Bono Jovi

In 1987, I was a sophomore at UCLA. One of my friends, Dan, was obsessed with U2. So along with two other friends, we travelled to Las Vegas to see them in concert, for the Joshua Tree tour.

After the show, Dan changed into the concert t-shirt he had just purchased, and we went downtown to gamble. Downtown was a lot different in those days, it was where you went to just gamble, with none of the frills found on the strip.

You could still play $1 craps downtown, which is what we were after. We were slowly walking down Freemont Street, when we were halted by someone who threw their arm out indicating for us to stop moving. We were annoyed at the small camera crew, who was filming something, and didn’t want us in the shot. We waited for just a second, when a familiar face looked at us, and bowed down at Dan when they noticed his concert t-shirt. It was Bono! They were filming the video to ‘Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.’ Dan was in shock, we all were.

Nobody else seemed to recognize the band, Bono wasn’t quite the star yet. For the next several hours we hung out with the band, along with a slowly increasing group of people that recognized them, never exceeding 30. The filming of the video was very sporadic, very random, there was no script, and a lot of arguing and discussion about the shots. I remember a shot with Adam falling over the hood of a cab, scorned by the director, but making it into the final cut.

For some reason my friends and I didn’t make the video anywhere, save John with a split second cameo in one scene, raising his fist. It must have been purposeful, we were in every shot, we should have dominated the video!

We hung out all night with the band, probably until 5 am or so. The next morning I called home (using a payphone, in the days before cellular), to tell my family. I spoke with my mom, and told her about the night spend with U2. The band didn’t sound familiar to her, they weren’t mom-famous at that point.

I mentioned the name of their lead singer, which finally rang a bell with her. “Of course, I know him! Bono Jovi!” she exclaimed.