The Complete Toronto POP Mart Experience

What an experience it was, without a doubt four of the strangest days I've ever had.

The long drive to Toronto from NYC with my traveling partner “Driving Miss Gina” Griffin. What we expected to an 8 hour drive turned into almost 12 hours due to several wrong turns, missed exits, and confusing directions from the Web.

On a long drive all you have is humor and U2 music to keep you going, lucky for us both were in abundance. We kept coming up with bizarre remix names for U2 songs, my favorite was Mofo (The South Park “Oh my God they’ve killed Kenny” remix).

After crossing the border, "Where are you going?" "Toronto." "Why?" "For the U2 concert" we raced up the Q.E.W. to Toronto (those Canadians drive real fast at night.) When we got to Toronto we discovered that neither of us had the slightest idea where the hotel was, but thanks to some friendly cab drivers we made it to the hotel by 8pm. We met up with Jason Hibbard, his girlfriend Karen, and Prarit. We were still missing one person, Otto Kittsinger, Wire’s intrepid photographer, so we hung out in the hotel bar calling out “Otto!?” to ever man that walked in (none of us had met Otto, yet).

After wearing out our welcome in the bar, we headed across the street to a local sports restaurant for dinner. I never realized how popular hockey was north of the border, I wished we got there early enough to go to the game. Upon returning to the hotel we met Otto in the lobby, large photo prints and all. He has some of the best pictures of U2 I’ve ever seen, and he doesn’t even have a press pass! He is funding trip around the country by selling reprints, if you see him at a show this fall make sure you pick some up (more on Otto’s accident later) Otto and Prarit crashed with us, I didn’t get much sleep, someone was sawing toothpicks all night (I won’t name names).

We overslept and missed the Sky Dome Tour (sounded like a great photo opportunity), but went to the top of CN Tower (really cool). The Wire Party at the Hard Rock was great, the largest group of Wirelings I’ve ever seen. A big thanks to Jason Hibbard for organizing the party. We met up Joelle Lamontagne and friends and watched the sound check. This was tricky since the windows facing out on the Sky Dome we’re covered with large curtains, but there were small gaps between them. We could see Larry playing frisbee with one of the roadies and Edge warming up. Later the whole band was jamming together, working on Miami, Bullet, and Please. The Hard Rock was playing Red Rocks, Rattle & Hum, and Zoo TV - Live From Sydney so it was hard to hear, but with an ear to the window it was POP Mart!

We went into the stadium as soon as the doors opened so we could get a good spot the by B stage. The first thing I noticed was how huge the Sky Dome is, I heard they sold 65,000 tickets, this was going to be amazing. The security was really light and we had no problems moving from our B1 seats way over on the left, to A5 and got on the railing next to the B stage. There we’re lots of Wireling’s in sight, Otto and Jonathan Early with their cameras, Aingeal, Chiara, Phyllis, Luis, and many others I didn’t know. The secret of the B stage has been spreading and the area quickly filled up, several rows deep.

Third Eye Blind opened, and put on a great show, definitely don’t miss them if your going to a show this fall. The lead singer covered ever inch of the stage, including the B stage, and the crowd was into it. Howie B spun some great tunes, then POP Muzik!

The show was incredible, the best one I’ve seen so far. The highlights were:

Pride: The new video images of MLK, the KKK, and burning crosses was very moving. The crowd sang the long "Oh, oh, oh, oh" at the end, my favorite part. Pride never fails to bring tears to my eyes, especially the ending, this night was no exception.

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For: What impressed me the most about this was all the lighters held up by the audience. As Bono sang on the B stage with thousands of golden lights filling the stadium, it was just beautiful.

All I Want Is You: The best performance I’ve ever seen, Bono kept screaming "All I Want Is You" at the end, while Edge, Adam and Larry jammed.

Sunday Bloody Sunday: This was a big surprise! I didn’t expect to hear it again, but when Dallas handed Edge his electric guitar after Staring At The Sun I knew something special was going to happen, and as soon as Edge said "Sarajevo" there was only one song he could play. It was incredible, I can only imagine what it must of been like in Sarajevo, I hope they keep it in every night.

No Miami the first night, they went right into Bullet. When Bono started singing I couldn’t see him anywhere, then he rang right by us and up onto the B stage. With a dome on the stadium they couldn’t point the lights up into the night sky, instead they pointed them into every corner of the stadium, lighting the crowd up. Bullet just keeps getting better, except Bono has to learn that white guys can’t rap ;-)

Wake Up Dead Man: The first verse closed the show, it was great to finally hear it.

After the show a few of us were planning to head to the band’s hotel, but after a long detour to our hotel, the Golden Griddle for some food, and some cold rain, it was down to just Joelle and myself. We made several wrong turns, and almost ran several stop signs, but finally made it; just in time to hear Bono and Edge had come out, met the fans for a while, and went inside. Since it was cold, rainy, and we were both exhausted, it was time to go home. I got back to the hotel at 3am, this is where the weekend takes a turn for the worse. Gina was talking on the phone with Aingeal - she was calling from St. Michael’s Hospital, Otto was hit by a passing car outside the Four Seasons and was in the hospital with a broken leg! We would not be able to visit until the morning.

We went to the hospital to visit Otto, he was in surprisingly good spirits considering what had happened. While we were there a big group of Wireling’s came to visit to. One of the great memories I’ll have of this weekend was how Wire came together in Otto’s time of need. After all the name calling, flames, and arguments this restored my faith that Wire actually does some good.

The second Hard Rock party was great too, once again Jason came through, this time with posters and CDs from Rick at ETS. Rick got a round of applause, thanks for helping many of us get around the country this year. I was great to see Big Daddy Cool again, and we got to meet Mary (forgot her last name) who was seeing U2 for the 48th time, wow!

The second show was even better. We got to the same spot by the B stage, but this time security was much tighter, checking tickets, and keeping people of the railing (we heard that four people fainted by the B stage the night before) Since our seats were in A2 we managed to sit in some empty seats and avoided all the security, except for Jerry Mele. He came by, even though the show was almost about to start, and must of been extremely busy he took time to shake everyone’s hands and let us take a few photos with him, what a great guy.

The highlights:

Stand By Me: After Bono sang the normal first verse and chorus he turned to Edge and asked him to sing the second verse, he did and the crowd loved it. I’ve always wanted to hear them do more, and it was worth the wait!

Desire: Bono and Edge put on their acoustic guitars and I was expecting Staring At The Sun, instead Bono started Desire, yeah!!!!! Edge’s solo was great.

Sunday Bloody Sunday: Once again it was incredible. Edge sings this so well and the audience sang along, very powerful.

Miami was added back into the set, and it ROCKED! Bono came out with a the umbrella and was swinging it at the camera, screaming "Miami!" while Miami flashed on the screen, incredible. The Miami Girl wasn’t into it, and when Bono handed her the cigar she dropped it on the B stage!

With Or Without You: This was the highlight of the show for me. After two rounds of everyone singing "Oh, Oh, Oh, Ohhhh" Bono sang "We’ll shine like starts in the summer night..." they so rarely do this last verse that it caught me by surprise, I jumped into the air, and started to cry.

After the show Monday I was determined to get to meet the band. Several of us met up, but the word was out and lots of people knew where the band was staying. When I got to the Four Seasons there were about 50 people, that quickly grew to around 200. As people moved closer to the hotel entrance and blocked they blocked the driveway and everyone started to get out of control. First, Aingeal tried explaining to everyone that if they stayed calm and got in a line the band would stop and spend time with everyone. She was right, but nobody wanted to listen. Next, hotel security got evolved, asking everyone to move back to a safe distance, but that didn’t work either. Then the Toronto police arrived, and it started to get ugly. I saw at least 5 police cars pull in, along with an emergency truck, they told everyone to get off the hotel property and move to the sidewalk, we moved. By this point there was no way the band would stop and sign autographs, people would get hurt in the chaos. Bono got into the hotel without our noticing, then came out briefly. He thanked everyone for coming, but said he couldn’t stay. I took a few pictures and when he walked over to our group, I was able to shake his hand. As he headed back to he hotel we cheered with all the energy we had left. A small group of fans chased after him, and I heard one person got arrested!

As I drove back to the Best Western I felt so proud to be a fan of U2, seeing them put on the two best shows I’ve ever seen, meeting lots of great fans, sharing our stories, huddling together in the cold, and then seeing Bono, shaking his hand, what a weekend!

We visited Otto again, he continued to get better. Again a group of Wirelings was there, we even got to see his cast put on. We got a really late start for NYC, and stopped at Niagara Falls for about an hour. This was incredible. I always wanted to see the Falls was blown away by their power and beauty. I could of spent the entire day just watching the water flow over the cliff, feeling the mist, and watching the intense rainbow it created.

I finally got back to my apartment, 1107 miles after leaving it, at 1:15am, and started to write this message only to realize I couldn’t think straight after sitting in the car for 12 hours, but now it’s done. Thanks to everyone who made this weekend so special!

Next stop. Montreal.