Noticings - U2UVLVWWDTWWLF

Reflecting back on our U2 experience last week and friends with and friends lost

(U2 Sphere spoilers ahead)

A week ago last night was one of the most amazing concert experiences of my life. I was lucky / privileged to get to see my favorite band in the most incredible venue  as my wife, my sister, and a friend, and I saw U2 at Sphere in Las Vegas.  I have never been to a performance that came close to the experience of this one.  Were there others that were musically stronger?  Yes.  But nothing even comes close to the visual, auditory, and overall experience of seeing a concert at Sphere.  Plus seeing it with awesome people and also U2 centering the show on my favorite of their albums - total bonus.

Here are a few other glimpses of what we got to experience.

Be sure to watch to the end of the above (or skip to the last 30 seconds).  And be sure to watch the whole of this next one (from which the first image above comes)

And as amazing as these videos show it to be, it doesn’t even come close to the experience of it.

But in the midst of this amazing experience, I kept thinking about two of my dear friends who passed away this year - Drew and Lisa.  It is from their names that the title of this post comes.

U2UVLVWWDTWWLF

U2UVLV - U2 Ultraviolet Las Vegas

WWDT - What Would Drew Think

WWLF - What Would Lisa Feel

U2UVLVWWDTWWLF

Way back in 1999, while Drew and I were nearing the end of our seminary programs, we were plotting in the Spring where we would see Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.  We knew that we need to findthe best theater in the area that we could easily get to.  So, we found one just across into Pennsylvania and we thought we would go for a test movie and went to this unique-looking sci-fi film called The Matrix.  Little did we know that The Matrix would be a film that would have far more of a cultural impact (and quality of movie) than The Phantom Menace.  But I still remember Drew sharing right after we saw The Matrix of his excitement and amazement that the book Simulacra and Simulation was featured in a key scene in the film.  The book is a 1981 philosophical treatise by Jean Baudrillard about the nature of reality, symbols, and experience.¹

Drew was so excited to see the book featured in the movie and spent most of our drive back to campus sharing what the book was about and how I should read it.  I actually tried to read it as a part of my doctoral dissertation but, even with Drew trying to tutor me through it in 2006, I still couldn’t understand what Baudrillard was talking about).  What I do remember from what Drew helped me with was that the crux of it was the experience of what is real and what is simulation in our world.

Back to the concert...Not only would it have been awesome to have Drew be a part of our group at the concert, but I would have LOVED to spend a few hours after the concert hearing his perspective on the full experience of it - especially the experience of taking in 18K images on the world’s biggest and highest resolution screen that were ALL created in a video game engine.  Other than the shots of the band during the concert that appeared on the screen, nothing on the screen was “real.”  The embers filmed falling down from the back in the first video?  CGI.  The timelapse of a day in the desert during Where the Streets Have No Name that lit the entire arena in what felt like authentic daylight?  Entirely computer generated.  I so wish I could have heard Drew’s perspective on this concert.  What would he have said about the real-ness of the musicians and the music and the physical space but the “simulation” of what was on the screen that was such a central part of the experience?  WWDT?

And Lisa, WWLF?...Both my wife and I shared multiple times over during our time in Vegas that we fondly remembered seeing U2 in 2017 on the Joshua Tree anniversary tour in Indianapolis with Lisa and her husband.  That Indianapolis trip was so much fun - a great dinner with great friends and then an absolutely tremendous show that U2 put on that night which included the tour debut of one of their new songs that hadn’t yet been released (You’re the Best Thing About Me).  But most of all, I remember Lisa sharing about the feel of the concert - especially as the show ended with the band singing “One.”

The song One is one that came out of a time in the early 90s when the band was struggling to stay together, more so than at any other time that they have been together.  It is a song that led them to bridge some of their differences and find their creativity together once again.  The song has one of the most beautiful lyrics of what it means to be in community with one another ...

We’re one, but we’re not the same
We get to carry each other, carry each other
One

Not, “We’ve got to carry each other” but “get to carry each other.”  What I hear in this is that community is not an obligation but a gift.

Lisa and I were serving together in a congregation at that time where there was a good bit of unsettledness and also in a time in our country with deep divisions (which we all know are still so present today).  The four of us walked out of the concert that night talking about the meaning of that song and how it spoke so much to the privilege that it is to carry one another, to be in community with one another, and lamenting the ways that we were all struggling to find that One.  Lisa and I returned to that more than a few times in the months and years that followed.

I thought of that song and those conversations  as Lisa battled cancer from 2020 through earlier this year and saw the ways that, even in the midst of her treatments she saw it as a gift to carry others even as they carried her through the brutality of her treatment regimen.  Maybe that was part of the inspiration behind something I shared in her funeral when I said how Lisa exemplified what it means “to welcome, affirm, and love all people because all are created in the image of God.”  She knew what One was about and she lived it.

As U2 played One at Sphere and Bono asked the crowd to turn on their lights (cell phone flashlights), the arena filled with thousands of lights and then the screen was illuminated by what looked to be millions of individual lights moving towards us all.  I thought of Lisa as I am sure my wife did as well - lamenting her loss but giving thanks for her life.  WWLF?

U2UVLVWWDTWWLF

1. "Simulacra and Simulation" is a philosophical work by Jean Baudrillard, published in 1981, that explores the concept of hyperreality and the blurring of the line between reality and simulation in contemporary society. Baudrillard argues that modern society is inundated with images and signs that no longer represent a genuine reality but instead create a simulated world where the distinction between the real and the fake is lost. He discusses how media, consumer culture, and technology contribute to this phenomenon, ultimately leading to a society where simulations become more significant than reality itself. The book has had a significant influence on postmodern philosophy and cultural studies. (Thank you ChatGPT for the summary)