U2 Concert

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Originally uploaded by paulhurley76.

U2 were playing 2 concerts at the Mt Smart stadium in Auckland this weekend, so along I went on Friday afternoon to see if I could get a ticket. No luck, and along comes a security guard to move people away from the stadium just before U2 went on stage. To make things worse, I missed the hourly train back to the centre by seconds, and spent an hour on the platform listening to the concert and chatting to a Maori security guard about the ins and outs of U2 concerts and building stadiums for the 2011 world cup.

Determined not to fail, I made the same trip on Saturday afternoon, but this time I waited outside a different gate. After only 30 minutes, a guy was going by asking if anyone needed a ticket. I jumped at the oportunity, but was a bit worried that it might be a fake. His mate couldn't make it, so he just wanted to get some of his money back. 80 dollars was his asking price for a reserved seat ticket worth 199 dollars. I bought the ticket and in I went. The view was partly blocked by a speaker/camera pylon, but at least I was in the stadium. What a show U2 put on. Bono really interacted with the crowd, and even made a monty python joke. When dedicating a song to the Irish peace process & any other peace process he said "blessed indeed are the cheese makers". Half the stadium laughed, the other half didn't get it.