Effie Phillips from the U2 concert photo

Q&A: Effie Phillips from the U2 concert photo

Since the archive series Let’s Go to the Morgue! began last year, I’ve been tracking down subjects from old San Francisco Chronicle photos to catch up and deconstruct their moments in history. I haven’t been disappointed by a Let’s Go to the Q&A yet.
Effie Phillips continues the streak. She appeared in last week’s U2 retrospective from the Chronicle photo morgue, third from the left in the above photo. Captured by Chronicle photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice during a Nov. 14, 1987 concert at the Oakland Coliseum, those kids look like they were about my age when “The Joshua Tree” came out. There’s a combination of enthusiasm and fear that I recognize from my own concert-going teen years. I was thrilled when she sent an e-mail on Friday and agreed to a Q&A.
I spoke with Effie, who just moved to London, yesterday afternoon. Before you start this interview, I highly recommend queuing up  ”Exit” and “Mothers of the Disappeared” from “The Joshua Tree” as background music.
Look for a 2012 photo of Effie at the end of the interview …
Q. Apologies in advance for the out-of-nowhere phone conversation.
A: Don’t apologize. It was a treat to see that photo again. I hadn’t thought of that in probably 20 years. That memory was buried deep. My sister and a childhood friend both posted it on my Facebook page at the same time. My jaw just hit the table.

Q: Were you a big U2 fan?
A: I was 16 years old, I was almost 17, and it was probably the third time I had seen them perform. I first saw them on “The Unforgettable Fire” tour at the Cow Palace.
I was a teenager living in Sacramento. I went with my best friend, and her dad drove us there, and I think he probably waited for us outside the Coliseum until the show was over.
Q: So I’m guessing there was no drinking …
A: No, no. I wasn’t that interesting. I wasn’t that cool.
Q: How did you get so close to the stage?
A: We got to the front somewhat luckily. We ran into some kids from the neighborhood that we grew up in. They were older than us, so they could drive themselves. They got a spot right on the wall. We saw them and popped right next to them.
Q: Are they in the photo?
A: I think they’re in the photo.  It was a guy named Paul Caruso … He’s all the way over to my left, and his sister I think is next to him, on the other side of the woman with the braids. I didn’t know them very well. I don’t think I’ve seen them since that day.
Q: Speaking of the woman with the braids. It looks like you’re conjoined. Did you know her?
A: Not at all. Total stranger. That’s how intensely we were being pressed together up there. Through the opening act it was a do-able situation. But as soon as U2 came on, the crush of the crowd became so intense. I didn’t last much longer than that photo was taken.
For a good part of the time that I lasted up there, my feet weren’t even touching the ground. I was pressed so hard against the wall. I’m also short. I’m 5’2’. I couldn’t get my arms over the wall without boosting myself up. I was on my tippy toes and then I was off the ground. It was extraordinarily painful.

Q: You have your fist raised, and there’s this look on your face of — it’s hard to describe — maybe it’s a combination of happiness and despair?
A: (Laughs) I think you nailed it. We really loved U2. To be so close and up against the wall. The coveted wall.
But that photo, when I look at it, my neck and shoulders hurt. You can see how hard I was pressed against that stranger with the braids. I think it was just really uncomfortable. It was just impossible to enjoy the show in any way. After that concert I don’t think I ever tried anything like that again.
Q: Who pulled you out?
A: I think we must have signaled one of the guys who was working. And they were pulling tons of people over. It was person after person, plucked out of the crowd and carried off to this funny triage place at the back of the stage.
Q: Do you remember what song was playing when you got pulled over?
A: Not at all. But I do remember, as they plucked me out, I was still looking up at the stage, because U2 is right in front of me. And I remember Bono saying something like “Nobody gets hurt at a U2 concert.” You’ve got to be kidding me. Apart from my shoulders being totally asleep, it felt like my ribs were going to crack … I didn’t think much of that comment.
Q: That’s so Bono.
A: Even as a 16-year-old, who totally idolized the band, I remember thinking “Are you kidding me?”
Q: What happened next?
A: There was an area that wasn’t behind the stage proper, but was sort of behind that wing that went out. … I was lying on some kind of mat …
I could actually look up to my left, and see Bono standing, potentially right above me, running back and forth in his brown leather pants. I could hear the crowd, but I couldn’t see them. It was just this one guy, in brown leather pants and a vest, just manically running back and forth and shaking his arms in the air. It was an entirely different experience from being on the other side.
Q: Did you find your friend?
A: We were next to each other initially, and then when the big press came she was pushed back, and she was just gone. But we did find each other.
After I was in that little triage area for a while, they let me out. I found a nice place to sit and watched the rest of the show. It was from a distance that I saw Vaillancourt come out on stage. I remember not understanding a word he said. I only understood after I read it in the Chronicle.
My friend and I found each other. We found her dad and he drove us back to Sacramento. A couple days later, my friend, whose parents had a subscription to the Chronicle, brought me the clipping with the photo. Otherwise I probably would never have seen it.