The personal website of Grace and Jason Rhee

U2 – Joshua Tree Tour in San Diego with Childhood BFFs

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I tried to get Chris to join us for U2 at Levi’s Stadium, but the timing just wasn’t right. After U2 added a San Diego stop to their Joshua Tree tour, Chris returned the favor and invited me to come down. Grace is in Hong Kong with her family and my parents are visiting to help out, so I didn’t decide to go down until this week.

About an hour after landing, Chris had me in a wet suit, crashing through the surf in a sea kayak, which was reminiscent of Castaway. I didn’t curse him the entire time, but I was wondering why he couldn’t just take me to brunch? Honestly, we had a great time and although I requested an encounter with a sea otter, the next best thing were sea lion cubs. The highlight was riding in on the surf to La Jolla beach in our kayak without disaster.

We stopped at Chris’s house to say hi to Laura and regroup. After Cooper and Stella came home from school, we went to Cooper’s football game before heading over to Steve and Vickie’s new house near University of San Diego. Scott was late getting back from SF, but arrived at Steve’s just after we did. We didn’t make it a priority to see the opening act (Beck) and had dinner before the show instead.

I’m just going to come out and say that the show at Levi’s wasn’t my favorite. It was only the 3rd stop on the tour and it seems they were still working out some glitches. They completely shit the bed on “With or Without You,” I didn’t like the arrangement of “Running to Stand Still” (my favorite JT track), and some of the other songs just seemed off. This San Diego show was the last US stop, so by now they had plenty of practice.

Everything about the show was better. Though technically it was the first day of autumn, it still felt like a warm summer night. The electricity of the crowd was palpable from the very beginning. There were more chills even though I knew exactly what to expect. They completely worked out “With Or Without You,” “Running to Stand Still” was closer to the album version, the encore set was better, and they finished the evening with “One” instead of a slow song that nobody had ever heard.

Most importantly, I was with my BFFs. Chris and Steve were with me at the Silverdome show. It wasn’t until last night that I found out that Scott wasn’t with us that night because he had too much integrity to call in sick to Dunham’s. Though looking back it’s a big regret for him (and us), it’s not surprising at all. None of these guys have changed a bit.

We packed a lot in during my 27 hours in San Diego. Thanks to Chris for hosting me for the show and at his home. Also, thanks to my parents for getting the kids to two soccer games and swim while I was gone.