A U2 Las Vegas Love Story

Baby, baby, baby, light my way.

Hi, it’s me.

I’m back from Las Vegas where Bryan and I spent the weekend celebrating his 54th birthday with U2 at The Sphere! Not Spheres. I’ve been corrected several times that in Seattle, Bezos has his balls, but in Vegas there is just ONE. 

Happy birthday, Bryan (Las Vegas, 2023)!

I am not A Vegas Person. Vegas casinos are loud, full of people, and everybody smokes indoors. On Saturday we walked over 10,000 steps without ever going outside. I saw Cowboy Hat People, Football Jersey People, and The White Lotus People who all ate dinner at the same sushi bar. This is not how things work in Seattle. We are white, hipster, craft beer people who brunch on Sundays and don’t talk in elevators. 

When we deplaned at Harry Reid airport and made our way to the rideshare pick-up area at the far end of the parking garage, I asked, “Which hotel are we staying in again?”

“The Venetian,” Bryan replied.

“Hm.” I said. “Is that the one George Clooney robbed in Ocean’s Eleven?”

He laughed. “That’s a very Jen-goes-to-Vegas question.”

I noted his lack of answer and googled it later: it is not the hotel and casino owned and managed by the handsome Andy Garcia.

Rideshare pickup areas remind me of sneaking out behind the school to smoke

The last time I was in Vegas was 2014 when I went with Bryan on a work trip. 

After arriving late afternoon on a Tuesday, he had a dinner meeting to attend, so I went down to the hotel pool to read my book. All the lounge chairs on one side of the pool were taken by other hotel guests, but there was an entire section of empty chairs on the other side, behind a red chain. 

I thought, maybe that chain is just to make sure people fill up the other chairs first – like they sometimes do for the back rows in church to make everyone sit toward the front – so it’s probably okay for me to sit here now that those other chairs are all full.

I call this Marge Logic. Marge being my mom, who pioneered the concept of asking forgiveness not permission. I can’t tell if she’d be mortified to hear me say it so explicitly, or if she’d smirk and admit that sometimes the rules just don’t make sense. I wish she were alive so I could ask her. 

Anyway, my favorite example of Marge Logic is the time my step-dad, Gordy, was driving the three of us down a busy street in an unfamiliar city we were visiting. It was a Saturday, and he was attempting to turn left but all the intersections had a no left turn symbol – the kind with a circle around an arrow with a diagonal slash through it. He would approach the intersection, break heavily to attempt the turn, see the sign, then accelerate to the next intersection, repeat.

My mom kept telling him to turn here, turn here, turn HERE and Gordy would say, the sign says I can’t turn left here, until we were far beyond our target destination and we were losing daylight on our Saturday. Finally my mom made her familiar irritated exhale sound and declared, I’m sure that means only on weekdays!

That’s the Marge Logic I employed when I climbed over the red chain to enjoy my book in an empty chair by the pool on my first day ever in Las Vegas.

The way I discovered this was actually a restricted cabana area was when a kind young security guard with a rather large walkie-talkie told me I couldn’t sit there. However, he said, if I book a day in advance, I can get this area for $100 cheaper!

$100 cheaper than what?? 

I apologized for not seeing the chain earlier (when I stepped over it) and moved to a chair in the non-cabana area in the corner of the pool deck, unshaded, and overlooking the street. I sat with my book in 100 degree heat, watching those empty $100-cheaper-than-something chairs getting misted from above with a cool, dewy spray. Those chairs have it made, I thought.

My sneaky view from behind the red chain (2014).

Going to Las Vegas with Bryan to see a U2 concert is so #Zuglife.

When Bryan and I first started flirting with each other nearly 23 years ago, I found out he had tickets to ✨three ✨ sold out U2 shows for their Elevation tour. Over four days, he went to all three shows, taking a different companion each time. Yes, my friends, he was a Northwest Groupie, traveling from the Tacoma Dome (ew…) to Vancouver, Canada to Portland, Oregon to follow a band.

(He knows I was judgy about it. He took me to Vancouver anyway.)

A few years later, U2 toured again for Vertigo. By then we were married, had a two year old, and I was pregnant. Well, I was pregnant when the tickets went on sale but would have a newborn by the concert date. I decided not to go, knowing that my trainwreck of a post-birth body couldn’t handle the intensity of a general admission, standing room only experience inside the inner sanctum that we had tickets for, so Bryan went with a friend to the first of two shows.

In a #ClassicJen turn of events, I got FOMO and bought last minute tickets to the second show. I suppose technically we didn’t attend this one together since we juggled the kids between those two nights, but it was an experience we shared nonetheless. 

My child was 29 days old when I saw the U2 Vertigo concert. Yes, you read that right: less than a month old. His age was measured in days, not weeks. While steeped in a very intense evangelical culture that glorified women for having babies but wouldn’t allow them to preach or lead men, I abandoned my baby to watch a rock concert. 🙄

My boobs throbbed. My nipples were raw. I was still sitting on donut pillows. My friend Sarah and I had seats in the literal back row of the highest section of Key Arena where I rested my head against the wall behind me and occasionally fell asleep. I don’t think I stood up for any part of the show, but I enjoyed being in a room with live music beating against my chest. Sarah and I left early because I was leaking through my shirt.

I wouldn’t see another U2 concert with Bryan until the Joshua Tree 30th anniversary tour in 2017. It was Mother’s Day, and in a shocking turn of events for Seattle in May, the weather was clear and warm for an outdoor stadium experience.

We cute (2017).

No longer General Admission People, we had actual seats and arrived via public transportation at a reasonable time before the show started. I cried through almost the entire thing for the beauty and nostalgia, remembering how I’d camped outside of the Southdale Ticketmaster Box Office in 1987 for tickets to see the original Joshua Tree tour in St. Paul, Minnesota as a teenager. 

Is U2 “our band”? Even though it’s high on our list, I don’t think so. From the beginning, Bryan and I bonded over music, but it was a shared love for the Ohio band Over the Rhine that first sparked our interest in each other and ignited our love. To me, they are “our band.” Someday I’ll tell that story — it’s so #Zuglife.

Thanks for reading this far. You get five gold stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I’m taking the next 2-3 weeks off to write, disconnect, and be with my family. Have a merry season, however you celebrate. And if I don’t see you, happy new year!

Until next time,

Jen