Well, U2 did not disappoint last night at Giants Stadium. They’re the gold standard in live music today, thanks to a deep catalogue of memorable (and mostly timeless) songs, expert stagecraft, and a genuine affection for each other that adds to the uplifting vibe of the music. A birthday shout-out to Garden State Godfather Bruce Springsteen–and ensuing cover of “She’s the One” (cheesily retooled to be “He’s the One”)–segued nicely into the Bo Diddley riff of “Desire” and set the show apart from others on U2’s tour.

I dreaded the drive, but we left Hawthorne at 7, flew over over the Tap-Z, navigated some heretofore unknown Jersey byways (we were excited to pass Satin Dolls, a.k.a., the Bada Bing, in Lodi), and cruised into the parking lot by 8. All the while we had a nice soundtrack of U2 B sides and live tracks on radio station 101.9. We were directed to lot area 9Y out past the race track, which was a hike to the stadium if you didn’t opt for the shuttle bus. The Missus, shod in her East Village hipster kicks, didn’t love the 15-minute walk, but our placement there contributed to us zipping out at the end of the show with nary a hint of congestion.

As we pulled out of the lot, we did see the shiny silver new train heading toward Secaucus Junction.

Unfortunately, reviews of the rail service don’t appear to be all that favorable. I saw this on this cool new social networking thing called “Facebook.”

-NJ Transit SUX!

-NJ sucks period…except for the Giants stadium

-How long did you wait to get on train? I waited almost an hour & a half. I didn’t have a problem @ NY Penn b/c I brought my train tickets in advance & just got on any train going to Secaucus

-It actually worked great for me getting to and from the show last night…but then again I am a ninja…[Editor’s Note: He’s not really a ninja.]

-Steve did you take the train? It was a nightmare and I’m not doing it again when they return in July. Next time I’m taking my car. 

-I saw it on the news. They said it was because there were not enough ticket machines, but they had plenty of trains. 

-I did take the train but bought my round trip beforehand so just jumped on board -I did the same - bought my tickets for last night & tonight in advance. 

-what were you thinking? You knew you were gonna return right? That’s the trick, have a return tix

-sadly this is why everyone leaves giants games early. to avoid these headaches.

-Maurice I bought a round trip it still took me 2 hours to get home. It got scary at one point cos the crowd pushed thru the barricades and people were getting crammed. The problems were not just the ticket machines — NJ Transit workers had NO information and when they gave directions it was incorrect (thats lucky enough if you found a worker). The trains were going 1 mile per hour and they were jam packed. Not safe in the least bit.

——–

With that in mind, I’m glad me and the Missus, in the spirit of Springsteen, took our chrome wheeled, fuel injected car through the swamps of Jersey instead of opting for public transportation.

As I unlocked my bike from the Hawthorne bike rack at precisely 6:30 last night, I heard the bells from that lonely 1800s church on the other side of the tracks. The bells were chiming that familiar church-y DUHHH duhhh DIIIHHH duhh/DUHHH duhhh DIIIHHH duhh–better known as the tail end of that delicious guitar solo by The Edge in “11 O’Clock Tick Tock.”

Yes, U2 is on the brain, because U2 is in town, or at least somewhere in the swamps of Jersey just west of town. And the Sisters TJ were good enough to spring for tickets for me and The Missus for my birthday.

How to get to the show? G. Francis mentioned venturing out via rail–that train to the Secaucus station, as Jersey Jim tried for the Dead recently, then light rail (or is it a shuttle bus?) to the Meadowlands. Surely G. Francis wants no part of automobile travel after sitting in Foxboro/Gillette Stadium parking lot standstill morass for two hours after U2’s Boston-area show a few nights ago.

I was tempted to try the same, but it appears I’ll schlep back to Hawthorne, where the Missus will be waiting in our four-wheeled, four-doored, four-cylindered vehicle which, last time I checked, had four U2 CDs in the center console.

This has gotten me thinking about the various ways I got to U2 shows since I first saw them on Long Island 25 24 years ago.

Indeed, it was 1984 [Editor’s Note: It was actually 1985. The Missus pulled out her old Unforgettable Fire concert shirt (gray) and found the date: April 3, 1985, Hempstead, NY. I stand corrected.], and I left for the show the moment a pre-season baseball game against St. Anthony’s had ended. It was early spring, way too cold for a baseball game, and Sweet Pete in centerfield took a fateful step forward on a frozen rope off some overfed Catholic boy’s bat that ended up going for a homer.

I did a quick change at home (you couldn’t go to a U2 show in a JV baseball uniform!), then got picked up by my neighbor–an upperclassman with a car and a role as bassist in a local new wave band.

We drove to Nassau Coliseum, found our seats, and I remember smelling pot to a degree I’d never smelled it before. The tour was “Unforgettable Fire” and U2 opened up with, yes, “11 O’Clock Tick Tock,” and I may never forget it.

I later ended up writing about that hard-to-shake pot smell in our high school literary journal, which resulted in the journal’s editor, an English teacher with a Greek name that sounded like “Lemonade”, having a serious sit-down with me over the dangers of drugs.

Admittedly, my memory is as foggy as the air in the Coliseum that night.  But I believe my next U2 show was September 1987 in Boston. I was with Slick Rick (not to be confused with Sweet Pete) and we had the brilliant idea of hitchhiking from Kingston, RI to Boston, scoring tickets to the old Boston Garden, then sleeping outside somewhere, like Boston Common.

We composed a large sign with an upraised thumb on it, stapled it to a stick, and hit Rte. 138. Moments later, a girl from my hall pulled over and said we could ride in the back of her pickup as she headed home to the Boston suburbs. “Score!” we said, as was the parlance at the time. Or maybe we said “We’re golden!”

Well, the show was great (the tour was Joshua Tree), even if the Boston Garden was too awful to be charming. We sat behind a large post and there were birds flying around in the rafters.  

Boston was in a downpour and we couldn’t sleep outside, so we made our way to Boston College via the T. Upon arriving around midnight or so, we walked around campus and asked dozens of people if they knew our high school friend–a freshman who’d been been at BC for about two weeks, and represented the difference between sleeping on a train station floor or a dorm floor.

Nobody knew our friend, until we desperately threw out his nickname: Fozzie Bear.

“Foz!” said a student in reply. “I’m going to his room now! He’s having a party! You know Foz?”

Ah, the charmed life of youth. Fozzie was spinning drinks from behind his homemade bar. When we walked in, he was so shocked he fell forward and trashed his bar to splinters. We had a place to drink and, more importantly, crash.

Then came the post-college city years, and I don’t remember much of the details. Quick cab or N/R train hops up to the Garden (Achtung Baby? All That You Can’t Leave Behind?), an occasional schlep out to the Meadowlands by car (Zooropa?), and one show that had a number of Mini cars (the European pre-cursor to the Mini-Cooper) affixed to the ceiling.

The best of the city shows was the most impromptu one–a hush-hush U2 press conference/performance at none other than the K-Mart on Astor Place, which I walked to and, if memory serves, was one of a few hundred people to witness. (Look it up, it really happened.) The album was Pop, the tour was PopMart and the year was 1997; cellphones were not that common and a hush-hush event in the middle of New York City could actually stay relatively hush-hush.

A few months later, me, Sweet Pete (recovered from the centerfield incident), G. Francis, Phat Tommy and Joey from 5D drove down to Philly for a show at Franklin Field. U2 was in a weird place then — the album didn’t sell, people didn’t get the ironic concept, and they were playing to a lot of empty seats. When we got to Philly with time to spare, we did what you do in Philly (no, not boo Donovan McNabb and punch the guy on your left). We got cheesesteaks at one of the famous places (Pat’s? A Wiz without? Wiz or Without You?), got a Guinness at a jammed Irish pub in the city center, then walked over to the ancient stadium at UPenn.

There was a giant toothpick and lit up olive onstage. Entire sections were bereft of mankind. The old-style urinal was equipped for about eight men.

Then I believe I got old, got lazy, swore off stadium shows, and stopped seeing U2.

Until tonight.

I sampled the new Secaucus Exchange PARK & RIDE this morning. I had to drop our car off for servicing in Paramus and had a loaner, so I opted for Secaucus instead of driving and parking in the cluttered city.

When previous service trip/loaner car trips were required, I would drive the loaner into Hoboken, and park in a day lot. This was expensive, and featured at least some traffic. But it was very direct, and kept me from getting lost, circling around Bayonne or Kearny.

But my Trainjotting curiosity and earlier positive exposure to the “Frank R. Lautenberg Secaucus Junction Station” (FraLautSecJunSta, for short!) steered me and my loaner to the newly opened PARK & RIDE.

No trouble getting to the NJ Turnpike, or finding exit 15X for the Secaucus Junction. It was worth paying the Turnpike toll, just to drive the giant elevated oxbow that extends east of the station, and back to nearly the same spot.

I drove to the west side of the station, and found the PARK AND RIDE lot by help of a mini-blimp advertised the $10 a day parking. At 7:25 a.m., the lot was still pretty empty, about 100 cars. I walked about 200 yards to the escalators and slid my monthly pass into the turnstile. My card slid out, the passports opened. “Have a Nice Ride”, I think the display said.

I wasn’t quite sure where to go next, in the brightly lit lobby, but the station announcements directed me to “Track A” for the train to NY Penn Station at 7:31. There were about 10 to 15 people in the expansive station. I arrived on the platform just ahead of an entire trainload of commuters, transferred from some unseen train and track.

A double-decker quietly slid into Track B, and we all loaded on. I even got a window seat, albeit on the lower level.

If I get our serviced car back tonight, I’ll be back my usual full train commute tomorrow. But from now on, when I have the loaner, it’s farewell Hoboken, and hello FraLautSecJuncSta!

- jersey jim

JerseyJim tests the Secaucus train/shuttle bus en route to see some septuagenarian rockers in Jersey.

Purely for the sake of research, and my growing curiosity about New Jersey Transit, I ventured to The Izod Center of The Meadowlands last week to explore the ease of access from midtown New York to the swamps of Jersey.

It just so happens that The Dead was playing two nights at The Izod Center, formerly Brendan Byrne Arena and Continental Airlines Arena.

This was also a bit of a journey of personal nostalgia, returning to the venue of my first Grateful Dead show on 4/16/83. So when we heard about the shows, my brothers and friends figured it would be a fun outing. Hear some good music, have some laughs, see some friends.

Concert tickets procured ahead of time, as the plan fell into place, my wife and brother would carpool from NJ. I was coming from Manhattan after work — I assumed I would simply catch a shuttle bus from the Port Authority, as I’ve done in years past for hockey games, concerts, and football games at the Giants stadium. For this trip, I’m glad I did some checking ahead of time!

Nowadays, buses from the Port Authority only run for Giants and Jets games. For other events, NJT runs shuttle buses from Secaucus Junction to the Meadowlands.

The $10 round-trip train ride and ten minute shuttle bus ride went off without a hitch. My train arrived at Secaucus Junction speedily [Editor’s Note: What, no Terrapin Station joke here?], and I detrained to wander the empty sprawling complex that is the Frank R. Lautenberg Secaucus Junction Station. The clean and window-filled station is state-of the art–or art-of-the-state, considering the $450 million price tag for construction, but a welcome sight, compared with the commuter warren known as NY Penn Station. 

Ticketing for the train and shuttle bus was similar to the DC Metro – my train ticket served as my pass through exit turnstiles, and would be reusable for the round trip.

Hoping for connection signs to The Meadowlands, I soon found my way, a few other tie-dyed folks heading out to parking lot, where a shuttle bus was loading up.

The drive through downtown Secaucus was not very trafficky for rush hour, and the (non-opera singing) driver was quite pleasant, and even offered to play any CD that us riders wanted to play for the short journey. (Nobody had one…probably worried about Arena security at the gates).

We arrived about 15 minutes after our departure from Secaucus Junction.

Dropped off on the north side of the arena,  I soon found my wife and friends. The return shuttles were scheduled to leave promptly 30 minutes after the concert ended. I’m hoping my all fellow riders caught their after-concert connection back to Secaucus. If they missed the ride to NYC, they could have easily found a ride to Philly for
next leg of the Dead tour.

- jerseyjim