War

U2 plays in Dallas this weekend. I like U2, but have never seen them. That time is passed because I will not pay to see a show in an arena --- it is usually an experience that is wasted on me.

The time to see them was 1983 when I was in the 10th grade. My buddy Bryan and his friend Dave, who was a few months older than us and had a driver's license, went to the Bronco Bowl to see U2 on the War tour. I wasn't cool enough to be invited. Anyway, Bryan raved and raved about the show. And like any high school kid, he bought a concert t-shirt. But this wasn't any t-shirt. A week before U2 came to Dallas, they had been in Colorado, filming a live show at the Red Rocks theatre. And the footage from that show, in which Bono's cold breath steams from his mouth and he prances around the stage with a white flag with rock formations behind him, was used for the "Sunday Bloody Sunday" video --- one of the most popular videos ever played on MTV. And in that video, the image of the classic mulleted Bono was cast, wearing the sleeveless black t-shirt with a white flag on the front and back. The concert t that Bryan bought was the exact same shirt Bono wore in the video.

The next year Bryan moved to Atlanta and made a bunch of new friends. One of them was a fellow rock fan. And Bryan impressed this new friend by swapping concert shirts. Bryan traded the War tour shirt --- one that would fetch several hundred dollars on Ebay today --- for a pink Sammy Hagar T- shirt.