U2 to play Brandenburg Gate gig

The band have announced a free gig in Berlin next month outside the Brandenburg Gate to mark 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The gig, on Nov. 5, will be staged as part of the MTV Europe Music Awards which are being held in the city this year. The free show will also kick off a range of events marking the fall of the barrier, widely seen as the end of the Cold War.

U2 have a strong affiliation with the German capital — in 1990 the band moved to the city to record their album ‘Achtung Baby’ at Hansa Studios. Tickets to the show will be made available off the band’s website and MTV’s. U2, incidentally, have been nominated for best rock band at the awards this year.

The band’s performance will be beamed into the MTV Awards, which are taking place at Berlin’s O2 World arena. U2 manager Paul McGuinness said, “It’ll be an exciting spot to be in, 20 years almost to the day since the wall came down. Should be fun.” The news of the free Berlin gig comes days after the band played a show streamed live over video-sharing website YouTube. The Pasadena, Calif, show is thought to have been seen by more than 2.5m people.

The band also recently announced more dates in their 360° tour for next year, with a cluster of shows in the US and Canada as well as more European dates — including German shows in Frankfurt and Hanover.

Antonio Campo Dall’Orto, executive producer of the awards ceremony, said the “world’s major music players” would be coming together “against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall to celebrate music, freedom and the birth of a new age in Europe”.

The ceremony, which will be hosted by US singer Katy Perry for the second year in succession, will include performances from Robbie Williams and Jay-Z.

Lady Gaga and Green Day lead the field with five nominations each, while U2 are in the running for best rock band.

Pixie Lott has already been announced as the winner of best UK and Ireland act, and will compete for the best European act trophy with 21 artists from across the continent.

 

U2's fourth album: The Unforgettable Fire

‘This ain’t mere genius, this is rock ‘n’ roll…’ (Kerrang, October 1984)

U2’s fourth album, The Unforgettable Fire, has been remastered and will be released by Mercury Records on 26th October.

This special edition marks 25 years since the album’s original release in October 1984. Recorded at Slane Castle, Ireland, The Unforgettable Fire was the first U2 album to be produced by Brian Eno and Danny Lanois, and spawned two top 10 UK singles - ‘Pride (In The Name Of Love)’ and ‘The Unforgettable Fire’.

Special formats of The Unforgettable Fire will also feature bonus audio material, including two previously unheard tracks from the Slane Castle sessions: ‘Yoshino Blossom’, and ‘Disappearing Act’ (a track which the band recently completed), and a DVD including music videos, a documentary and unreleased live footage from the Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope Tour in 1986.

The Unforgettable Fire has been remastered from the original audio tapes, with direction from The Edge and the album will be available in four formats:

* Limited Edition Box Set: containing 2 CDs (remastered album and bonus audio CD), a DVD with live footage, documentary and videos, a 56 page hardback book with liner notes by The Edge, Brian Eno, Danny Lanois, Bert Van de Kamp and Niall Stokes, and 5 photographic prints

* Deluxe Edition: containing 2 CDs, the remastered album, and the bonus audio CD which features B-sides and previously unreleased material, a 36 page booklet with liner notes by The Edge, Brian Eno, Danny Lanois and Bert Van de Kamp

* CD format: featuring the remastered album

* 12” vinyl format: 16 page booklet with liner notes by Brian Eno, Danny Lanois and Bert Van de Kamp

The Unforgettable Fire track listing is as follows: A Sort of Homecoming, Pride (In The Name Of Love), Wire, The Unforgettable Fire, Promenade, 4th Of July, Bad, Indian Summer Sky, Elvis Presley and America, MLK.

U2 concert a smashing success

City, Rose Bowl officials call U2 concert a smashing success

By Janette Williams, Staff Writer
Posted: 10/26/2009 04:55:59 PM PDT

 

 PASADENA - As the mammoth stage was dismantled Monday and 96,000 U2 fans recovered their hearing after Sunday’s show, the largest concert in Rose Bowl history was being hailed by officials as an all-around musical, financial and logistical triumph.

“This event will go down as one for the ages for the Rose Bowl - and that’s tough to say given the history of events here,” Rose Bowl General Manager Darryl Dunn said. “The atmosphere was electric, people were so excited, and all the reports received from those assisting with the show and the promoters of

The Edge perform in U2’s 360 Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009. (SGVN/Staff Photo by Eric Reed/)
the tour were outstanding.”A team of 5,000 worked Sunday’s event, Dunn said, calling it a “true collaboration.” The event is expected to make between $300,000 and $400,000 for the stadium, he said.

Ten months of preparation with the Pasadena Police Department and event transportation consultants, The John Blanchard Co., paid off, Dunn said.

“It just got bigger and bigger and bigger as it got closer,” he said. “I’m really proud of the effort and the results.”

Audiences heeded the Rose Bowl management’s appeals to arrive early and make a day of it, pre-pay parking, carpool and use shuttles and public transportation, Dunn said.

“We knew it was a challenge,” he said, adding that an estimated 8,000 to 9,000 people used public transportation and 20,000 used shuttle services from Pasadena City College and Parsons parking lots.

“We ended up not even parking the whole Rose Bowl and (Brookside) golf course,” Dunn said. “People did listen to the recommendations…The typical mentality of the concert crowd is to come within one hour of the event.”

Lee Zanteson, president of the Linda Vista/Annandale Neighborhood Association, said traffic control went well, apart from two small streets that should have been barricaded and were not - which he called “less than a crisis.”

“And it was not quite as loud as I expected,” Zanteson said.

Even the fact that the concert went about 15 minutes past its official 11 p.m. curfew didn’t bother him, he said.

“I was sound asleep, I don’t care - I expected they would,” he said. “In this case, it was for the greater good - the Rose Bowl was making money, the town was making money and it made a lot of people happy.”

Dunn said technical issues made the concert run a little late, and they were in touch with the promoters over a possible penalty imposed by the city.

U2 fans apparently spent time in Old Pasadena before and after the concert, said Steve Mulheim, president and CEO of the Old Pasadena Management District.

“It was hopping all day,” Mulheim said of the city’s retail and restaurant hub, although no figures are available yet.

“A number of stores we’ve called said it was a phenomenal day, the best they’ve had in a long time, and can we have U2 here every weekend,” he said.

Not everyone used shuttles or public transportation - there were plenty of limos delivering celebrity fans.

Among those spotted by U2 fan Courtney Saavedra - in the VIP section courtesy of a friend’s husband in U2’s entourage - were Barbra Streisand, Demi Moore, Ewan McGregor, Hilary Swank, Elvis Costello, Winona Ryder, and Cindy Crawford.

“It was fantastic,” Saavedra said of the concert. “I felt that I was part of history, that the world was watching … and that it was the biggest party I’ll ever attend in my life.”

 

U2's Scores Big on YouTube Concert !

U2 played to 96,000 fans at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. At the same time, they were playing to who knows how many more people around the world who tuned in for a live stream of the full show on YouTube. Pretty cool, right?

The stream is down now, but a message posted at U2’s YouTube hub — say that five times fast! — promises that it will all be available for encore viewing “soon.” And while I’m sure a YouTube stream can’t compare to an in-person performance, or even to a high-res TV simulcast, it still seems like a promising option. I know there have been lots of shows over the years that I’ve been unable to attend due to scheduling or location issues, and that I’d have loved to watch online. That goes double if YouTube would let me see a show the next morning. (Case in point: I, personally, was unable to tune in last night because I was watching the Yankees win the pennant.)

Did any of you catch U2’s show on YouTube? Or do you plan to watch it later? Let us know how the whole YouTube concert thing worked out for you — and make all the U2-YouTube puns that you can think of — in the comments below. And hey, if you’re really dying to see U2 in the flesh, you can try and make it to one of the new North American shows they’ve just announced for 2010…

U2 concert goes live on YouTube

U2 concert goes live on YouTube

U2 at the Pasadena Rose Bowl
The concert was bookended by songs from the band’s latest album

Irish rock group U2 have broadcast an entire live show via the video sharing website YouTube.

Although 96,000 people turned up to see the show at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in California, many times that number were expected to have watched it online.

As he took to the stage, lead singer Bono said: “Thank you Los Angeles. Thanks to everyone watching on YouTube all over the world - seven continents.”

The quartet played hits including Beautiful Day and Mysterious Ways.

‘Mad scientist’

Other tracks in the 24-song set included Vertigo, One and With Or Without You.

The entire show, which Bono described as a “space adventure”, is being repeated on YouTube.

The singer introduced his bandmates as famous characters from Hollywood history. Drummer Larry Mullen was “James Dean”, while bassist Adam Clayton was Clark Gable as Gone With The Wind’s Rhett Butler.

Black Eyed Peas
Hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas were the night’s support act

“Every horror movie needs a mad scientist,” Bono continued as he introduced The Edge, “and ours is just to my right.

“He wants to boldly go where no guitar players have ever gone before. He’s Mr Spock to us, he’s The Edge to you.”

The singer went on to compare himself to “Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito with a little bit of Dennis Hopper thrown in”.

It was the band’s penultimate date of the year, with one more concert to take place in Vancouver, Canada, on Wednesday.

The 360 Degrees World Tour resumes next June in Anaheim, California.

Meanwhile, the band have been speaking candidly about the mixed reaction to their recent album, No Line On The Horizon.

Although it among the best-selling albums of the year to date, it has underperformed compared to their previous records.

It has been certified platinum in the UK - meaning 300,000 sales - while in the US it has shifted just over 1m copies. Those figures mean it is the band’s least successful album since the experimental Zooropa in 1993.

U2's stage
The towering “claw” stage has allowed U2 to squeeze in bigger audiences

Speaking before Sunday’s concert, Bono admitted the album had lacked a big, commercial hit like Vertigo or Beautiful Day.

“We weren’t really in that mindset,” he said.

“We felt that the album was a kind of an almost extinct species, and we should approach it in totality and create a mood and a feeling, and a beginning, middle and an end.

“And I suppose we’ve made a work that is a bit challenging for people who have grown up on a diet of pop stars.”

“The commercial challenges have to be confronted,” bassist Adam Clayton added.

 

U2 Rocks the World !

‘What time is it in the world and where are we going?’ Bono asked after ‘Get On Your Boots’. Tonight it was every time on the clock, depended which country you were in as the U2 360°: show went out live on YouTube to millions of viewers on seven continents.

We’ve been getting messages from fans all over the world who were loving the show tonight: you were watching in China and New Zealand, in Iran and in North Korea, in Russia and Latin America, in Canada and right across Europe.



From Iceland (‘Definitely the greatest economy class I have ever had…’) to Peru (‘amazing, incredible and exciting…’) the whole world seems to have been at the show.

‘It’s like we are all there at the concert,’ said Baadsilver on our Zoootpia live thread ‘We ALL have our hands in the air and are singing… crazy tonight for U2.’

Or as one smart Tweet put it, ‘This has to be the best U2 concert I have never been to.’

From Breathe to Moment of Surrender, felt like a moment of rock’n’roll history tonight.

Massive Crowds Arrive at Rose Bowl

After weeks of hype — and multiple traffic warnings from Rose Bowl and Live Nation officials — the U2 fanatics have invaded Pasadena. Some, writes L.A. Now, have been hanging out since 4 a.m. A record crowd of more than 95,000 people is expected — the Rose Bowl’s largest attendance since the 1994 World Cup finale. 

Concertgoers will witness the spectacle that is the Claw, a giant alien-like contraption that’s generating far more media attention than any recent U2 song. The 90-foot-tall structure takes about four days to build, and was inspired by the the Theme Building at LAX. 

U2’s 360 Tour is in support of its early 2009 release, “No Line on the Horizon.” To date, the album has sold just over 1 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. A respectable number, no doubt, but it took U2 about 30 weeks to reach the seven-figure sales mark. By comparison, rapper Jay-Z hit the milestone in less than 2 months with his “Blueprint 3.”

Nevertheless, U2’s touring power has never really been in doubt. Tonight’s Super Bowl-sized show is sold out, and will be streamed live on YouTube. Additionally, by mid-afternoon, plenty of the U2 faithful were out and about in Pasadena. 

We are still looking for Fans for the U2 ROSE Bowl FAN Photo Booth. Check into the story here. -

U2 ROSE Bowl Alert !

PASADENA — The biggest concert crowd in Rose Bowl history is expected Sunday night when U2 takes the stage, performing in the round for upward of 95,000 people and untold millions via YouTube.

The Dublin quartet will be performing on a giant, rotating stage that enables fans to fill the playing field, the band to do away with stacks of amplifiers and speakers, and turns end-zone seats into stage center.

U2TOURFANS 2009 File PhotoBono calls the big claw structure encasing the stage the “space station.” It was partially inspired by the theme building at LAX and designed especially for the “360” tour, which is winding down in North America with its final show in Vancouver Wednesday.

Friday’s show in Las Vegas — former President Bill Clinton and actor Sean Penn were among the celebrities in the crowd of about 40,000 — drew heavily from the band’s latest album, “No Line on the Horizon,” but included older hits such as “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Included in the three-song finale was “With or Without You.”

The concert will be streamed live on YouTube — the first full-length concert to be streamed by the Google-owned video site — and is expected to reach millions beyond the Rose Bowl. The concert will also be archived online and available for free viewing.

The Black-Eyed Peas will open the 8:30 p.m. show, which sold-out in hours. The crowd is expected to be U2’s biggest. The band’s attendance record — 84,500 — was set at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., last month.

Parking will be challenging, since the Rose Bowl has only about 20,000 spaces next to the stadium. But Pasadena is used to big crowds, and shuttles will be running from parking lots around Old Town, Pasadena City College and Metro Gold Line stations.

Those who hop a train to the show should get off at the Memorial Park Station. More information is available at www.metro.net or by calling (800) COMMUTE.

Pasadena police Chief Bernard Melekian urged concertgoers to arrive early, bring a picnic lunch or participate in “Picnic in the Park” festivities, which are free.