U2 Hits the Roxy
By Russ Allsup
When radio station KROQ announced that legendary rock band U2 would be playing the Roxy in Hollywood on May 28th, it instantly became THE ticket to get and the show of the year in the Los Angeles area.
This would be the smallest venue the band had played in 40 years, in the middle of a five night stand at the Forum. They were only giving away tickets on the radio for this show, in a venue which only held 500 people. The evening of the show came and I went down to the Roxy to see if I could get a miracle ticket or sneak in (yeah right- security and cops everywhere). While I was waiting around, the band came out to check out the crowd- right where I happened to be. It was like Beatlemania- people were going crazy.
Wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t have my good camera and only had my phone to take pictures with. They only came out for a few seconds, so I had only a quick chance for some pictures. Unfortunately they didn’t turn out that great. After they went into to Roxy , I hung out and listened for a bit just outside the venue, where I could hear them playing their classics like Sunday Bloody Sunday, Beautiful Day, and more. Show wasn’t meant to be for me but it was pretty cool getting to see them up close for a minute. You could tell from the sound of things and the mob surrounding the Roxy that U2 is still a band at the top of their game, almost 40 years later.
