Beer

Deep Background:
An Introduction

"Sometimes you have to step into the future not with the life you want, but with the life you’ve got."
- Donald Mattfeld

I recently took an aging test (try it yourself at AgingResearch.org). According to the test, I should live well into my 90s. With a few tweaks to my lifestyle, I should be able to crack 100 fairly easily. That’s a relief, considering how waaay behind schedule I am on the Great Mattopian Screenplay and my romantic life, not to mention that whole world domination thing.

That expected lifespan also helps make room for some more travel with "my band."

Which begs the question, why U2?

Well, here's a recap.

There simply is no other band out there like U2. There never has been and there never will be another band like U2. To go to a U2 concert is, seriously, a religious experience. I have never left a U2 concert feeling anything less than on top of the world and ready to take on anything.

In short, after a U2 concert, anything is possible again.

You don't get that kind of mojo from just any concert.

And so it is that on each tour since ZOO-TV I have seen this band in a location I've never been to before. That's another perk, by the way. U2 has broadened my horizons and enlarged my world exponentially. I haven't done anything like this for any other band. In fact, I have never seen my second favorite band, Garbage, perform outside of Denver.

Let's see... The places I had never been to before are in green in the list below.

ZOO-TV: The one that taught me how to dream out loud, in high volume
1 - Denver, Colorado, USA
2 - Dublin, Ireland

PopMart: The one that brought me back to New York after a five year absence
3 - Denver, Colorado, USA
4 - East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA
5 - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Elevation: The one that restored my soul
6 - New York, New York, USA (MTV's Total Request Live)
7 - Denver, Colorado, USA
8/9 - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
10 - New York, New York, USA
11/12 - East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA
13/14 - London, England
15/16 - Slane, Ireland
17 - Denver, Colorado, USA
18 - Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Vertigo:
19 - New York, New York, USA (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductions Ceremony)
20/21 - Denver, Colorado, USA
22 - Nice, France
23 - San Sebastian, Spain
24 - Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
25 - Portland, Oregon, USA

In reference to the Elevation tour, it's a good thing I took up that endeavor to steal my soul back. Selling it as a wet-behind-the-ears college graduate was a monumental mistake and getting it back was the best thing I've ever done. It was also very timely. Having the soul back where it belongs helped me endure some significant challenges over the past couple years. (To paraphrase a song, my soul, it can't be bought, my mind can wander.)

Aside from the whole life-altering aspect, the shows are always brilliantly staged and the fact that Paul McGuinness is boasting of a 1.3 million euro/night production cost on the Vertigo tour is the stuff of goosebumps.

Oh. And there's one other thing. I should've been claiming these four Irish rockers as dependents on my tax returns (the little known Form IRS-D for Irish Rock Stars - Dependents). After all, I’ve helped give them a great life. In all fairness, they most definitely have also made mine quite interesting in return. They took this valedictorian from a high school class of nine (yeah, we all graduated in the top 10) and turned him into… somethin’.

More later...

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