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"Did you know that Dublin is the world's largest city?"
- "Really?"
"Yeah. It's just keeps dublin' and dublin' and dublin'"

I woke up at 4am, caught a taxi to the train station at 5am and was caught in the middle of a rowdy crowd of Ryanair passangers desperately trying to check-in before catching their budget flights by 6am. Through all of this, I kept thinking, "Is this really worth it?"

Having arrived at the airport two hours before my flight the chaos of the Ryanair check-in area didn't affect my flight, but my mood was slightly elevated by the grumpy unorganised Brits trying to get to a 6:30am flight by arriving at 6... tsk, tsk.

The flight was a breeze, I slept the entire 55 minutes length of it and woke up as we flew over Ireland's coast. When going through customs and asked the purpose of my visit I responded "I'm going to the U2 concert" to which the kind customs officer replied "Oh, another one. Enjoy the show" and sent me on my way. I was beginning to get the feeling this early start was going to be well worth it. I wasn't wrong.

The city was FULL of U2 fans. Everywhere I went shops and restaurants and pubs were playing U2's music. People were smiling and sporting their favourite U2 shirt. Far too many men were trying to pull off "Bono" style sunglasses and too many middle aged women were dolled up to the nines in hopes of wooing him, no doubt.

I met my friend American Evan and his Northern Irish friend Shelly at Trinity College where we dropped off my bag before wandering around the city. We walked all day before making the trek to Croke Park. If you've ever been to Dublin you know that the city isn't too big, but it's big enough to wear yourself out in an afternoon of walking. But we marched on and arrived at the stadium about 90 minutes before showtime... and as a result, we managed to secure spots just about twenty feet from the 'catwalk' section of the stage.

The opening bands were OK, Kaiser Chiefs putting on a VERY entertaining show, but everyone was very, very ready for U2 by the time they took the stage just after 8:30pm. Now, I wasn't too fond of their latest album (although a few of the tracks did remind me of their early 90's stuff) but as soon as the title track started up and the roar of the crowd nearly blew me away, I was impressed. They opened with four tracks from the new album and the energy only got more intense as they broke out some of the old favourites. (I can't remember the entire track list, but I will do my best later today to re-cap what I can remember).

I have to go to work now, so I will leave you all hanging here... but promise that the next installment will include at least one photo.