House cleaning has begun to welcome the new album. If you have not been over to the new site. Now would be a good to stop over. just days ahead of the new album. We've moved the furniture around and given the place a lick of paint. The title of the story is a line from one of the new tracks, Unknown Caller, but it kind of captures what we're doing with U2.Com. We've spent a few months giving the site a complete makeover - and responding to some of the features you said you wanted to improve your U2 online experience.
Whats in the linner notes ?
Linear Film Credits
An ANTON CORBIJN moving image/SEE-SAW FILMS PRODUCTION
Said Taghmaoui
Music by U2 with Brian Eno and Danny Lanois
Line ProducerRosa Romero EditorJames Rose Art DirectorMark Digby Make-Up & HairAaf Corbijn CinematographerMartin Ruhe Executive ProducersBono, Adam Clayton, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr
Story by Anton Corbijn/Bono
Produced by Iain Canning, Emile Sherman
Directed by Anton Corbijn
01. UNKNOWN CALLER
02. BREATHE
03. WINTER
04. WHITE AS SNOW
05. NO LINE ON THE HORIZON
06. FEZ-Being Born
07. MAGNIFICENT
08. STAND UP COMEDY
09. GET ON YOUR BOOTS
10. MOMENT OF SURRENDER
11. CEDARS OF LEBANON
Titles written by U2/Brian Eno/Danny Lanois and published by Universal Music Publishing BV/Opal Music, except in North America by Upala Music Inc/BMI
* "Cedars of Lebanon" includes a sample of the recording "Against The Sky" performed by Harold Budd and Brian Eno from the album "The Pearl" (Virgin/EMI 1984 - ENOCD13). Licensed courtesy of Virgin Records Limited.
The composition "Cedars of Lebanon" contains elements from "Against the Sky" written Harold Budd and Brian Eno and published by Universal Songs of Polygram International Inc / Toyon Music / Opal Music London. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
© 2009 U2 Limited. The copyright in this film and artwork is owned by U2 Limited and is under exclusive licence to Mercury Records Limited in the UK, Interscope Records in the US, and Universal Music Group for the rest of the world.
"Late May 2008 - at a band meeting I was introduced to the new songs. The reason for letting me in so early on this sonically and lyrically different U2 record is that the band have this idea for me to make some kind of moving imagery to go with the record. The thinking is that as a lot of people buy music from the internet and are likely to hear this on a computer or mp3 player, their listening pleasure could be heightened by visuals. Instead of just seeing a pack shot of the record sleeve, or a still photograph of the band for 45 plus minutes, as is often the case now, why not have a moving image for the duration of the record? It is not essential to the record, you can either watch it or ignore it. Brilliant! As always, U2 are thinking ahead, not so much having one foot in tomorrow's door, as having built the house to which that door is the entrance.
"Bono talked me through the songs and the record as a whole. For the first time he had created characters for this record, and wrote lyrics about their lives or from their perspectives. The record had an essence of time to it, most songs had a number or time references connected to them, as if going through a 24 hour period. Although I didn't want to translate the lyrics visually, I felt that making use of one the characters Bono wrote about would be interesting. It became the Parisian motorcycle cop of northern African descent, who threw it all in to go back to see his girlfriend in Tripoli. I was going to make a silent movie, with a touch of a story to it. We prepped late June-early July, shot late July, edited in August and were ready for the record's November release. Fantastic! However, it was at this point that the band decided to go back into the studio and work on the record a bit more. As U2 never do anything in half measures, the record that emerged from the studio in late December 2008 was a very different one than the one I'd made images for. Not only had the running order changed, now there were completely new songs on the record while another song had gone, new lyrics without the characters had emerged, and different sounds dominated the songs I had worked on. Disaster! Thankfully, we worked on a solution that saw LINEAR keeping its own running order and songs, whilst only changing edits for the 10 songs, those that are also on the new U2 record, to their newly created identities. Thus LINEAR is a very interesting hybrid version of No Line On The Horizon, partly how it was in May 2008 and partly how it is now. Tomorrow is always partly yesterday. Apparently."
Anton Corbijn
January 2009
U2 Music and More
Freshly baked a new U2.com Site
The new U2.com is now live, and with it comes the news that many fans have been waiting for: Yes, U2.com members will have access to a subscriber-only ticket pre-sale. Wisely, there's no mention of "guaranteed tickets" or any of the stuff that led to trouble back in 2005. Other tour-related benefits for members will include things like "exclusive photography," backstage video, and access to Willie Williams' tour diary.
Membership also includes U2:Medium, Rare and Remastered, a 2-CD set of songs that were previously available on The Complete U2 (the iTunes digital box set), on the deluxe editions of recent album remasters, and on the b-sides of various singles released this decade.
The cost of new membership has gone up again -- it's $50/year now, up from $45 last year. Renewals will be $32 until March 2nd. Use the link to learn more about the membership package, and be sure to come back and vote in our poll at the bottom of this page: Do you plan to join U2.com this year?
Where can you fnd bootleg U2
With the explosion of the internet, fans now have an easy means to contact each other to exchange bootleg recordings. There are many U2 mailing lists which allow for the trade of bootlegs, and still other lists which are dedicated to the trading of bootlegs. Many fans also maintain webpages which list the material that they have for trade. Often you do not need to have recordings to trade to make use of these services, as fans often will offer to make copies for blank CDs and postage in return.
Traditional sources of bootlegs for sale still exist. If you are lucky, you may find bootlegs at your local record store. Mail order is another good source for finding recordings for sale, and there are several music stores on the internet that carry live imports
Who started the band ?
Larry Mullen, Jr., was born on October 31, 1961, in Dublin. He was two years behind Bono in high school but both noticed each other. It was Larry who posted an ad on a bulletin board at school looking for musicians to start a band. Paul Hewson (aka Bono) was born on the 10th of May, 1960, in Dublin. He was a very outgoing person in high school who responded to Larry's note saying that he could play guitar and sing. He really couldn't do either. Adam Clayton was born in Oxfordshire, England, on March 13, 1960, and moved to Dublin after his father got a job flying for Aer Lingus. Although he was not a very good student, he was always very polite to everyone. He was the only bassist to respond to Larry's note. Dave Evans (aka The Edge) was born on August 8, 1961, in East London. His family moved to Dublin a year later. He was often known as a loner early in high school. He took piano and guitar lessons and often played with his brother, Dick. Both showed up to "U2's" first little gathering at Larry's house (60 Rosemount Avenue in Dublin). They set up in the Mullens' kitchen and played the Rolling Stones "Brown Sugar" and "Satisfaction." At this point, the entire group of hopefuls for the band included Larry, Dave and Dick Evans, Adam Clayton, Paul Hewson, and Ivan McCormick .
Bono, which is a shortened version of Bono Vox, his original nickname, got the name through a group of friends who were known as the Lypton Village. The name, which means "good voice" in Latin, was taken from the name of a hearing aid shop in Dublin.
Some reports say Edge was named by Bono because Dave was always on the fringe of things. Other stories suggest Bono gave him the name because of the sharp lines and angles of his face when he was a teenager.
In Lypton Village they thought it strange that you should go by a name given to you by your parents, when that name might not really suit you. The nicknames were often associated with a facial thing and it would then also apply to the person's character. So The Edge had this prominent jaw line & was always on the edge of things: like an observer. Bono's first Village name was: Steinhegvanhuysenolegbangbangbangbang. (!) Paul McGuinness became known as "The Goose."
U2 Bootlegges
In 1991, when a bootleg of U2's studio sessions called The New U2 (the first version of what would eventually become the SalomŽ bootleg) was being distributed, Island Records took out a full-page ad in the British publication Music Week warning record stores that the label would "take legal proceedings" against anyone selling the bootlegs. U2 manager Paul McGuinness issued a press statement saying the bootleggers were cheating fans by distributing inferior material.
In a later interview about the incident, Bono said: "The only thing that can piss you off is if people are charging a lot of money for something that isn't very good. It [the Achtung Baby working tapes] got bootlegged in Berlin and it was just like having your notebook read out. That's the bit I didn't like about it. There were no undiscovered works of genius, unfortunately, it was more just gobbledy-gook."
During 2001, several other comments were made by the band regarding the recording of their shows. They made it clear that they were fine with people recording their performances and trading them. They did make it clear that they were opposed to people making money from those recordings. As Bono says, "We invite people to bootleg our shows. We invite people to make copies, we've no problems with that, but if some guy is gonna make money off the back of this, we're gonna find out where he parks his car." Even with those comments being made, those recording cannot openly do so at a show, as security does still take steps to prevent that.
Where did they get their name ?
In the band's very early beginnings, circa 1978, Adam Clayton asked Steve Averill (formerly known as Steve Rapid of the band Radiators From Space) to help the band come up with a good name. Averill was interviewed by Hot Press magazine in 2001 and gave this answer when asked about how he helped U2 choose the band's name:
"When I first met them they didn't really know what they wanted to do, what type of band they really wanted to be. But they had qualified for the final of that band competition in Limerick and they needed to decide on a name. Adam liked names like XTC, which were short and crisp and could mean a lot or mean very little. So I made a list of ten and I put U2 on the bottom. I thought it was strong graphically and it had a variety of connotations without meaning something specific. It was short and stood out from the band names common at the time. After we discussed the list we decided to go for U2 for all those reasons."
There have also been many stories told about how the band's name is taken from the U-2 spy plane, and those stories gained favor with the connection of the famous Francis Gary Powers U-2 incident which occurred on May 1, 1960, and the fact that Bono was born just nine days later. These stories seem to be a stretch at best, and Averill's answer above makes no mention of the spy plane connection.
Averill, it should be noted, didn't stop helping U2 when he helped choose the name. He was also asked to manage U2 but declined, opting instead to handle U2's visual aspects. Averill and his partners at Four 5 One (formerly Works Associates / ABA) in Dublin also design U2 album covers, t-shirts, backstage passes, tour programmes, and even the symbols on Edge's hats during the Zoo TV Tour.
U2 on DVD
Listed by title, year, description, and formats available (LD - laser disc, VCD - video compact disc, DVD - digital versatile disc)
Under a Blood Red Sky: Live at Red Rocks. 1984. Live Concert video. VHS / VCD
The Unforgettable Fire Collection. 1985. Live and documentary footage. VHS
Rattle and Hum. 1989. Home video release of feature film. VHS / LD / VCD / DVD
Achtung Baby: The Videos, the Cameos, and a whole lot of Interference. 1991. VHS / LD
Zoo TV: Live from Sydney. 1994. Live concert. VHS / LD / VCD
Popmart Live from Mexico City. 1998. Live concert. VHS / VCD
The Best of 1980 - 1990. 1998. Video compilation. VHS / VCD
Elevation 2001: U2 Live from Boston. 2001. Live concert. VHS / DVD
The Best of 1990 - 2000. 2002. Video compilation. VHS / DVD
U2 Go Home: Live from Slane Castle. 2003. Live concert. DVD
Vertigo 2005: U2 Live from Chicago. 2005. Live concert. DVD