Rattle and Hum Memories 1: Pin Stripe Walks Up To Me...

So when we all met in Ashland at Thanksgiving, just before we left, Jay told us to keep our options open over Christmas break, because he had tickets for us to see U2 again. We had all trekked to L.A. earlier in the year to see one of the ten or so shows they did at the Forum in the initial run of the Joshua Tree tour -- Lone Justice opened -- and now it appeared another quest was on the horizon.

About a week before Christmas, Rob drove down from Seattle with Vonna to pick me up at the house on Division Street. Rob had been my roommate in Ashland, and Vonna was his girlfriend (now his wife and mother of his -- at last count -- four children). I ensconced myself in the shotgun seat and we were off down 95. We were driving straight through to the Frisco area to crash at Vonna's parents for awhile and then head on the next morning to pick up Paul in Santa Barbara and hook up with Jay and Mary Jo in L.A. somewhere.

It was a long trip. I still didn't drive at this point, so Rob did most of the driving. He had heard some of the details of what exactly we were doing from Jay: apparently U2 (our virtual religion at the time) had decided to make a concert film in Arizona to cap off their tour. Jay had scored tickets, and it just so happened Jennie (another alum) lived in Tempe now and we could crash there. Huzzah! That was enough to get us rolling.

We of course listened to loud music; certainly we listened to The Cure's "Disintegration" and Joy Division's "Closer" as these were particularly entrancing to Rob at the time. We moved very quickly, stopping only for food; somewhere in northern California we stopped in a road side diner, other wise deserted except for the creepy proprietor who looked like somebody out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and sat and stared at us while we ate. In the restroom, they had a clawfoot tub with a mannequin in it to freak you out.

It was late December, and cold; very few others were traveling as we were, even with the holidays approaching. The Siskiyous seemed very empty and foreboding. The driving seemed to go on forever.

Finally, sometime early in the morning, we reached Vonna's house near SF and crashed; a few hours later we continued onto Westmont College where Paul was and collected him and his uncanny ability to have fun no matter how chaotic the world around him was; that night we arrived in LA where Jay and Mary Jo were making tie-dyed t-shirts for us to wear and decorate for these concerts. We would sleep there for the night and in the morning drive on to Tempe -- that would be Saturday, December 19.

I was concerned that Jay had laid out hundreds of dollars for these tickets and offered to repay him for mine, but he refused. He finally explained what none of us fully understood: U2 was filming concert sequences for their forthcoming movie, and wanted to have a crowd for the shoot, so they made the tickets five bucks and sold them in five or six specific cities. This show was a pilgrimage from everywhere to worship at the altar of the band/religion. We had tickets for both nights.

There was a catch, however, according to Jay: these would not be full shows. The band would perform maybe five or six songs, stopping between to let the cameras be reset or the sound to be checked. But you would be there for the gig! It would be a memory! And it was only five bucks.

We went to sleep that night with visions of Bono dancing in our heads (despite our best efforts to shut them out) and the next morning awoke to drive into the very country that Anton Corbijn had photographed the band looking very tough, sexy and cool in for the album cover: the Mojave. We might see actual Joshua Trees! Nirvana.

Additionally, we would find out Jay had no idea what he was talking about.

To be continued....