Preparing for U2 in Chicago

As I prepare to travel to Chicago for the US leg of U2’s world tour- I need to get my camera gear together. What all am I going to take? Here is a brief checklist of gear and explanation if needed.

• Canon 30D camera body- I want to upgrade in the next year. It is feeling limiting.
• Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens- my defacto concert lens. Short, nice range, and easy to pocket.
• Canon 17-40mm f/4 wide angle- debating sneaking this in Saturday night with the 50mm. Will have for Sunday night when I, hopefully, will have a photo pass
• Canon vertical battery grip- only for Sunday night when I, hopefully, have a photo pass
• Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS- only for Sunday night when I, hopefully, have a photo pass
• CF memory- 8GB, 2GB, 1GB. 11GB total. Should be enough for anything I get to shoot.
• Three separate camera batteries fully charged
• Battery camera charger
• Air rocket blower- getting rid of dust in case.
• LowePro slingshot 200AW camera bag. Will be able to hold all my lenses, has protection from rain, and makes carrying gear easier.
• Business cards, you never know. Really, you never know.
• Ear protection, I have nightmares about forgetting it. Even now as I type it I am trying to think where I put it. (yes, it is not camera gear, but when at a rock concert- it is a must even before camera gear)
• Canon 430EX II strobe- not sure when I will need this but I would rather have it than not. Will be visiting with family and a new baby so it might be needed for portraits.
• Cyber Sync set- see above

For Saturday night, I am going as joe-average fan and taking gear in that I believe will not get me tossed. At the Portland show of Vertigo, I had my 17-40mm lens on and was asked nicely by security to stop taking photos. Yeah, it looked bad now that I think of it, but I am much better about things now. I am going to try to shoot more fans reactions than I normally do. So lets see how that goes. From the recon of the stage setup, being on the front rail is pointless- the stage is about 8-9 feet high. I do know that the inner stage area holds about 2000-3000 people. So I don’t feel the need to get there at 8am. But I would like to be in there one time.
I want to shoot fans lined up if I can convince my family to get there that early. Hopefully I can get closer to the outer ring for when the band does wander around. I don’t want to be under the mobile bridges. That seems a little silly, and way to high to shoot.

I am borrowing a new HP Mini netbook computer for the trip. Thankfully it has a 160GB hardrive in it. I have tested to make sure I can dump photos to it to have all 11GB of CF ready to go. No editing software right now, but with the small screen I doubt it would be very effective. On the other hand, the flight home could be spent editing.