Okay then! I'm warning you, it's a long and incredible story.
Before I get caught up in it, let me just say that U2 is my favorite band as well, and Sunday, Bloody Sunday is also my favorite song of theirs! We have good taste in music! :-)
Okay, so it all started because I used to post on "Zootopia," the forum for U2's official website. I was on there pretty frequently in 2001, because I was on a U2 high, what with going to shows from the Elevation tour, etc, and got to know some of the people on there pretty well. So one day in late October, this woman named Zabie jokingly posted a message that wouldn't it be really cool if we could all meet up in Dublin that summer to stay at The Clarence Hotel, which Bono and the Edge co-own, and then go and visit all the old U2 haunts in the city, like places they've filmed videos, etc.
A lot of people replied, agreeing that that would be really fun, etc. So I emailed Zabie and told her that I thought it sounded like a really good idea, and that if she wanted to seriously do it I'd help her organize the trip for everyone, since it would be a really big task for only one person.
We started working together, meeting on AIM or the phone at least 2 or 3 times a week for trip meetings, which was difficult since I was in Maryland and she was in Montreal. The trip started gaining notice, and was getting bigger and bigger. I came up with the idea to base the trip on a tour, since U2 had just finished up the Elevation Tour, and that's how the Zootopian Dublin Tour 2002 began.
Soon we were having t-shirts made by another Zootopian, and selling them for a U2-sponsored charity, Children of Chernobyl, and about fifty people were planning on coming. I researched and compiled a list of 50 U2 tourist places in Dublin into a tourbook, and Zabie made up these cool tags that looked like backstage passes with each person's screenname on it so that we would know who was who when we all met up. Zabie and I got in contact with U2's management and let them know that a huge load of U2 fans were coming, as well as the Clarence and U2.com's webmaster. I won't go into all the detail of the work, because it was insane, and I'm sure you get the general idea. We continued planning for a little less than a year, because the trip was scheduled for the end of July 2002.
Anyway, so it all came together and we went and were having a fantastic time. We didn't count on the band being in town, because at the time I believe the Edge had just gotten married in France. I think it was just a few days before we left that Zabie and I found out that they would be recording some new material at Hanover Studios while we were there.
We went to the studios the first day we were there, which was a day before the actual convention was supposed to start, but didn't see anything.
The next day was our first night's stay at The Clarence (it's really expensive, so we didn't want to stay there for the whole week, though it was so nice we ended up staying 6 days anyway! LOL), and while the hotel manager was greeting us in the lobby (we had spoken with her on the phone a lot about the group coming), I see The Edge walk in and stand watching us while he waited for the elevator. Meanwhile, I'm trying to remain calm, but probably did a crap job of it. So he goes in the elevator, and I practically die b/c none of the girls with me saw him because they were listening to the stupid manager!
So I'm trying to remember how to breath, and then in walks Bono! He heads off into an adjacent room. The day before, Zabie had teasingly kept saying "Look, Rain! There's Larry!" (since he's my favorite), so when I told her I had just seen Bono (her favorite) she thought I was only joking at first, LOL.
So we were beyond excited at this point. But we couldn't do much, because we had scheduled to meet the other Zootopians at Docker's Pub that afternoon. We told them all that we'd seen Bono and Edge, and so after meeting everyone and drinking a couple pints, I decided to show some of the people who had just arrived where Hanover Studios were while Zabie went back to the hotel.
Zootopian Dublin Tour 2002 :-)
Before I get caught up in it, let me just say that U2 is my favorite band as well, and Sunday, Bloody Sunday is also my favorite song of theirs! We have good taste in music! :-)
Okay, so it all started because I used to post on "Zootopia," the forum for U2's official website. I was on there pretty frequently in 2001, because I was on a U2 high, what with going to shows from the Elevation tour, etc, and got to know some of the people on there pretty well. So one day in late October, this woman named Zabie jokingly posted a message that wouldn't it be really cool if we could all meet up in Dublin that summer to stay at The Clarence Hotel, which Bono and the Edge co-own, and then go and visit all the old U2 haunts in the city, like places they've filmed videos, etc.
A lot of people replied, agreeing that that would be really fun, etc. So I emailed Zabie and told her that I thought it sounded like a really good idea, and that if she wanted to seriously do it I'd help her organize the trip for everyone, since it would be a really big task for only one person.
We started working together, meeting on AIM or the phone at least 2 or 3 times a week for trip meetings, which was difficult since I was in Maryland and she was in Montreal. The trip started gaining notice, and was getting bigger and bigger. I came up with the idea to base the trip on a tour, since U2 had just finished up the Elevation Tour, and that's how the Zootopian Dublin Tour 2002 began.
Soon we were having t-shirts made by another Zootopian, and selling them for a U2-sponsored charity, Children of Chernobyl, and about fifty people were planning on coming. I researched and compiled a list of 50 U2 tourist places in Dublin into a tourbook, and Zabie made up these cool tags that looked like backstage passes with each person's screenname on it so that we would know who was who when we all met up. Zabie and I got in contact with U2's management and let them know that a huge load of U2 fans were coming, as well as the Clarence and U2.com's webmaster. I won't go into all the detail of the work, because it was insane, and I'm sure you get the general idea. We continued planning for a little less than a year, because the trip was scheduled for the end of July 2002.
Anyway, so it all came together and we went and were having a fantastic time. We didn't count on the band being in town, because at the time I believe the Edge had just gotten married in France. I think it was just a few days before we left that Zabie and I found out that they would be recording some new material at Hanover Studios while we were there.
We went to the studios the first day we were there, which was a day before the actual convention was supposed to start, but didn't see anything.
The next day was our first night's stay at The Clarence (it's really expensive, so we didn't want to stay there for the whole week, though it was so nice we ended up staying 6 days anyway! LOL), and while the hotel manager was greeting us in the lobby (we had spoken with her on the phone a lot about the group coming), I see The Edge walk in and stand watching us while he waited for the elevator. Meanwhile, I'm trying to remain calm, but probably did a crap job of it. So he goes in the elevator, and I practically die b/c none of the girls with me saw him because they were listening to the stupid manager!
So I'm trying to remember how to breath, and then in walks Bono! He heads off into an adjacent room. The day before, Zabie had teasingly kept saying "Look, Rain! There's Larry!" (since he's my favorite), so when I told her I had just seen Bono (her favorite) she thought I was only joking at first, LOL.
So we were beyond excited at this point. But we couldn't do much, because we had scheduled to meet the other Zootopians at Docker's Pub that afternoon. We told them all that we'd seen Bono and Edge, and so after meeting everyone and drinking a couple pints, I decided to show some of the people who had just arrived where Hanover Studios were while Zabie went back to the hotel.