I visited my sister during her sophomore year at Vanderbilt University. In retrospect, I’m sure my parents thought this was a good idea, sending their 16-year-old daughter to a school of Vanderbilt’s prestige for a long weekend so that she could learn about college life from her smart sister. I mean, what could possibly go wrong sending a wild teenager off to visit her sister, who was also secretly equally wild, for an unchaperoned weekend surrounded by gorgeous young co-eds and booze?

It was a Saturday afternoon, and we were sitting in my sister’s dorm, with all the chaos of college kids getting ready for a night out around us: beer and wine, I’m sure there was a cigarette or two, everyone giggling and chatting. I was sitting on my sister’s bed when I heard a sound.

A song came on the radio. I heard this repetitive riff, it sounded exciting, it sounded impatient, it sounded kind, it sounded like a blessing, it sounded like the start of an adventure, it sounded like it was about to roll me in the waves and throw me on the shore. It sounded like someone running hard, with their lungs bursting and hair flying. This song sounded like a soaring invitation.

There is a scene in the original 1931 movie Frankenstein where Frankenstein’s monster, who is misunderstood as evil but is really just very frightened by the world, hears a violin. The monster’s patched together, disjointed, scarred, terrifying self goes slack, he staggers towards the music, and his huge towering body lurches towards the tiny blind hermit who is playing the violin. Frankenstein clutches his ears, is filled with wonder and is soothed. He is no longer a monster because he is no longer alone. Metaphorically, the blind hermit ‘sees’ only a person who loves his music, and Frankenstein is accepted and receives compassion for the scars the hermit feels on his body.

I now know the sound I heard that day amidst the syrupy-sweet southern girl chaos was U2’s The Edge on guitar. That riff is the lead into “One Tree Hill” from their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. As the girls around me faded away, my focus narrowed to just that song. It was so different and epic and sweeping, and the singer sounded like he was tortured and exultant at the same time. I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t want it to stop.

The Joshua Tree and “One Tree Hill” are my Frankenstein’s monster moment. I wanted to fall to the ground, consume this sound with my brain and clutch my ears to hold it in. It was a holy moment in what I now call my own personal Church of Rock, a place in my head where I store songs that strike me in this way.

Many years later, early in my career at KFOG, I dated a handsome drummer for a U2 cover band, Zoo Station. (He was also the graphic artist at the station, oops.) In 2008, long after we had stopped dating, I hired his band to play a concert at Squaw Valley for a St. Patrick’s Day event at the bottom of the mountain. Three feet of snow fell the night before, the sun was bouncing off the blinding white slopes, and 8,000 people descended upon Squaw to hear a cover band (granted an exceptional one) play music from an album that was by that time 21 years old. The age range of the crowd was very very young to 65 plus.

The crowd kept begging for more encores, 125 kegs of beer were sold, girls flirted with the band members. You would have thought that Bono himself was there for all the cheers, adulation and free beers being passed up to the band. The staff at Squaw, notoriously hard to please, told me it was one of the most successful events of the season.

I have never been to a U2 concert. I have had tickets many times, but there always came that late-in-the-day phone call from a beloved client who would give anything to go. The last time I had tickets, one of my favorite clients was hoping his 12-year-old daughter’s first concert could be U2. Who could possibly say no to that?

It is now 2017. U2 will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree at Levi’s Stadium on Wednesday, May 17th. Forbes reported that 1.1 million tickets were sold in 24 hours for this tour. Their ‘back of the napkin’ math estimates that the tour will pull in well over $100 million and will most likely be the top-grossing concert of 2017. With dates selling out immediately in Rome, Paris, Berlin, and of course Dublin, Live Nation is scrambling to add dates.

These numbers let me know I’m not alone in my response to this album. This is the magic of powerful music, poetry, and hope. The Joshua Tree is like our own personal flux capacitor, defying generations, time and space, still relevant with its message of humanity, oneness, awareness, and reverence.

Karmically, it is a client, the team from Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey, who is providing me two tickets to see U2, and this time I’m going…I’m going. And if I’ve given this concert religious overtones, so be it. If The Joshua Tree has made us all feel less monstrous, more human, inclusive and kind over the last 30 years…then I am going to pray.

And in the world a heart of darkness
A fire zone
Where poets speak their heart
Then bleed for it
Jara sang, his song a weapon
In the hands of love
You know his blood still cries
From the ground