At least the cramps waited till I got back from the concert. oh well. I don't feel like doing anything but crawling into a ball and going to sleep. I might just do that and do all this poetry stuff Monday evening... It is due Tuesday.
But I will write my U2 summary now...
So, Friday when I went to the car rental place during lunch, the lady there said there weren't any cars available right then, but if something came up she'd call me or just hold it. But when I came back after work at 5, she didn't have a compact small car, but she had a truck... a big Chevy Silverado 4x4 truck. So I got it at the same rate as I would have gotten a small car. But once I signed the papers and drove off the lot and went to go get it gassed up... that's when I remembered big vehicles have poor mileage per gallon of gas. This truck has a tank holding over 20 gallons, and according vehicle stats it has "EPA Mileage 14/18", that refers to city/highway. I think it might get a little more on the highway than that... maybe 20. It also has AWD, which was good for me later on...
I get to Cleveland by way of I-75 to I-71 to I-90, hitting Lexington, Cincinnati, and Columbus on the way. It was so easy finding the Comfort Inn where I booked my room. Turned out that the room I had booked as two beds wasn't... Apparently she wasn't listening to me when I booked it. heh. So, I guess that worked out fine anyway since it was just me, and would have been awkward if anyone else had come up with me. I put my stuff up in the room, eyed my map, and decided to go for a walk down Euclid to 9th Street and walk that down to Eireside Street to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, and to see Lake Erie. I took a bunch of pictures along that walk. It was cold, my nose was not cooperating, but I was happy and pleased and chilling out (literally). Not many people were out and about walking, but a few bums and beggers were out. I didn't carry cash on me though, so nothing to encourage more chatter than any pursued with me. So here's a link to the pictures that I took down that stretch.
http://public.fotki.com/blueathena/ohio/cleveland/
Got to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum and looked around for a couple of hours. There's a lot of stuff there, but I went through and looked at particular floors abbreviatedly, and didn't look at one floor. Saw the RSO Records rejection letter from May 1979. Arista rejected them around the same time, but Island Records accepted them in 1980, and the rest is history. :) I saw other things, like the guitar being smashed by The Clash during their tour, which ended up being the photograph on their album cover, "London Calling"
Awesome. Saw plenty of Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury, Madonna, Brittany Spears, Hanson, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, The Allman Brothers, Michael Jackson.... etc.. all their concert outfits on display, among other things like hand-written setlists, first LPs, instruments from guitars to saxophones. Tons of stuff.
Walked back from the museum and got cleaned up, ate dinner at Subway 'cause I spent too long at the museum and underestimated the length of the walk. Then I caught a taxi with other people in the hotel to Gund Arena. A lot of people in the hotel were going to the concert. Before leaving, there was this one very hyper girl, who actually was 28, and talked to her and her friends a bit... she was very cute but also straight, I think. Anyway, she's a fanatic. heh. And she and her friends came from Toronto to this concert. wow. But I never caught up with them again...
Got to the Gund Arena (also called The Q) at 7 p.m. Found my seat easily. The place was NOT packed.... yet. Opening act started performing, Institute. I had no idea who they were until I heard a somewhat familiar song. But even then, all I knew was that I had heard them on the radio... and the lead singer's voice was vaguely familiar. Just after their show ended, two girls showed up in the seats behind me and I overheard one saying, "That's Gavin Rossdale... he used to be the lead singer in Bush." I felt like, oh duh! Anyway, Gavin was bouncing around a lot, and very energetic on stage. It was a good show, even as an opening act, but it would have been cooler if more people had shown up earlier. They played for about 45 minutes or so.
U2 started performing at 9 pm. Opened with "City of Blinding Lights" which is one of my favorite songs from the latest album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Great show... The set /stage was a big oval, jetting out into the general admission area. Some people are in the oval, and the rest of the people outside of it. The oval's inner and outer edges were lined with light tubing, which lit up during various times in the show, solid, or spinning lights, changing colors, etic. And then sometimes these light-bead curtains came down, but you could still see through them, and they'd light up various pictures or patterns to go with the songs... I was in Section 210 Row 13 Seat 20, which was pretty high up, but I liked it. I could see the entire stage and where they were, and I could see them well enough, and definitely hear the music and vocals great. The stage had screens so if you wanted to see close-ups then you could glance over there and a camera was on each band member, splitting that screen into 4 blocks. Anyway, this is the setlist:
Setlist for December 10th, 2005, Cleveland, Ohio, U2 concert
Oh... what was I wearing? hahaha. I knew there wasn't a coat check but I didn't want to go with my coat and have to hang onto it or wear it for fear of someone taking it. So I put on my jeans, boots, a long sleeved black top (cuddle-duds warm top) underneath my velour black top with a white collar. Looked cute and simple enough, and was quite warm once I was excited and having adrenaline pumping in my blood after the concert. I walked outside, and though temp was probably close to 28 degrees (weather.com says that was the low for Dec. 10th) I wasn't all that cold. I had called a taxi and waited on him to show. Took him a while, and even through all that it still wasn't too cold, and the wind was really blowing. Heh. I am crazy, yes. Anyway, so earlier when that girl from Toronto was talking to me, she told there was supposed to be an afterparty at The Harp, an irish pub/bar. So I taxied there, and though it looked pretty neat, I didn't stay there longer than 45 minutes or so. Had a Vodka Collins there, and it didn't look there was an afterparty going on there afterall.
So I called a taxi to take me to Twist. I have a peeve about this though... I was talking with this new taxi man and he was all like, so, how do you know this city so well, talking like you live here, since I knew the name of the place and the street and everything... I think he was being an ass, cause once he dropped me off there at Twist and drove off, I went in and found out...what I thought was a lesbian club/bar was just a gay men's bar. hehe...
So I had to call another taxi to take me to Bounce, the only other club I knew of which was similar to Club Liquid or Bar Complex (Lexington's gay clubs). It was allright. I had a second Vodka Collins there, watched two couples playing pool, and then I went into the dance club area and danced a little. Very young people there, and I got bored easily. I stayed till they closed though 2:15 a.m., and had called the same taxi man who dropped me off there, but he took too long to get there, over 30 minutes or so, who knows.
While I was waiting, one of the officers/bouncers came and talked with me at the door while I waited, and then it was time to lock the place up. He (Eric) offered to let me wait for the taxi in his car, which I was hesitant about, but then I just felt a vibe that he was honest and worth trusting. We sat a while till his car warmed up, and taxi still didn't show, so he offered to give me a ride to the hotel afterall. I said ok. I was a little nervous about that, but he told me some about himself. He's been a policeman for 8 years, and born and raised in Cleveland. Anyway, maybe it was stupid, but I just felt that there was truth on the table and nothing bad was going to happen. He dropped me off at the hotel and I offered to pay him the same that I would have paid the taxi, but he said that it was ok.
Get back to the hotel and had planned on drawing a bath. The bathtub in my hotel room was a jacuzzi, but... the jacuzzi part didn't work and there was nothing to block the drain so it was only good for a shower. Heh... cheap hotel, so ok. Whatever. I went to bed. Slept hard. Woke at 7:30 to see that there was snow and more snow snowing and decided then that I was going to sleep for another hour because I didn't see any point in trying to drive when the snow was coming down fast and the roads were not salted yet. I went down for breakfast at 9:45 and checked out of the hotel at 10:30. I left the parking lot at 11, after cleaning off the snow and warming up the truck.
Also, the same taxi man who dropped me off at Twist told me about the hotel where I was staying. It is now a Comfort Inn, but it is still the same building. The subway I ate in had been the resturant. Take a read into this history, especially if you have seen the movie, Almost Famous. :) Wow... I stayed in what used to be "Swingos Celebrity Inn." :)
The interstate in Cleveland and all the way to Columbus was fine, but once I got just North of Columbus, barely in the city, the snow picked up and was icy and the Interstate was hard to travel on. I got off on the first exit and pulled into a gas station, waiting out the snow/ice. Talked to Mom on the phone to tell her what was going on, texted on the cell phone a little, and then drove across the street to the Mexican resturant to use the restroom (gas station didn't have one). When I finally felt like I could try the Interstate again (30-35 minutes after exiting it) I decided to leave, but as I was leaving the parking lot I stopped some people and asked them how they thought the interstate was at that moment. Not good they said, but one asked if the truck had AWD. I said it did, but I couldn't figure out how to turn it on, didn't see anything which said AWD. He pointed it out to me, and I was much happy at this, greater sense of safety for the road. I got back on the interstate with the AWD on and it was easier driving (yes at a low speed though, no 70 or 80, more like 50) because the roads were in fact better than when I exited (some 18-wheelers had come through and melted/smashed the ice some. I survived Columbus. Got to Cincinnati and it was starting to snow a little there, more the icy mix, but I got through that city too. It was dark before I got to Lexington, and then I finally got back to Berea. Straightaway dropped off my rental and picked up my car. I have to finish the paperwork during lunch tomorrow.
So... that was my trip in all its details. :)
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