Bono U2, photo by Buzz Click Photography

Along with 65,000 of his closest friends, Spike attended Sunday night’s U2 show in Spartan Stadium. What many people didn’t know was that it wasn’t the legendary Irish rockers first visit to East Lansing. As the Lansing State Journal reports, the campus pub Dooley’s hosted the band way back in 1981:

George Scofes, now 82, booked the up-and-coming Irish band to play Dooley’s bar (now Harper’s Restaurant and Brewpub) in East Lansing in December 1981.

Another Dooley’s owner asked George to give U2’s debut album “Boy” a listen and decide if the band should be booked for the Irish pub.

George said he didn’t know much about music, but the band sounded good to him.

You can see the 1981 Dooley’s set right here.

Spike seems to have had great seats – heh. View his shots from the concert in his U2 Live slideshow. Click through to the photo for his observations of the show which begin:

On Sunday night, June 26, the biggest rock band in the world brought the massive rock show to Southeast Michigan. The stadium-sized spectacle of U2’s “360 Tour” may very well be the biggest show on Earth. It’s certainly the largest stage with its 167-foot-high, 29,000-square-foot, four-legged superstructure known as The Claw, which could be seen for miles, peeking out from atop the stadium walls. The stage that was too big to fit in any Detroit venue, proved to be too big for even Lansing as several concrete walls had to be knocked out to accommodate the stage once it arrived last week. (Read more)