Students from as far away as Clemson flocked to see U2 in its first performance in Raleigh Saturday night at Carter-Finley Stadium.  

Many took advantage of $30 tickets in the upper stands or took their places on the floor in the “Red Zone,” where they were treated to band members strumming instruments right above their heads as the 360 tour stage rotated above them.

The iconic band from Dublin drew devoted fans who grew up with U2 and those who just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Muriel Webb, a senior in business administration, said she has been a U2 fan almost all her life.

“It was the best concert I’ve been to,” Webb said. “It was worth the money. I would do it again a thousand times.”

Zach Howard, a senior in materials engineering, said the stage design was worth the hefty price of admission.

“It was disappointing that there wasn’t a student ticket option, but I thought it was great,” Howard said. “The stage was amazing. It was quite a feat from an engineering standpoint.

Chelsea Robertson and Nathan Maher, both seniors in mechanical engineering, scalped their tickets in the parking lot right before the show started and paid slightly more than face value, which Maher said was “reasonable.”

Both went for the concert’s opening band, British trio Muse.

“We went for Muse and U2 was just kind of a bonus,” Maher said.

Robertson said she was pleasantly surprised to hear Muse live.

“They definitely lived up to my expectations,” Robertson said. “The music on their CDs is always really complicated and I was worried they wouldn’t be able to keep up with it live, but they did a good job.”

Howard said he was far more interested in the internationally-acclaimed headliners. He enjoyed the music he grew up listening to and took in the message the group conveyed.

“[Bono] wrote a story one time. He recognized that he had so much power at these things, and he could either use it or not,” Howard said. “It’s pretty cool to see somebody who has that much power and knows what he wants to do with it – he wants to do good things with it.”

The tickets were pricey, but with food and merchandise factored into the equation, experiencing U2 turned out to be an expensive night out for students. Tour-specific T-shirts and sweatshirts sold for $40 and $75, respectively. Cheaper posters sold out at several stands before either set started.

Kelly Hughes, a freshman in mathematics education, said a $40 T-shirt would not fit into her personal budget. She took a look at prices and walked away.

“For a T-shirt? No way,” Hughes said. “I was thinking about it when I came into the show, because it’s U2 and I wanted something to remember it by, but I have a ticket stub and that’s good enough.”

Hughes went to a concert featuring The Fray recently and spent $25 on a T-shirt, and said that was her limit.

Stephanie Lyons, a UNC-Wilmington student who offered her services to the company distributing the merchandise for the night, said the prices did not deter all students.

“It’s been a pretty good mix,” “There are a lot of older people, but there are a lot of students as well. The T-shirts have been our biggest seller.”

Webb and Howard both shelled out the money needed for U2 T-shirts made from recycled materials.  

“You can always earn more money, but you can’t do this every day,” Howard said.