Brandenburg is GO!

Well, thanks to good friends in Germany who had a spare ticket for the U2 Brandenburg concert I am going to Berlin next week! Today (well yesterday now) I've been frantically making the travel arrangements inbetween events of an already busy day. But I got it sorted and will have a few days in Berlin to make the trip worth it. U2 alone are worth the trip but as I've written before, it's a city I've always wanted to visit so I have time to see some of the sights as well as U2!

Thanks a million Chris and Andy for thinking of me!

The Brandenburg Concert-o!

Late last night U2.com announced that U2 were going to play in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on November 5th as part of the EMTV Awards Show. Their appearance also marks the beginning of the Fall of the Wall celebrations marking 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down and Germany was re-united. I can hardly believe it was that long ago!

10,000 free tickets were up for grabs from 9am CET, I tried for them (though it would have been a bad time financially for me to go, I've always wanted to go to Berlin and some U2 things you just have to have a go for no matter what don't you?) but the site either froze or locked me out. Oh well, I never win anything anyway! The performance will be broadcast during the Awards show, the U2 set is supposed to be 20 minutes long, I hope they show all of it. At least I'll be warm and snug watching it on my TV, Berlin in November can be very chilly!

360 Ending and Coming Around Again

So tonight, in Vancouver, is the last gig of the 2nd leg of U2's 360 Tour. It's been a shorter tour than usual, but of course we have it all over again next year. Maybe the boys ar epacing themselves now they are hitting 50 LOL! I've enjoy the shows I saw in the summer, though am still not convinced that the claw actually does get the band nearer the audience. Though spectacular, it sometimes comes close to over shadowing the band, and the outer walkway if not utilised enough by the band members can seem like a barrier to those on the outside of it.

No UK or Irish announced yet either, and not that many places to fit any in. Surely they will play those countries again? My friend and I are nervously holding off buying gigs for other European countries (though we have been thinking of going for a couple of German gigs that still have tickets available) in the hope we'll know if we have gigs closer to home to work into the logistics! Please U2.com, let us know one way or another!

We have also been musing on seeing a show in the US again, namely in New York. Though I've been to the US a few times, I've never been to New York so I'd like to go there and take in a gig at the same time. I've been faithfully collecting Tesco points and converting them to airmile and I have quite a lot now which would pay for a big chunk of the airfare! We're going to decide one way or another when the New York gig goes on sale.

So, it's goodbye to one phase of U2 360 and planning for the next! Though it will drain the finances even more I can't wait for it all!

I ordered a foldable, soft dog crate on the Internet and it arrived today. I could not believe the size of the box and amount of packing there was for this relatively small item, in fact I thought they had sent me the wrong size crate! But they hadn't, below is a photo of the box and packaging and the crate, no wonder the forests are disappearing!!

Smile!

The Daily Mail has done it again with a great animal picture. This bull seal was obviously having a great day whilst lounging on a beach in Lincolnshire. How can you not smile along with him? Read all about him here

Thankless Task....

I was sitting in a traffic jam today and saw a man doing what must be the most thanksless job ever - sweeping up leaves on a windy day. No sooner had he got a heap of leaves together than the wind blew them all away again. Yet he patiently plodded on with his work, sweeping another pile together and repating the process over and over. I think the City Council should be a bit more practical and get the poor man one of those leaf sucker machines (no idea what their proper name is)!

Mission Control It's Bono and Edge!

Bono and his sons Eli and John and Edge visited Mission Control at NASA in Houston the other day and had a fifteen minute chat with astronauts on the International Space Station. Some lovely moments (Harold the giraffe!) and what an amazing experience for Bono's boys, something I'm sure they'll never forget.

The Proclaimers Live

A while ago my cousin Glenys asked me if I fancied going to see The Proclaimers. I'm not a massive fan of theirs, but I have this thing now that if anyone asks me to do something and I can afford it and don't hate the thought of it I'll do it, so I said yes. Last night I went to the concert here in my home city.

The Proclaimers must be one of the strangest bands around, twin brothers with short, neat hair and geeky glasses, they sing in a Scottish accent instead of the usual mid-Atlantic drawl. They are not cool, but they are unique and certainly do have staying power. It is over twenty years since they had their hit records in the UK, though there has been a bit of a re-surgence in their popularity since "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" was re-recorded with various famous people as part of Comic Releif in 2007 and released as a charity single.

The venue was full with young and old, after the gi-normous U2 set-up it felt strange to see a small gig like this. The Proclaimers' music is very Scottish, rousing, singalong, contemplative, the lyrics being of more substance than many people realise, moving personal words, biting political ones and all inbetween. A lot of their songs are well observed tableaux of ordinary life and I think this is one of the things that appeals to people, the Reid twins even look very ordinary, people can relate to them and their music.

The crowd had a whale of a time, it was all standing so there was a lot of dancing - I've never seen so many men bopping in my life, I think the beer they were consuming was part of it! But it was fun and there was a party atmosphere. Carlisle is on the border with Scotland so we are as much Scottish as English! The well known songs, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), "Letter From America" (about the clearances in the Highlands and subsequent emigration of many people) and "I'm On My Way" went down really well. But the other songs they played were well received too. Throughout, the singing was impeccable, with fabulous harmonies.

So, all in all a good night, the "ordinary" guys who are truly unique entertained us well - and ever since I've been singing:

"And I would walk 500 my-els

And then would walk 500 mo-or

Just to be the man who walks a thousand my-els

To fall doon at your do-wa

Da da da (da da da)

Da da da (da da da)........."

God it's a catchy tune!

Tour Jitters!

More dates are coming onsale for the U2 360 2010 European Tour and I'm getting jittery! This time I think we will be approaching getting the tickets differently. I'm not re-subscribing to get a presale, I think it's disgusting that they are making fans do that when things are hard for ordinary people financially and I'm not going along with it. So, we'll probably be going the route of public sales and red zone. At the 2nd London and Glasgow you could buy tickets on the day at the stadiums, so I think we will be ok. It's just a bit weird doing it this way after all the years of getting most of our tickets via the fan club. But hey, who needs U2.com?!