U2

I discovered U2 sometime after the albums War and The Unforgettable Fire. They hadn't hit it big yet with The Joshua Tree and they had an 'underground' and 'rebellious' feel to them--they were so not mainstream. Their music was rough but dreamy; the lyrics poetic. Bono had a mystical, sensual air tinged with scrappy derring-do. My fourteen year old self swooned.  It was the closest I ever came to punk-rock-like defiance. All very soft core--but not without it's power.

My rule: "You can't buy this album unless you
have signed an Amnesty International petition!"

When the Joshua Tree came out in 1987, a popular, prissy girl at high-school told me in passing that it was her favourite album--and I was horrified. How could that be? Only quirky, left-of- centre types like myself were allowed to like U2! You had to be a poet/dreamer/writer and/or Amnesty International supporter or you didn't count as a real fan! At the very least, you had to have Bono's picture in your locker.

"Assert yourself".

I had Bono's picture in my locker and I remember encouraging him to speak to me in times of trouble. He usually said something like: look at me. I do my own thing. I stand up for what I believe in. I don't give a **** what the critics say. I answer to a higher power. I answer to my art. Assert yourself, in spite of criticism. Don't be afraid to make your mark upon the world.

He still speaks to me, decades later. Isn't that something? After all this time, I still need to pin his (imagined) voice of self-assertion up in my head. The fight is in my mind: appeasement vs. saying what you really think, understanding what you really feel. 'Authenticity' is an adolescent preoccupation I'd like to have mastered by the age of 42. But no, not yet.

Bono has aged, too. He is in his fifties now. His fifties!

I went to their 360 tour in Toronto a few years ago and couldn't help but compare it to the Zoo TV tour of September, 1992. Back then, the crowd was young. We were all 'hip', twenty-somethings with the future ahead of us.

Then, suddenly, it's 2011. The crowd ages. The man in front of me has a bald spot. Hair is grey. We all look like my parents! Yelp! How did this happen?

Nonetheless, we all rock out.

The Rogers Center (which I will forever think of as Skydome, I don't care what the name on the front now says) becomes a frenzy of dancing and singing, hooting and hollering. That's not something I do much of these days, as I'm now far into the realm of 'serious adult'--but I don't care. I let it all hang out, trying to pretend that I still have the moves, baby.

This is all a bit awkward and embarrassing but I imagine I'm twenty again, wiggling my hips on the dancefloor--well, as much as one can wiggle in a crowd of 60,000. I shout and wiggle until my feet and throat hurt. I throw myself into physical expression, answering the call as U2 sends it back.

"I still haven't found what I'm looking for."