Some fans got a taste of the real thing at Tuesday night’s U2 concert at the Overstock.com Coliseum in Oakland.

Others, stuck for hours in traffic that made Interstate 880 look more like an overflow parking lot than a freeway, just got a taste of frustration.

They ended up with nothing more than the distant echo of U2 carried to their car windows despite paying as much as $250 for tickets and driving for hours.

Rush-hour traffic, construction on arterial roadways and two minor accidents contributed to their plight.

But the car-bound fans — many from the South Bay, Marin and Peninsula — blamed the coliseum and Oakland for lacking the level of planning called for during a sold-out concert that drew in nearly 69,000 people.

“This concert was a complete fiasco and many thousands of on-time, paying attendees were not able to attend,” read a typical complaint by a would-be attendee by the name of Mark Breier left on the blog of Bay Area News Group music critic Jim Harrington.

He said his family left the Peninsula at 6:15 p.m. and ended up turning around at 10:15 p.m. without ever having set foot near the Coliseum.

“Incredibly bad showing for U2 and Oakland Stadium,” he wrote.

Another couple left Palo Alto at 5:50 p.m. and ended up in the gridlock that stretched from the coliseum to the Dumbarton Bridge.

They ended up paying a security guard $20 to park in the lot of an office building on Oakport Street because the coliseum parking lot and official overflow parking lots were filled. “We didn’t care,” the woman said. It was either pay the guard $20 to avoid being towed or go home, she said.

They managed to catch about an hour of the 2½-hour U2 performance.

The coliseum opened the parking lot at 7 a.m. By 6:45 p.m. all 10,000 parking places in the coliseum and two overflow lots had filled up, said Ron Little, general manager for SMG, the venue management company that runs the coliseum.

“That’s all we have available to us.”

He said the traffic was to be expected because the concert was sold out.

Leaving at 6 p.m. and expecting to get into a concert that began at 7 p.m. is unrealistic, he said. “With a sold-out show, that’s just not possible.”

BART riders avoided the traffic snarl getting into the show but leaving was more complicated. Gina Gotsill said she left the concert about 11:40 p.m. to get to BART in time for the last train to Concord. But her husband ended up having to pick her up because so many other people were trying to get to the BART Coliseum station that she was afraid she would miss the train. “It was an impossible situation,” Gotsill said. “And a little terrifying,” she said about the huge crowd on the overpass bridge.

BART added 13 trains and extended service systemwide until 2:28 a.m. Wednesday to accommodate the swell or riders from the concert. Spokesman Jim Allison said Tuesday’s count of 396,500 passengers is the sixth highest of any weekday since BART service began in 1972.

Nearby roadways such as High Street and International Boulevard were open and residents rented out the driveways for a fee. Several parking lots east of the coliseum complex also were available. But many people took I-880 and were unfamiliar enough with Oakland to venture more than a mile beyond the coliseum.

They paid $40 for overflow parking and trekked over the freeway overpass that separates the lots from the coliseum.

A couple from Palo Alto said they were intimidated by Oakland’s reputation for being an unsafe city so the mile walk across the overpass added fear to frustration.

Little said SMG put up electronic boards along Coliseum Way and 66th Avenue notifying drivers that the lots were full. “Other than drive them (to the concert) ourselves we’re at a loss.”

And although the show nearly reached the stadium capacity of 70,000 people, many people are familiar to SMG because Raiders games can clog the 66th Avenue exit to the Coliseum and snarls traffic for miles along 880.

Even the 90 Oakland officers called into police the concert had trouble finding parking, said Sgt. Tom Hogenmiller.

Parking shortages were exacerbated by the size of the show. Some 250 spots in the B section of the coliseum lot were taken by big rigs, buses and other vehicles carrying equipment, band members and crew. By 8 p.m. SMG began backfilling that section as well as the VIP parking area.

“There was just nowhere left to put people,” Hogenmiller said.

It’s a congested urban area and I-880 can come to a standstill on its own even where there are no events, he said. “There are certain things beyond our control.”