"Edge Says, 'It's Better'"

On September 23, 2005, we saw U2’s Minneapolis stop on their Vertigo Tour.


I could go on and on about the exactly how much ass they kicked that night (Jon Bream of the Strib wrote that they “blew the roof off the Target Center”), but lately I’ve been thinking about a particularly poignant moment towards the beginning of the show.

My memory is aided by the fact that M was smart enough to call home during the show to memorialize it in a voice-mail (which we still have), and lucky enough that he did it at just the right time, so we have a recording of the lovely little episode I’m about to describe.

They’d opened with the beautiful “City of Blinding Light,” played another song or two, and then The Edge began the opening strains of “Miracle Drug” as Bono stepped forward to speak to the crowd. He thanked everyone for coming and spoke briefly about what he liked about Minnesota, citing first the Mississippi River and then commending the work being done by the physicians and researchers at the Mayo Clinic down in Rochester.

All the while, The Edge continues the soft melody of the “Miracle Drug” intro.

Then things get a little odd. Bono says:

So we took The Edge down to the Mayo the other day. All the doctors wanted to get a look at him because you know, Edge is from the future.

M and I looked at each other. Edge keeps playing and Bono continues:

And all the doctors and all the nurses gather around him and want to know everything. They say, “Edge, what’s it like in the future?” And Edge says…

Huge pause.

Edge says…

Pause.

… “It’s better.”

The crowd went freaking nuts. And that’s when I started crying.

In some ways, 2005 seems like a million years ago, but since November, I’ve been wondering whether maybe -- maybe! -- Edge is from the future, and he’d had a glimpse of Tuesday.

Photos of Edge and U2 in Minneapolis, Sept. 23, 2005: J.Drury via U2gigs.com