Concert Tickets : U2 in , on Wednesday, December 31, 1969

Those U2 concert tickets you're clutching in your sweaty little palm have more meaning than most pieces of paper you're ever handled. U2 isn't the "best" rock band in the world, and technically I think a group like Aerosmith are at least their equal. As for stadium bands, how can Pink Floyd ever be equaled? So what is it that makes those U2 concert tickets so special? Is it that Bono has kept U2 relevant by getting the band involved -- or at least himself as an individual -- in social causes around the world? I don't really think so. The guy is obviously sincere, but that cannot be the great differentiator between U2 and the mere mortal bands. Perhaps it's staying power: like Aerosmith and The Rolling Stones, and unlike Pink Floyd, the group has not only stayed together, but continually improved their music and reinvented themselves. But that in itself still does not endow your U2 tickets with the promise that you will leave the concert venue in an altered state. Is it the passion in the man's voice? Not entirely, but we're getting closer. The voice is, without a doubt, phenomenal. But I've heard Sergeants-Major with equally powerful voices. So, to get us closer to the point I want to make, let's say Bono's voice has something to do with it, but not everything. I have read the interesting adjective "anthemic" as a description for U2's music, in the same way that "carnivalesque" belongs to The Doors. What U2 has achieved is to compress a lifetime -- for some of us -- of spiritual meaning into certain songs in the same way that certain grand old hymns express more than the sum of their lyrics. I honestly don't think the band themselves know exactly HOW they do it, but it cannot be completely accidental. After all, they've been at it since 1976. But I can tell you, from having studied some mysticism, that it is a well-known fact that certain things are real without allowing you to describe them in words. The essence of a poem cannot be described in the words of that same poem, and the essence of good music lives in the silence between the notes. And that is why your U2 concert tickets have a certain value that neither you nor I can describe in words. Go. Experience it. And come back and be unable to describe it to your friends.