Bank Robbers take the stage

Bank Robbers take the stage
Originally uploaded by Brande Jackson.

Towards the end of the show night two in New Jersey, as we were waiting for the ‘end of show rush’ when we sign up lots and lots of people, we noticed a change in the set. U2 changes their set pretty much every night, but there was a lot of audience noise before they launched into a version of 'I Still Haven't Found What I Am Looking For' that was a bit different from their normal one (and I had only heard them play that song once before, really early in the tour). I stuck my head inside to see what was up only to discover that Bank Robbers had taken over the stage. Apparently these guys are in a band and were in the ellipse, with signs in hand informing Bono that ‘they were in a band’, and got pulled on stage to play with the band, or rather, play FOR the band, as they pretty much took over, with only Larry remaining as the standing and playing U2 member. There were two 'best parts' to this whole thing for me: when Bono tried to end the song after the second verse, but the guitar player kept going, turning to Larry who apparently was all about it and launched into a fast 'punk' version of the song, and later on, as we were loading out, I saw the guys in the parking lot and called them over, since I had a few shots of their on stage antics and wanted to email them to them. Apparently they had also joined the ONE Campaign the day before and were very excited about it, so we gave them a few more bands and congratulated them on their big moment. They were definitely very excited about it as they left the show that night, and I would have to say it was one of the cooler things I have seen over the course of the tour!