U2 Concert

Last Christmas Heather bought me (us) two tickets to go see U2 at the Oakland Coliseum, (now officially called Overstock.com Coliseum, which is ironic because it never sells out). Lenny Kravitz was opening band and he was already rocking hard by the time we got there. On the outfield there was a giant circle stage with a circular 360 walkway around it, a couple of bridges and to top it off a 167ft spider structure on top of that with a giant 360 degree monitor:

Our seats were in the nosebleeds, but directly center of the stage so the view was amazing. Heres a video of when the band enters the stage:

Pretty amazing. The most magical moment was when Bono was talking about what a man would see from 200 miles up, no borders, cities blending into ribbons of light.. He then cues to this man, which is Mark Kelly Giffords which says Hello Oakland! Floating in The International Space Station he introduces the next song: A Beautiful Day. This wasn't the only city given the outer space treatment, you can see a link of Giffords intro video here.

We had a great time at the concert, however on our way home we got trapped in the crowd trying to get on the BART which is conveniently located just a short walk away from the stadium but when thousands try to cross a walk bridge it can get pretty tight. We made it though and could have slept 5 hours more this morning.

Amon Tobin

I went to see Amon Tobin Friday night, this is one of the videos and pictures I took. I have listened to his music for many years and was very excited to see him playing in San Francisco.
It was a pretty good concert, but he only played one song I had heard before which was a bummer. I didn't mind the lack of familiarity though since he is very good at using neat sounds, rhythms and a variety of textures. Only a few times did he digress so far into experimental trance/techno that I found myself yawing.

Most of his stuff is sick samplings that he mixes together: Hip-Hop, Electronic, Jazz, Classical and weird sounds from the Foley room.

iTunes says: "He excels at creating an atmosphere of approaching menace, with short passages of dramatic samples and anxious strings paving way for another array of pummeling beats."