In the arena

Before Friday, May 4, the last arena rock concert I attended was The Who, in 1982, in the late, lamented Checkerdome in St. Louis, home of the St. Louis Blues hockey team. May 4, I with my wife and youngest son saw U2 in Scottrade Center in St. Louis – which is now the home of the Blues.

I guess I’ve come full circle.

It’s not that I don’t like live music. I do. But the bands I like play smaller venues. Last year I saw Sigur Rós in St. Louis’ Peabody Opera House, which is about the biggest it gets for me. Back in the 1980s I saw Hüsker Dü in a club the size of a large living room. My wife and I went years without seeing any shows because of kids, life, etc. But with the boys being older we’ve started attending concerts again. We take turns. I dragged her to Sigur Rós; I took her to see The Go-Gos. Taking her to see U2 was my birthday present to her this year. She loves U2. I am not as big a fan as she is, though I love their older material.

And the band did not disappoint: after opening with a couple of songs from their new album, U2 launched into blazing renditions of “Beautiful Day,” “I Will Follow,” and, to my wife’s utter delight and surprise, “New Year’s Day.”

Later in the concert, their tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. via “Pride in the Name of Love” was particularly moving. Footage of neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville last August filled the giant two-sided video wall that ran the length of the arena as the the Edge plucked the opening notes. Then when Larry Mullen Jr. pounded the opening drumroll, the video switched to footage of Rev. King, marching. It took my breath away.

This also was the first concert for our youngest, who turned thirteen in March. Our oldest, seventeen, was, as they say, “too cool for school” and declined to come. I am sorry he missed it, as it would have been his first concert too. U2 is not his bag. “That’s for old people,” he said, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. There was a lot of grey hair where we were sitting. “All these people are old!” I said to my wife.

Every kid’s first concert should be a big, overblown arena show, even if later he or she (like I did) prefers bands that play clubs and bars. A concert, whether the audience is a hundred people or five hundred people or thousands, is a big communal experience, everyone cheering and laughing crying to new songs and old favorites. Some things change. At the Who, way back in 1982, the air was green with pot smoke and everyone held up their lighters. At U2, there was no smoking of any kind and everyone held up their smart phones with the flashlights turned on.

But the important things don’t change: the thrill of watching musicians play songs you had only before heard on albums CDs or MP3 devices; the anticipation, waiting for the band to play that one song – and the thrill when they do; when it’s over, walking out partially hard-of-hearing and still reeling from the experience. But the greatest thing for me was when my son nudged me and shouted, “Dad, I know this song!” And the look on his face when it dawned on him that there is more to music than YouTube and earbuds and tinny songs on your MP3 device.

Rock on, son.