Originally posted by EDDMB:Back in the "old days" , I remember getting on line in Manhattan..doing the "all nighter" at Tower Records in Greenwich Village with all my crazy college friends. Today you kids have it so easy lol You wake up , get coffee and go online , as Im doing now waiting for Paul McCartney (BROOKLYN!) tickets to on sale today.
I believe the winter of '87 tickets went on sale, for the epic run of 5 shows in New Jersey back in May 1987. I was 20 , and we listened to the first 4 LPs all night..I don't think JT was yet released , but I could be wrong. I just remember it being so cold outside (I might be mixing this wait with the UF spring 1985 tour, when we also waited all night back in early '85).... Being so young, the cold didn't bother me one bit. We drank Guinness and I must have played Wide Awake In America a thousand times that night into the early morning...I remember looking down Broadway and seeing the sun come up and switching from Guinness to coffee and being so fired up that we were getting close to buying tickets...ah to be 20 again....
We had a pretty decent spot on the line , I recall 3 shows were initially announced and I had enough for 6 tickets...low and behold I got pretty good seats for those shows . As I was at the counter , they announced 2 more shows ( maybe it was 2 initially and they added 3 ? that sounds like a lot though) ...my beautiful gf (who yrs later became my wife , still married 24 yrs on) had cash on her , so we snagged 4 more tickets and I had the whole NJ run!!
My buddy snagged tickets as well and we compared our seats.I remember he had great seats for Hartford CT as well...I asked him "woa , who are you going to Hartford with ?" "why you of course Eddie".... lol..good times the 80's were....good times indeed .
I wound up going to 6 JT shows that May , and adding 4 more in the fall , bringing the grand total to 10 JT shows that year.
Treasure, the 08.08.87 show was my 21st birthday...I remember later on that summer I bought the bootleg for that show in Manhattan.It was called something like Edges Birthday Party in Cork ???? ..like I said..good times .
Originally posted by EDDMB:Back in the "old days" , I remember getting on line in Manhattan..doing the "all nighter" at Tower Records in Greenwich Village with all my crazy college friends. Today you kids have it so easy lol You wake up , get coffee and go online , as Im doing now waiting for Paul McCartney (BROOKLYN!) tickets to on sale today.
I believe the winter of '87 tickets went on sale, for the epic run of 5 shows in New Jersey back in May 1987. I was 20 , and we listened to the first 4 LPs all night..I don't think JT was yet released , but I could be wrong. I just remember it being so cold outside (I might be mixing this wait with the UF spring 1985 tour, when we also waited all night back in early '85).... Being so young, the cold didn't bother me one bit. We drank Guinness and I must have played Wide Awake In America a thousand times that night into the early morning...I remember looking down Broadway and seeing the sun come up and switching from Guinness to coffee and being so fired up that we were getting close to buying tickets...ah to be 20 again....
We had a pretty decent spot on the line , I recall 3 shows were initially announced and I had enough for 6 tickets...low and behold I got pretty good seats for those shows . As I was at the counter , they announced 2 more shows ( maybe it was 2 initially and they added 3 ? that sounds like a lot though) ...my beautiful gf (who yrs later became my wife , still married 24 yrs on) had cash on her , so we snagged 4 more tickets and I had the whole NJ run!!
My buddy snagged tickets as well and we compared our seats.I remember he had great seats for Hartford CT as well...I asked him "woa , who are you going to Hartford with ?" "why you of course Eddie".... lol..good times the 80's were....good times indeed .
I wound up going to 6 JT shows that May , and adding 4 more in the fall , bringing the grand total to 10 JT shows that year.
Treasure, the 08.08.87 show was my 21st birthday...I remember later on that summer I bought the bootleg for that show in Manhattan.It was called something like Edges Birthday Party in Cork ???? ..like I said..good times .
Originally posted by BigGiRL:Here is what I recall (and yes indeed, the ticket-thing is still vividly in my mind!)
Rotterdam, 1987, the 10th of June.
I was sixteen and I finally had my parents consent to go to a “rock-show,” together with a group of friends from school. There were only a limited number of selling points for concert tickets. In Amsterdam it was the "Nieuwe Muziekhandel" in the Leidsestraat. And it was me that joined the queue one early Saturday morning to buy us all tickets. One of the most nerve-wrecking mornings of my life actually. Not only because at 6 am the queue was already very long but also because I had more money in my pocket than I ever had seen before – plastic money just wasn’t an option (not sure if the ticket shop even had it as an option).
Anyway, the plan was that I would buy tickets for everyone (6, 7 or 8, I can’t remember). GA, of course. Field-tickets, we used to call them, as the Rotterdam Kuip is a football (soccer) stadium. But by the time I had reached the counter to buy the tickets, these field-tickets had already gone for both nights (U2 was about to play the 10th and 11th of June). What was left were seats on the second ring of the Kuip stadium. So I bought these seats for the first night, but I felt that I have let my friends down who had trusted me their money for the highly anticipated field-tix. I blamed myself for not getting more early in the queue…
Those days were, of course, without internet or cell phone. So only when I got back home I learned that the news had announced the fasted sell-out of concert tickets ever – it was U2 coming to Holland and everybody wanted to be there!
My friends were anxiously waiting for my return, slightly anticipating me coming back empty handed (o yee of little faith!). So when I showed them the orange U2 tickets, they were overly excited and celebrated me as a hero!
From the show I remember us hanging over the railing of the second ring, singing and shouting like it was a championship match and we all came out winning. That feeling of community and friends I have felt over and over again at every U2 show I have attended until now: from Brussels to Boston, from San Diego to Dublin and many, many times back home in Amsterdam.
Magically, a photograph of me at my first-concert-ever does exist for it had appeared in some Dutch newspaper. It was taken when fans higher up on the second ring enrolled a really large banner. I do remember this happening and you see me from the back watching the sight. I know who is me in the photograph because I am the only one wearing a black Joshua Tree t-shirt and I am standing right behind the rail of the second ring – I’ve included the picture with an orange angle pointing at my head!
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