This is the longest I had ever spent with any one band - 79 amazing nights. Words really can't express what it was like to get to take part with a campaign like ONE, working on so many amazing tours this year. In particular, my time with U2 stands out above all - incredible fans night after night, a vocal supporter from the stage, and one of the funnest crews I've ever worked with. I'll definately miss this experience!
Feels a bit like the day after the last day of school this morning: just sent off Carlos and Dan to the airport with Christmas gifts and other year end wrap up; truck is loaded, last show done, goodbyes to crew members all day yesterday. And now, though there is still a mountain of work ahead – wrap up from this year, reports, bookkeeping, thank you’s, blog updates, and then once that is done, we start planning 2006! - it feels good to sit here, 184 concert dates later, and know that we accomplished something remarkable.
Hung out with Paul for a bit on the floor last night – a very appropriate full circle ending of the year for me. It was Paul and I who worked together devising the initial plans for this tour at this exact time last year, he’s been incredibly supportive throughout the year. In many ways, he’s also the person who could most relate to our experience of going from joining the huge massive operation that is known as the Vertigo Tour without really knowing what to expect or even really what to do back in March – the Campaign was still so new - to ending up with nearly a quarter of a million signatures from concert tours and 184 combined dates at the end of the year. “Well, I guess you pretty much doubled that initial goal we thought was crazy” he said, referencing the fact that a few weeks into Vertigo Spring – when we had maybe 10,000 sign ups at most – I announced that we were going to get the campaign 100,000 names, or account for 10% of the goal of one million sign ups that year. I had all but forgotten about this proclomation I had made, but was glad that he had remember, because at that moment, standing on the floor in the middle of ‘Pride’ watching this band that has come to define our year, it really put everything into perspective for me. “But, so did we, so it evens out, huh?” he joked, as the campaign I now at nearly 2 million. “This year has been insane, but in the best possible way” was all I could think of in reply.
Thanks to everyone that helped to make that happen.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
U2 goes to Salt Lake City!
One of our best nights of the tour thus far – lots and lots of sign ups and even more white bands going out into the world. I am writing this sitting at the Southwest terminal at SLC airport, waiting to board my flight to Portland (my turn not to drive! and I have to drive the truck home to LA from Portland while everyone flies home…so fair is fair, right?) and I see all sorts of people wearing the white bands and their Vertigo shirts. It’s so cool that the white band has become ubiquitous with going to the show for so many fans, I love seeing them in the most random places, and with more and more frequency, and the conversation that starts up around them.
Our volunteers last night included several veterans – Laura who has been with us at several U2 shows over the year and trekked up from New Mexico to help us (she has previously traveled to join us in Arizona, Denver and Las Vegas as well – a shout and thank you for all of your help, Laura!), as well as Melani and Toe’umu, both of whom sweated with us at the Warped Tour date in SLC back in July. We were short on volunteers however, so I placed a call to Melani early in the day who assured me she could round up some more top notch volunteers. A hour later, she called to announce that she had five more, so along with Kristina, a SLC based volunteer who also has helped in NYC (we found out we had film school in common – she is moving to LA to go to UCLA film, I went to USC Cinema) we had a great crew.
At some point during the training, we found out that Melani’s crew of people were in fact related – they quickly became known as ‘the cousins’ team. Turns out, her family was having a reunion, so she got her cousins who were involved with the campaign to come out and join us. At one point, her brother, roommate and I am convinced great grandmother on her uncles side twice removed were all at the show as well, so clearly Melani knows pretty much three fourths of Salt Lake City. They had a friendly family competition to see who could get the most people to join, and by the end of the night, our combined efforts had yielded almost 1800 sign ups, putting SLC in the top five list of shows for this leg of the tour.
Met a lot of cool people last night and today – wearing my ONE hoodie and working on a laptop plastered with old U2 working passes sort of gives me away at the airport – it's unbelievable to watch support for this campaign continue to grow and expand and take off in the way that it has. Talking to fans at the airport today also helps to remind me what a cool job I get to have – going on tour with amazing bands, working with their very cool and supportive crews, and getting to do work on an amazing campaign in the process. It’s been an amazing year for all of us – U2 crew members have been asking me at the last few shows about our totals, about how well we have done on this leg. It’s pretty incredible to sit back and look at those numbers – nearly a quarter of a million fans, 115,000 U2 fans alone – and know that each one is a face that we talked to, a mind and a heart that hopefully has been inspired and lifted to take this message, this idea, this hope that is the ONE Campaign and make it their own.
Feels weird to have the tour wind down and come to an end – for one, it’s hard to believe time has gone by this fast, that we have somehow done another 50 dates with this band (and 184 concert dates in total for the year!) so fast, but at the same time, you also get so tired and wiped out that you look forward to going home. Alison probably summed it up best as she harassed my crew and I during our training on her mega phone (my goal now, btw, is to get to use the mega phone with the GA line in Portland, just to get to do it once…) “Go ONE! You guys listen to Brande! She’s good! Two more dates left! I’m going to go home but I'm going to miss you all!” Volunteers looked to me - 'who was that person yelling at us and what was she doing?'- but it made perfect sense to me…
Our volunteers last night included several veterans – Laura who has been with us at several U2 shows over the year and trekked up from New Mexico to help us (she has previously traveled to join us in Arizona, Denver and Las Vegas as well – a shout and thank you for all of your help, Laura!), as well as Melani and Toe’umu, both of whom sweated with us at the Warped Tour date in SLC back in July. We were short on volunteers however, so I placed a call to Melani early in the day who assured me she could round up some more top notch volunteers. A hour later, she called to announce that she had five more, so along with Kristina, a SLC based volunteer who also has helped in NYC (we found out we had film school in common – she is moving to LA to go to UCLA film, I went to USC Cinema) we had a great crew.
At some point during the training, we found out that Melani’s crew of people were in fact related – they quickly became known as ‘the cousins’ team. Turns out, her family was having a reunion, so she got her cousins who were involved with the campaign to come out and join us. At one point, her brother, roommate and I am convinced great grandmother on her uncles side twice removed were all at the show as well, so clearly Melani knows pretty much three fourths of Salt Lake City. They had a friendly family competition to see who could get the most people to join, and by the end of the night, our combined efforts had yielded almost 1800 sign ups, putting SLC in the top five list of shows for this leg of the tour.
Met a lot of cool people last night and today – wearing my ONE hoodie and working on a laptop plastered with old U2 working passes sort of gives me away at the airport – it's unbelievable to watch support for this campaign continue to grow and expand and take off in the way that it has. Talking to fans at the airport today also helps to remind me what a cool job I get to have – going on tour with amazing bands, working with their very cool and supportive crews, and getting to do work on an amazing campaign in the process. It’s been an amazing year for all of us – U2 crew members have been asking me at the last few shows about our totals, about how well we have done on this leg. It’s pretty incredible to sit back and look at those numbers – nearly a quarter of a million fans, 115,000 U2 fans alone – and know that each one is a face that we talked to, a mind and a heart that hopefully has been inspired and lifted to take this message, this idea, this hope that is the ONE Campaign and make it their own.
Feels weird to have the tour wind down and come to an end – for one, it’s hard to believe time has gone by this fast, that we have somehow done another 50 dates with this band (and 184 concert dates in total for the year!) so fast, but at the same time, you also get so tired and wiped out that you look forward to going home. Alison probably summed it up best as she harassed my crew and I during our training on her mega phone (my goal now, btw, is to get to use the mega phone with the GA line in Portland, just to get to do it once…) “Go ONE! You guys listen to Brande! She’s good! Two more dates left! I’m going to go home but I'm going to miss you all!” Volunteers looked to me - 'who was that person yelling at us and what was she doing?'- but it made perfect sense to me…
Friday, December 16, 2005
U2 in Omaha
Omaha is cold, and with all do respect, Council Bluffs is not a happening place to stay. Overnight drives are never fun either – Carlos and I left the St. Louis show at about 1am, hit the road and drove straight to Omaha. Roadies with a cause is what we are for sure this week…
Had a great volunteer crew – Mary and Alex have been doing much work on the campaign, and they brought with them a great team of volunteers. Our crew helped us have a great night, got to meet lots of supportive Nebreskan’s, including several people who joined the campaign with Josh and Arron when the guys were here with DMB a few weeks back.
Another long day of driving today to Salt Lake City lays ahead, but at least we slept in a bed last night and not the uncomfortable passengers seat of a Toyota Tundra…
Had a great volunteer crew – Mary and Alex have been doing much work on the campaign, and they brought with them a great team of volunteers. Our crew helped us have a great night, got to meet lots of supportive Nebreskan’s, including several people who joined the campaign with Josh and Arron when the guys were here with DMB a few weeks back.
Another long day of driving today to Salt Lake City lays ahead, but at least we slept in a bed last night and not the uncomfortable passengers seat of a Toyota Tundra…
Thursday, December 15, 2005
St. Louis U2
I got to ride in the bus yesterday – one of the things my crew and I most look forward to! ETS is the company that handles the tour packages for u2 and other artists – they have a bus for their crew and allow us to claim a spot (and on a side note, a big thanks to Don, Richard, Robin, Dave and the rest of the gang for being so helpful and supportive of our work all year!). So, yesterday was my turn to get to spend the 11 plus hour drive out of our cramped and somewhat uncomfortable truck and sitting upright working or laying stretched out or just walking around. Got into St. Louis late – around 11pm or so – ate pizza and watched South Park with Dan and Carlos who had already made it in and got ready for the show the next day.
St. Louis had a couple of things I was looking forward to: one was working with a kick ass crew of volunteers from Washington University. These students are part of an on campus Make Trade Fair chapter headed up by a fellow classmate – they have helped us at Warped Tour and Coldplay shows in the past. I also got to work with Rory again – she’s a senior at Washington and the daughter of Pam, my grad school advisor (also known as the incredibly patient person who seems somewhat un-phased by the fact that it has taken me nearly six years to finish my masters since I keep taking off years at a time to do this work…) – both Pam and Rory came out to help us at the Coldplay show in Irvine, so it was fun to get to work together again. The Washington U crew did a great job – getting 1600 people to join the campaign.
The other cool thing about St. Louis was having Kanye West join the tour. ‘Late Registration’ has been the most frequently played album in our driving this leg of the tour, and Carlos, Dan and I were way excited to hear him perform. The U2 crowd was into it as well, and he gave an amazing performance. Really looking forward to having him on for our final three shows.
I met a lot of people tonight that were really committed to doing more – so many people asking about wanting to volunteer, to start up activities locally for the campaign. It’s amazing to see the level of interest and support for this movement continue to grow and grow. It’s one thing to see the numbers, and the numbers are amazing and phenomenal, but for me, a lot of times it boils down to the one on one interactions with that college kid that you helped have an ‘aha’ moment. Or the mom that asks you to help explain to her 12 year old what wearing that white band means (years spent working with elementary aged kids makes me really good at this!), the guy that buys forty bands for his co-workers, or the couples that tell me what they are doing with their church, the volunteer that joins us for a show and in our introduction section tells me that they first learned about the campaign by talking to me and my crew at another U2 show in the spring – I love that this campaign is growing and helping people that live millions of miles away, and I love that it is getting people in this country active again. And in some ways, I feel like I have one of the best spots on the campaign right now, because I get to see and hear every night how this has impacted people and made them want to make a difference.
St. Louis had a couple of things I was looking forward to: one was working with a kick ass crew of volunteers from Washington University. These students are part of an on campus Make Trade Fair chapter headed up by a fellow classmate – they have helped us at Warped Tour and Coldplay shows in the past. I also got to work with Rory again – she’s a senior at Washington and the daughter of Pam, my grad school advisor (also known as the incredibly patient person who seems somewhat un-phased by the fact that it has taken me nearly six years to finish my masters since I keep taking off years at a time to do this work…) – both Pam and Rory came out to help us at the Coldplay show in Irvine, so it was fun to get to work together again. The Washington U crew did a great job – getting 1600 people to join the campaign.
The other cool thing about St. Louis was having Kanye West join the tour. ‘Late Registration’ has been the most frequently played album in our driving this leg of the tour, and Carlos, Dan and I were way excited to hear him perform. The U2 crowd was into it as well, and he gave an amazing performance. Really looking forward to having him on for our final three shows.
I met a lot of people tonight that were really committed to doing more – so many people asking about wanting to volunteer, to start up activities locally for the campaign. It’s amazing to see the level of interest and support for this movement continue to grow and grow. It’s one thing to see the numbers, and the numbers are amazing and phenomenal, but for me, a lot of times it boils down to the one on one interactions with that college kid that you helped have an ‘aha’ moment. Or the mom that asks you to help explain to her 12 year old what wearing that white band means (years spent working with elementary aged kids makes me really good at this!), the guy that buys forty bands for his co-workers, or the couples that tell me what they are doing with their church, the volunteer that joins us for a show and in our introduction section tells me that they first learned about the campaign by talking to me and my crew at another U2 show in the spring – I love that this campaign is growing and helping people that live millions of miles away, and I love that it is getting people in this country active again. And in some ways, I feel like I have one of the best spots on the campaign right now, because I get to see and hear every night how this has impacted people and made them want to make a difference.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
U2 in Charlotte...with a NASCAR
Tonight was unusual in that we had a race car in our booth. And not just a race car that happened to be there, but a real life car built just for the ONE Campaign by the Dale Earnhardt Foundation. We had quite a little crowd gathered when the guys unloaded it from the trailer – and admittedly, it was pretty cool!
The Earnhardt Foundation works to sustain Dale’s lifelong commitment to youth, the environment and education. Teresa Earnhardt feels that ONE is a campaign that Dale would have been very much so supported, and Bono had asked her a while back to be an ambassador of sorts for the Campaign to the NASCAR community.
She and the Foundation have embraced this role, and the car was a great feature tour our normal outreach – definitely a highlight of the tour for us! We got to meet Teresa, and work with Dick Baker, the Executive Director of the organization, and his wife and staff as they helped us sign up people for the ONE Campaign all night as well as gather signatures for the hood of the car. I learned a lot about racing and the NASCAR scene and am hoping we can help the Foundation do some outreach at races next year, and was able to tell them about the sort of outreach we have been doing on tours this year.
Couldn’t convince the guys to let me try to do doughnuts with the car in the parking lot, but they did let us pose inside for some photos. Apparently, I am a natural at climbing into cars Dukes of Hazard style, but my racing career might be limited by my need for a pillow of some sort to see over the wheel or reach the pedals…
The Earnhardt Foundation works to sustain Dale’s lifelong commitment to youth, the environment and education. Teresa Earnhardt feels that ONE is a campaign that Dale would have been very much so supported, and Bono had asked her a while back to be an ambassador of sorts for the Campaign to the NASCAR community.
She and the Foundation have embraced this role, and the car was a great feature tour our normal outreach – definitely a highlight of the tour for us! We got to meet Teresa, and work with Dick Baker, the Executive Director of the organization, and his wife and staff as they helped us sign up people for the ONE Campaign all night as well as gather signatures for the hood of the car. I learned a lot about racing and the NASCAR scene and am hoping we can help the Foundation do some outreach at races next year, and was able to tell them about the sort of outreach we have been doing on tours this year.
Couldn’t convince the guys to let me try to do doughnuts with the car in the parking lot, but they did let us pose inside for some photos. Apparently, I am a natural at climbing into cars Dukes of Hazard style, but my racing career might be limited by my need for a pillow of some sort to see over the wheel or reach the pedals…
Sunday, December 11, 2005
U2 in Cleveland
Saw Vertigo Air from the highway as we were driving in. Sometimes, I still have these moments where I realize how surreal my life has become. Seeing a giant jet on the runway with the Vertigo logo and ‘U2’ painted on the side and remembering I have become a part of that this year was one of those moments.
Cleveland…seems like I spend an awful lot of time in Ohio – we have done shows here and in Cinci and Columbus on all of our other tours, and I probably dive across this state more than any other, but this was our first jaunt through the state with U2. We had a really fun and diverse crew of volunteers tonight – people that have been in the peace corp or work for relief organizations, and people like Sheri, a long time AIDS advocate who told me in an email that she was ’60 something years young and wanted to be sure I would fit in with the U2 crowd!’ Meeting people like Sheri and so many of our volunteers is incredibly inspiring, and really makes one appreciate how many people there are in the world that choose to devote their lives to the noble goal of ‘making things better’. This amazing team helped us sign up over 1500 Clevelanders for the campaign. People are really nice here too – like every now and then you’ll work in a city and really notice how polite and nice everyone is; venue staff, fans, everyone was really cool.
Special thanks to U2 merch guy Joe who found our shipment of bands buried in some secret closet at the venue at about 12am as well. He came rolling them up to us, looking kinda apprehensive as we were loading out. ‘You didn’t sell out tonight did you?” I had been looking for them all day, literally tearing apart every nook and cranny backstage ("someone check Edge's dressing room, I bet they are hidden in there!"), and even though we had sold out, it was late at night and I was way excited to have bands for the next show on Monday. Joe is sort of the 'Horse Whisperer of Boxes' – he can sense them, feel them and find them anywhere for you…
Cleveland…seems like I spend an awful lot of time in Ohio – we have done shows here and in Cinci and Columbus on all of our other tours, and I probably dive across this state more than any other, but this was our first jaunt through the state with U2. We had a really fun and diverse crew of volunteers tonight – people that have been in the peace corp or work for relief organizations, and people like Sheri, a long time AIDS advocate who told me in an email that she was ’60 something years young and wanted to be sure I would fit in with the U2 crowd!’ Meeting people like Sheri and so many of our volunteers is incredibly inspiring, and really makes one appreciate how many people there are in the world that choose to devote their lives to the noble goal of ‘making things better’. This amazing team helped us sign up over 1500 Clevelanders for the campaign. People are really nice here too – like every now and then you’ll work in a city and really notice how polite and nice everyone is; venue staff, fans, everyone was really cool.
Special thanks to U2 merch guy Joe who found our shipment of bands buried in some secret closet at the venue at about 12am as well. He came rolling them up to us, looking kinda apprehensive as we were loading out. ‘You didn’t sell out tonight did you?” I had been looking for them all day, literally tearing apart every nook and cranny backstage ("someone check Edge's dressing room, I bet they are hidden in there!"), and even though we had sold out, it was late at night and I was way excited to have bands for the next show on Monday. Joe is sort of the 'Horse Whisperer of Boxes' – he can sense them, feel them and find them anywhere for you…
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