So, in an interesting turn of events, the tour started in the Midwest, went up into the east coast, worked it’s way back into the Midwest, dropped into Texas, moved into California, then took a giant leap to Florida. Well, the band took a giant leap in their very cool jet; we drove our truck. ‘We’ being Arron and Dan, Carlos and I got to fly into town – Carlos flew into Long Beach after spending a few days off with his parents in NorCal, and I went home after Oakland for a few days to try to get caught up on work – surprise, it never seems to happen! – and from there we both left from Long Beach airport on a red eye to Fort Lauderdale, but after first running into Elizabeth, an amazing woman I am lucky to call a friend. Elizabeth runs California Living Histories, a non-profit that provides after school curriculum and programs where Lokahi also running it’s after school campaign – we’ve known and worked with each other for several years, so it was really random to run into her and her husband and find out they were on the same red eye flight!
Red eye flights are never a good idea, I don’t know why I convince myself that they are. I am envious of those that can close their eyes and fall asleep instantly, as I am not one of them, and it's a crucial survial skill when you work on a tour for 10 months out of the year. Got into Miami at about 6am, begged the hotel to let us check in early, slept for a bit then left for the venue.
I have only really done Warped Tour dates in Miami, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. In short, I was blown away: Miami is an incredibly diverse city, it was awesome to meet and interact with people from so many different backgrounds that shared the same common and interest in this campaign. I met a lot of people who told me about either seeing and living in the type of poverty this campaign is fighting either themselves or having family that still did . I got to use my broken Spanglish a bit tonight as well which was also fun.
We had a really fun crew of volunteers – including the crew on Monday who now hold the record for sign ups, almost 1900, AND there was only 6 of them! Special thanks to Nina who came out both days and helped us with recruiting this awesome crew of people!
U2 loves Miami and I now understand why: Miami loves U2. This crowd was LOUD. As Bono put it: “I know why they call this place the American Airlines Arena: it sounds like a Boeing 747 in here!” and then they got even louder…
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