdays, changes in the life of our church, transitioning our son to a new school, a trip south for a funeral, and so on. We’ll get some vacation time in August and it will be great when that time of rest arrives.
We celebrated/remembered our tenth anniversary of our ordination this past week. It was kind of bitter sweet as we also received the news of another couple in our session tendering their resignation. In one sense it was quite surprising, but in another it wasn’t. I know that sounds contradictory, but it’s hard to explain. We live in the 21st century, yet we find ourselves serving in a movement/organisation/church that wants to continue harking back to the past. The hierarchy is still a convenience to hide behind when it suits. There are many who talk a good game of change, but when things don’t go the way they want them to, the trump card of hierarchy comes into place. It’s kind of sad. Will it take the last one left turning out the light, locking the door and throwing away the key to realise that there is really little relevance in holding on for dear life to things that really don’t matter in the larger picture of life. It’s a big worry, that’s for sure.
Reading has been hard of late, maybe because of assignments being due and other pressing matters. As usual I have a number of books on the go. I just finished Solzhenitsyn’s ‘For the Good of the Cause’, which was good, but not as good ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’. Included in ‘For the good..’ was some background into the whole censorship and exile that Solzhenitsyn underwent, which was very interesting. I am now trying to get through Pete Greig’s ‘The Vision and the Vow’, which is a very challenging book. It’s a must read, that’s for sure. Other books I’m picking up and including in my reading are: ‘Christ, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper’ (Leonard J. Vander Zee), ‘Everything Must Change’ (Brian McLaren), and ‘Wishful Thinking’ (Frederick Buechner). Hopefully I’ll get through a few of these this summer!
Some of the movies I’ve enjoyed lately include: ‘The Savages’, ‘The History Boys’, ‘Kung Fu Panda’, ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’, ‘Cloverfield’, and ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’. We’re looking forward to ‘Wall.E’, which opens next weekend.
We gave Emily an i-Pod shuffle for her birthday, so I finally gave in and got an i-tunes acoount. I haven’t bought much yet, but I’m tempted by much, especially older stuff I don’t have on CD (all my old vinyl is still in the UK) – such as early Iron Maiden, some Blue Oyster Cult, Fish-era Marillion, amongst many others. I still have an e-music account (40 tracks a month for $9.99) and they just added some early Rush stuff to their catalogue, which I downloaded. Some of the stuff that I’m listening to the most lately includes: ‘An Ocean Between Us’ (As I Lay Dying), ‘The Ringing Bell’ (Derek Webb), ‘Messengers’ (August Burns Red), ‘Facedown’ (Matt Redman), ‘U2 Go home’ (U2), ‘Symphony no.6 – Pathetique’ (Tchaikovsky). I eagerly await the soon to be released new U2 album.
I’ve been spending some time at Plurk.com If you join add me as a friend (my user name is wcs53). I’ve also been designing rooms at Webkinz (the kids bought me a couple of Webkinz).
Anyways, that’s enough thoughts for now.
It’s been a while since I really took any time to blog, so here’s a little catch up.
My 42nd birthday was a couple of weeks ago. I got some cool U2 stuff from my parents and my family here treated me to this:
Tomorrow our program proposal/building project comes before the board in Toronto. This is the last hurdle now. It seems like it has been a long process. Pray that it will go through. We need big changes here. Our church people are quite excited and optimistic.
Spring has finally arrived (we’ve been enjoying temperatures in the low 20s these past few days). It seemed like winter was never going to end this year. So, I watched a lot of movies these past few months. Some of the best I saw included: ‘Death at a Funeral’, ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’, ‘Catch 22′ (classic!), ‘In the Valley of Elah’, ‘The Girl in the Cafe’, ‘Something the Lord Made’, ‘Juno’ and ‘Michael Clayton’.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the absurdity of uniforms. They make less and less sense to me these days. Last month I had to attend officer’s councils. A senior officer couple were doing their best to try and convince us all that uniforms are a great witnessing tool. The best example they could come up with was a story about them wearing their uniform on a long distance flight. The result of this great witness was a $10,000.00 donation. Every time I put my uniform on my first thought is how much money is this going to score for the Army today (just in case you don’t know me, I do have the gift of sarcasm!). Two of the more memorable times I was wearing uniform are of the time I was representing a guy from Iran in court who equated the uniform with being beaten up well and the little Chinese kid on the subway in Toronto who ran under the seats of the subway car to get away from me as the last time he saw someone in uniform was in China taking his father away (the last time he saw his father as well). I really liked a comment from Thomas lately, where he said: ‘In a church where men wear suits + ties. I’m not! Jeans, polo, cardigan + cons. Jesus loves me all the same. Haha.’ Our worship band all wear jeans to church (well, apart from the bass player and guitarist/vocalist, because we’re not allowed to!).
Maybe you read about these t-shirts already. When I first read about them I thought it was some kind of early April fool’s prank. Alas,they are for real. The phrase ‘covenantally accurate informal uniform t-shirt’ makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
I’m off to Winnipeg in a couple of weeks time to do a couple of course. I’m looking forward to the challenge and change. I was hoping that ‘U23D’ would still be playing in the IMAX when I got there, but I found out today that it finishes this Sunday. That sucks, because it definitely isn’t coming to Elliot Lake.
Well, I’m off to watch the Flames hopefully take care of the Sharks. It was good to see the Senators get demiolished. Hopefully the Canadiens will not go much further than the second round. Hey, who knows, maybe the Toronto Make Me Laughs might even get to the play-offs one of these years!
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