U2 @ TCF III: The Aftermath

And then it was over. The lights came on and people poured into the streets. The new horns of our dilemma were these: should we eat first in a pub, restaurant, or hole-in-the-wall that would be packed, or should we mire ourselves in traffic and eat somewhere away from campus?

With my wife’s alumnus-knowledge, we went with the first option, headed toward Sally’s, a bar and grill we had seen in the afternoon. We crossed the street to escape the press of humanity and then realized why this side of the street was empty: “sidewalk closed ahead.” We pushed it as far as we could and then, sure enough, ended up backtracking. Up ahead, Sally’s was packed to overflowing.

“Should we just go home? My feet are killing me.”

Okay. Over to the parking garage we went, where cars are not moving. At all.

“Let’s go to Dinkytown,” the Gopher says. “It’s a few blocks walk.”

We walk up University Ave, down fraternity row. True to form, several of the large Victorian structures have music pumping and youth congregating on the sidewalks and front lawns.

“Hey, U2 fans. Wooo! U2 fans!”

A guy leans against the brick façade marking the house property, a girl straddles one of his legs. When something so exactly meets your facile expectations of it, is that cliché or stereotype? I mean, is it cliché to live up to the stereotype so exactly? Does that qualify as stereotype building? Or is that just living up to the definition?

“Let’s cross over one block,” my wife says.

After a few more blocks on 4^th Avenue where traffic is at a standstill, we begin to reach the businesses that make up the Dinkytown area. There’s Qdoba, but it’s set up as fast food and there’s a line. There’s a Chinese place but we had Chinese earlier. There’s a pasta bar that was recommended in a write up about where to get food before the U2 concert, but it looks closed. Down a side street, we see Wally’s, a hole in the wall kind of deli place. We walk over and my wife says, “But we had gyros today.”

“Let’s go to Blarneys,” I say. After all, it’s a Blarneys kind of night, right? Blarneys has to be Irish, there’s an outdoor seating area down the side of the building, and the sign says pub and grill. But I’m not reading the other signs very well. At the door, a big dude is checking IDs. Probably standard fare around the U of M, I think. There’s also music pumping. I’m sure we can get away from it, I think. Inside, everyone looks like they’re 19, slim, tight shirts, low necklines, beer in hand. We seek shelter from the eardrum swelling beats downstairs, going under a sign that says, “It’s a beautiful day,” but there it’s more of the same. The only food in sight is a plate of deep fried wings on the bar. This isn’t our crowd.

We cross the street and return to Wally’s. Inside, however, we realize that Wally’s is not just a gyro place. This is Wally’s Falafel and Hummus, and it’s Middle Easter cuisine. I have no idea what to order. I’ll probably try that waffle thing, I think to myself.

Too soon, it’s our turn. “We’ll have a sampler plate,” I say impetuously.

“I’ll have a shawarma plate,” my sister-in-law says.

When in doubt, imitate. “I’ll have a shawarma plate too,” I say.

Before I can wonder, what’s a shawarma, the lady asks me, “Chicken or Beef and Lamb?” That’s a no brainer. When in doubt, get what you’re less used to. “Lamb,” I say. Hold the beef, I think.

Only after we sit down and look more closely at the menu do we realize what we’re getting. The sampler plate includes hummus, baba ghanoush, falafel—looks like I’ll get my waffles after all—tabouli salad and bread. “Shawarma” is, quite simply, the meat you get in a gyro—shaved, barbecued beef and lamb. The plates include hummus—that’s hummus all around, I think, which has to be overkill—as well as salad and our choice of rice or fries.

When the food comes, only a few things don’t match up. The shawarma plates both have fries instead of rice. It turns out the pre-concert U2 crowd went crazy on the rice. There’s no tabouli salad on the sampler but we didn’t really know what we were looking for when it came so we never missed it. Also, it turns out Wally’s usually doesn’t serve food after eleven, so they’ve stayed open just to service the post-concert crowd. Finally, everything includes tahini sauce, which looks like ranch dressing but is much more flavorful—creamy, minty, garlicky.

The hummus looks like it’s just been whipped up. According to Wally’s menu, hummus is “a spread made of chickpeas, tahini (which is sesame paste and not to be confused with tahini sauce) lemon juice and garlic, topped with spiced chickpeas, paprika, olive oil, and served with bread.” It’s fresh, creamy, garlicky again and I can imagine nothing better after standing for four hours straight and wandering around frat parties and beer gardens. The baba ghanoush is also a spread or dip that goes on the flat bread. It’s mintier, tangier, and runnier than the hummus. The falafel look like hush puppies but inside it’s green with a mealy texture, again made from chickpeas and fava beans.

We stuff ourselves. It’s delicious to stumble off the street into another world of taste, to be filled with tastes you’re not altogether familiar with, to point at a menu and eat what you’re given and be filled. I’m dying to know from what country this food extends itself. I don’t ask, still don’t know how to ask. Later, my wife will see Lebanese mentioned somewhere on line. Love from Lebanon in the form of a shawarma plate. This is the wonder of the city, the reason my wife loved the U of M: diversity. No, difference.

Toward the end of the Vertigo Tour, Bono put on a bandana that said “coexist,” where the C was a symbol from Islam, the X was a Star of David and the T was a cross. Bono sang a line from “Father Abraham,” improvising a line that said “all sons of Abraham.” We went to see the concert film U23D in the theaters with some friends of ours, and during that section the staunch Republican friend I was with shook his head and muttered something under his breath. For some reason, coexistence seems a political threat to my friend.

Increasingly, however, I see the kingdom of God as a place of coexistence, a place where difference is preserved. For too long, the gospel itself has been a stamp upon cultures, a steam roller, a cookie cutter. I no longer think that a healthy vision of the kingdom is when “all the colors will bleed into one”; rather, in the kingdom, difference will be preserved—it will be the very crowns of the nations.

The lack of difference is also what makes me uncomfortable about the frat party and Blarneys. I’m not sure what’s distinctive there, what’s different. Rather, I get the sense that the stamp at both places was uniform and ubiquitous. If the future really does belong to crowds, as Don Delillo says, and if that means the stamp of sameness reigns in crowds, then I pray for more places like Wally’s Falafel and Hummus to coexist with an assortment of other places to eat that preserve difference.

By the time we head back to our car it’s past midnight. The buses are still packed with concert goers just now getting on. We’ll read that some concert goers had to wait up to two hours just to get on a bus. We’re headed back to Edgerton, will roll in at about 5 a.m., will pick up the kids at 8:30 and be at church by 9:30. It’s been a little crazy, but worth it: I can easily draw the lines from U2 to Wally’s Falafel and Hummus to the kingdom of God.