U2 Tour Dates - Now Official! — Page 43

Well, just goes to show you, you shouldn't believe what you read on the internet (like U2 doing a gig in Vegas!). I swear they said Anglican in that post. I'd bet...nope, scratch that. I'm not putting up money on this, but I'm 99% sure that's what they said.

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What other U2 concerts of yore? Surely you've read all of the Interference onces that I have!

Now that we're absolutely doing everything possible to avoid doing our work though, I can give you the down-low of my time at GM Place, and Danielle The Suitcase Lady.

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*tries to muster up energy to care about Bono's religion when really all he wants is to do sinful deeds on Tiff*

So we were waiting out there for like, an hour, at the time. And it was just me and a couple of other girls and one guy. (Mabel, you might know the girl - she posts as Isabelle_Gunns on Interference.) A few people, including some autograph hounds, were walking by, asking if we had seen U2 and if we knew what hotel they were staying at.

We told everyone that they were staying at the Pan Pacific to screw them over. Really, U2 was staying at the substantially lower-profile Opus Hotel:

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Anyway, so I was irritated because the girls I was waiting with said they had met Bono a couple of hours earlier as he was coming back from lunch, and we were sitting by the catering people, who has just burned U2's dinner. Like, plumes of black smoke, PAs running around, etc., etc., so we smelled like burned chicken....*eyes glaze...chiiiicken...* and we were thinking it had to be any minute now until the boys would be chauffeured for dinner.

So this girl walks up, totally preppy, looking like she's in her mid-20s. Cool looking, trendy bag, Mary Janes, bob haircut. Facially, kinda looks like Kristen Johnson from 3rd Rock. And she's all, "Are you guys waiting for U2? Have you seen them yet?" and I'm snarking all, "They've already come and gone." and she's all, "Do you know where they're--" "--The Pan Pacific." And we just sit there and glare at this casual non-fan who just wants to meet a rock star.

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So we sit there silently and her face falls, and she's all, "Oh. That sucks. Do you know if they'll be coming back out? Bono's expecting me." And we're like, "Yeah. He's expecting us too." And then she says, "I spoke to him on the phone about a month ago and told him I'd be in town when he's in rehearsal." (and this point one of the girls muttered ot me that this must be aonther one of those stalker fans) and the girl continues, "I'm Danielle. I don't know if you ever heard about me before...I'm the one who found the suitcase."

I sit here, blank-faced, going, "Greeeeaaaat." and EVERYONE ELSE around me goes totally apeSH*T.

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I was totally snarky. I had JUST missed them by two hours! AND one of the girls showed me this awesome photo of Bono she had! So everyone's like, "Wow! You found the suitcase? That was you? You're like a celebrity!" and I actually said, "You know they're mocking you, right?"

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*bites nails with anticipation*

And everyone's shooting her these rapid-fire questions, all, "Oh my god! So did you read what was inside? How did you find it? How did you get ahold of U2? Can you get us into GM Place?" and she's totally playing this cool, because, like, she's above the average U2 fangirl. she's the average U2 fangirl who found the suitcase. And Isabelle_Gunns actually asks if she can take a photo of her and everything. And I'm looking around, like, do I play along or do I ask straight up what the hell is going on? Because these crazies are all, "That's a U2 legend! Bono talked about it! Blah blah blah [fangirling]." And I'm going, Okay! I guess this is the part where I play along, because Isabelle just looks at me and blinks when I'm like, "Explain this suitcase thing later, will ya?"

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Oh my god...please tell me she photcopied EVERYTHING!

And that was heads up w/ the "tell me the real story"...too bad they were already on to you.

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So right at the Alli reference, Danielle apparently immediately knew what the suitcase must be, but she was in total disbelief. She lived in...either Portland (where the suitcase went missing) or Olympia, Washington, at the time. So she went to the woman's house and looked at all the documents herself, and pretty much took the suitcase from the woman. And then she went to some website to get ahold of Paul to get ahold of the boys. But it took over a year for her to get in touch with them! (So I guess she actually found the suitcase several years back, because she only knew them by the last time they went through Portland, which was a few years ago.)

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She said she made coloured photocopies of everything, and of course, she read through everything in there. Nothing too scandalous, just October lyrics, love letters and photos. But still.

Anyway, so apparently Bono made an appearance at some political thing in Portland, and she knew this was her chance to give him back the suitcase.

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