OK, so the last time I saw U2 was about a quarter century ago in Chicago at a place called the Aragon Ballroom. According to U2tours.com, the opening act was The Waterboys, but I have no memory of what they were like. Wonder if things will be different at Owen Field? I should have gone to see them a couple of years later at the University of Illinois Pavilion, because the opening act was Lone Justice, one of the best bands nobody's ever heard of. The front woman was Maria McKee, who went on to an excellent solo career nobody's ever heard of either, more's the pity.
The first show I caught at Aragon was a Stray Cats concert, with Marshall Crenshaw opening. I'd been in Chicago all of two months and some natives of the city decided to scare the Okie rube by calling the place its nickname, "The Aragon Brawl-room." Some dance parties in the late 1970s had apparently involved the fistic arts as well.
I enjoyed the show just fine, but the el ride down and back scared the life out of me, even though I was with about five or six classmates and the Chicago Transit Authority policed that northside line -- ridden by lots of rich suburbanites or collegians like me whose death and or dismemberment would bring bad publicity -- like it was the mayor's house. Live and learn, I guess.
Hope Norman's not too scary ;-)
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