Mercedes-Benz Stadium: The Pinwheel Roof

Lyrics

Standing at the gate on Northside Drive.
The sun is sharp on the folded steel.
You just wait.
You just breathe.
Before the sound comes.
Groundbreaking was May 5th, 2014.
I remember the dirt they moved.
A promise of angles and light.
A sketch from a man named Bjarke Ingels.
They said you would open like a camera's eye.
We just watched the cranes against the sky.
Waited for the day.
And the pinwheel turns.
The eight petals retract.
The ironworkers' origami, no turning back.
A metallic clank, a slow, clean tear in the sky.
You open up for us.
You let the city inside.
It was August 26, 2017.
Seventy-two degrees at twelve forty-seven.
The first petal started its slide.
And we held our breath on the concourse.
Then the Halo Board flickered on, a circle of pure light.
A sixty-thousand square-foot eye.
Turning day into electric night.
And the pinwheel turns.
The eight petals retract.
The ironworkers' origami, no turning back.
A metallic clank, a slow, clean tear in the sky.
You open up for us.
You let the city inside.
Arthur Blank had a vision.
A thousand names on the permits, lost to the noise.
But out here, on Marietta Street, at one P.M. on a Sunday...
We can hear you.
We can hear the roar you hold inside.
A single sound for the Falcons.
A single heart for United.
You were built to hold a city's shout.
Now the game begins.
And I'm still at the gate.
Watching the eight petals cut shapes from the blue.
You are open.
We are here.
The sound is everything.