Follow closely, I’ll take questions, errrrr comments, at the end…
Getting Started:
Fire up the computer and open your go-to internet browser. Begin to type the letter “y” into the address bar — http://www.youtube.com/ should automatically come up, because if you’re even the slightest bit of a YouTube junkie like me, then the browser so kindly stores the URL for you at your convenience.
YouTube Homepage
Search: “U2”
Sort By: Relevance – Upload Date
Filter: Uploaded Today
- Select and click on a video for your viewing pleasure.
- Watch video and in true gurm-like fashion, proceed to drooling all over keyboard. Please do not be alarmed — This is a totally normal side effect and natural response of the salivary glands when in a state of “face rocked off.”
- Get up off the floor, go find your face, and wipe the drool off of the keyboard. You might find yourself in a minor state of “face rocked off” aftershock, but no worries, young Jedi. This will eventually wear off — it just takes a while sometimes, i.e. until the next U2 concert or incredibly satisfying live music fix… for me, that is Sugarland’s Incredible Machine Tour in less than 2 weeks. I think I can make it. Maybe.
- Continue to relive the 360° magic by watching again OR click back to the search results on the previous page for more uploaded 360° video magic – ALERT: “matched third party content, however no action is required” — bite me corporate meat-heads.
- Scroll (assuming you clicked back) – It’s sort of like Choose Your Own Adventure for YouTube. Come on now, I know you remember that series. In fact, you probably still have a few of those 1980s/1990s literary pop-culture staples on your book shelf, right there next to those old Archie comics you’ve got collecting dust. And don’t look now, but I think that’s your old glow in the dark retainer lodged between Teen Beat and the Betty and Veronica Digest Magazine…
- Okay, carrying on! Click on another video – Poor audio quality and a loud obnoxious tone deaf guy singing in the background. Buzz KILL. Time to try again.
- Click back to search results.
- Click on another video – Blurry/Shaky visual quality because of the drunk girl dancing while filming AKA you might actually physically become ill if you do not stop watching ASAP.
- Stop watching ASAP.
- Click back to search results one more time and refresh if needed.
- Scroll some more.
- Click on yet another video – JACKPOT! Bono loud and clear — At this point, it is okay to sing along and spontaneously burst into what you consider dancing (others probably not so much). It’s alright, nobody is watching. Except for maybe that one creepy neighbor across the way. Or your cat. My cat always judges my dancing. I judge her laziness.
- Watch video.
- Duh, to the bullet above.
- Repeat this cycle for hours and hours, and then a couple more hours on top of that.
- Realization sets in that it is 3:30AM. Sleep is not always overrated, because some of us do indeed have lives. YouTube isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and neither is this blog.
- After some shuteye, begin your day and then resume reliving the 360° magic as more folks get their video clips uploaded to the Tube.
- During the 48-72 hour post-concert high, you find yourself awake once again at 3:30AM. However, this time, you end up blogging a comical, sarcastic, corny, and at times weirdly nostalgic tutorial of the embarrassing amounts of gurmish YouTubing that has taken place the past day or so.
- SIDEBAR: Please, for your own pride (in the name of love), if you did not follow the instructions above, and if it is approaching 4:00AM, for the love of God, GO TO BED!!! By now, you’ve got to be experiencing a deep fog or vertigo-like insomnia where streets lack names and city lights begin to blind… If you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, tomorrow will be a beautiful day, so come back, log on and try again.
- Signing off and goodnight
So, as you can see, the amount of post-concert YouTubing I’ve engaged in post-U2 pandemonium is enough to pretty much put any concert-high to shame. The purpose of this blog is to provide more than an enlightening recap of my über-gurmy social media endeavors, and it is more than just setting out to write a loony tutorial, offering an insight into my crazy world of concert-high habits and rituals. My writing has been on a bit of an unfortunate hiatus lately, and I’m grateful for the newfound inspiration that has gotten the wheels turning again. The 360° World Tour was one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced, in and out of the realms of live music. It became an event of epic proportions, but yet so much bigger than simply having a larger than life rock show come to this university to play in our football stadium. Bono and his guys turned a crowd of almost 68,000 people into a shared space of what felt like a small room of pure love and raw celebration. But most of all, it felt like a community united as one; just as communities should and are supposed to feel. This tour is a reminder of that foundation and carries with it so much success for reasons exceeding ticket sales, broken records, miles traveled, and oceans crossed.
The 360° World Tour is a spaceship that the band has landed in the backyards and in the hearts of communities; delivering a powerful and meaningful message that speaks to the human condition. The production has become the music just as much as the music has become the production. It is when these works of the imagination come together to join forces that a living, breathing creature is born that leaves people with an unforgettable experience long after the lights come back on and the last note silences into nothing more than a memory. U2 is one of the few acts out there that can effortlessly fill a stadium to capacity, but it takes a level of bravery and a level of fearless dreaming to reach that sort of impact and fame. That can all be rooted to their music and found in the lyrics that tell the stories of our lives and our experiences. They sugarcoat nothing and write songs that simply tell it how it is. Sometimes less is more, and anyone trying to build their career to fill stadium seats might consider taking note of that. At the end of the day, music should be something experienced – Not something told, nor something explained, but rather something we can go to and somewhere we can escape to among one another with our troubles left behind; knowing that in retrospect, all that really matters is this moment, right here, right now.
The 360° World Tour as experienced from our seats at Spartan Stadium:
An amateur handheld point and shoot digital camera recording will never do the real thing justice, but as you have already read from this blog, sometimes something is just so good, you’ll do anything to milk it for all it’s worth. Enjoy!
Maria Abdelnour 
Hello there. So I came here because I am not a professional youtuber like you and I needed some help finding recent videos of our sugars. I remembered reading this when your site was first getting started and knew I had to come back in order to find what I wanted to find. First off, thanks for the help 🙂 Secondly I ended up reading most of your entries again and you are a ridiculously amazing writer. I have no doubt you will be successful with all your endeavors that you get/have gotten into,
Chelsea