Peter Parker and Bono

Last June, we told you geeks that Bono and The Edge (of that famous Irish rock band U2) would be scoring the music for the upcoming Spider-Man Broadway show entitled Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Now, a year later, you’re probably expecting us to tell you that the show is a smash success and all is well. Well, True Believers, things are once again not-so for teenage misfit Peter Parker.

Well, it’s not that bad. According to the New York Times (via RollingStone.com), a spokesman for the show said the $50 million production will begin full rehearsals on August 16th, only slightly behind their original launch date of February 2010. Apparently, the show (directed by Julie Taymor of Across the Universe fame) had a “cash flow problem”, which caused two of its stars, Evan Rachel Wood and Alan Cumming (playing Mary Jane Watson and the Green Goblin respectively), to leave the production. While there’s no word yet who will replace them, leading man Reeve Carney did happen to tweet that he’s already begun his aerial choreography.

After U2’s fateful string of bad luck including Bono’s bad back and its subsequent cancelled tour, the popular band is finally getting back on its enormously successful feet. And it’s coming in the form of a superhero, Spider-man to be exact.

Initial rehearsals have begun on a new Broadway musical based on the Spidey based Broadway called Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark. Julie Taymor, who previously helmed the hallucinatory Beatles trip Across the Universe is in progress of heading the project, which features music exclusively by U2’s Bono and The Edge.

Spider-Man is one of the most expensive Broadway Productions ever staged, costing about $50 million, which the producers actually had difficulty raising, thus postponing the production this past February. “I honestly can’t believe I’m getting paid to do things my mom would have killed me for when I was a kid! Ha!”, tweets musician Reeve Carney, who plays the Peter Parker character.


Although production details are still a bit sketchy at this moment, fans can begin rocking their Spidey senses when it debuts on Broadway this coming November.

 

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U2, Eminem or Lady GaGa?

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Even with a bad back, Bono still has more power than the rest of us. He and his Irish band mates in U2 land at the top of Forbes annual Top-Earning Musicians with net earnings of $130 million for July 1-June 31. The only new artist to make the Forbes list is Lady GaGa, but she makes our list this week for a totally different reason that has nothing to do with money or fame, but with humanity.

1. U2: The Irish rockers top Forbes list of top-earning musicians. I believe they’ve found what they’re looking for.

2. Eminem (No. 1): Not only does “Recovery” log its fourth week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, for the first time in his career, Eminem lands back to back No. 1s. After “Not Afraid” went to No. 1 in May, “Love the Way You Lie” goes to No. 1 this week, bumping Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” out of the top spot after six weeks.

3. Rihanna (not ranked): The news is good for Eminem, but it’s great for Rihanna. “Love the Way You Lie” is her seventh No. 1 since she first debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 2005, giving her more No. 1s in that time frame than any other artist. Lady GaGa is plotting as we speak.

4. James Taylor and Carole King (not ranked): In a summer of tour cancellations and poor sales, James Taylor and Carole King proved that there’s a lot of life left in acts that deliver the goods. Both in their 60s, the pair completed a 58-date world tour this week that grossed $63 million and averaged 95% capacity. They’ve got a friend…lots of them.

5. Lady GaGa (not ranked): This week Lady GaGa did something much more significant than sell tickets: She stood up, loudly and proudly, against anti-gay protesters from Westboro Baptist Church, who picketed her show in St. Louis. She asked her fans not to engage the protesters and, instead to pray for them. At the show’s conclusion, she tweeted: “Tonight love and hate met in St. Louis….Hate left but love stayed + together we sang.” Instead of WWJD, maybe we should ask ourselves WWLGD?

6. Big Champagne (not ranked): The media metrics company launches the “Ultimate Chart” to measure a single’s popularity and to challenge Billboard’s Hot 100. Like the Hot 100, the Ultimate Chart measures radio play and tracks sales, but also includes data from social networking sites such as YouTube. Be prepared for Justin Bieber to be No. 1 until he turns 25.

7. Roger Faxon (not ranked): The new EMI chief makes his first visit to LA in his new capacity to review the U.S. operation. The question is what will he change. Despite the parent company, Terra Firma’s woes, EMI looks strong with Lady Antebellum and Katy Perry. Do we see more synergies between EMI’s publishing powerhouse and the label side?

8.New Music Seminar (not ranked): The revived music conference, which ruled supreme in the ‘80s, made news this week primarily for a session that laid out by the number revealing just how tragic album sales are. We won’t run down all the sobering stats, but here’s one to wrap your brain around: Number of albums selling more than 250,000 copies in 2009: 85. Number of albums selling more than 250,000 copies in 2001: 214. But who’s counting…

9. Chris Isaak and Harry Connick Jr. (not ranked):  Bret Michael, Elton John, Steve Lilywhite and even Donald Trump were among the names bandied about to replace Simon Cowell as an “American Idol” judge. While nothing is official, Isaak and Connick appear to be the last two standing.  Both are great choices, but we’re casting our vote for Isaak.

10. Joss Stone (not ranked): She’s the new Bond girl.  Even though it looks like it may be a hot minute before we get a new 007 film, she appears alongside Daniel Craig and Judi Dench in the new video game, “James Bond 007: Blood Stone.” She also sings an original song, “I’ll Take It All.”

THREESIXTYAIR Boarding Now

You may not know that for years U2 has traveled by charter. AMP Visual has been the company hired to produce the graphics for the charter tour planes. Graphics are updated each leg of the tour. In our photo section we have a couple of action shots of the plane as it flys around the world.

“For this U2360° tour, we called the airline, THREESIXTYAIR with the name featuring above the first passenger windows. For the US leg of the tour, we called the plane ‘Infinity’ from the song Breathe. We also added ‘The Future Needs A Big Kiss’ from the song Get On Your Boots as a sign-off near to nose of the plane.”

 

Hollister and U2 in Studio

Dave and the boys are re-working some classics like ” All  I Want & Grace”  Dave reported on Twitter that they are in “Sacramento” now this does seem a bit strange. Why would the boys be in the studio with Dave? Maybe he was saying that he is doing some work for them. That sounds more like it. In case your wondering Hollister is a former member of the R&B quartet BLACKstreet and has also released several solo albums.

Fans thats why you have to follow on twitter, this whole conversation went on during the early hours of 3AM however in Cali it was a bit earlier. Sign up for twitter and follow along.

 

 

U2 Claim 17M

U2’s recently cancelled North American tour is likely to cost the London market $17mn due to contingency cover purchased by the band and its promoters, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

The rock band were forced to call off the US leg of their 360o World Tour when Bono underwent emergency surgery after injuring himself while rehearsing for the shows.

Tour promoters Live Nation and U2 have a contingency policy placed into the London market by specialist entertainment broker Robertson.

Bono a Phallus, really now ?

Well we knew it would be a matter of days before we started to see some interesting comments about the boys and the cash they earn. Frankly who cares. Its their money and so what. If you like the music and you buy the CD’s and everything else that comes along with being a fan of course they are going to make money. Now the lead dog has the best view so its natural for the dogs that follow to be an ass, because hell thats all they look at all day as they try to reach the top. Here is an interesting view from an ass. - Share your comments, thoughts and of course all views are always welcome. Just remember if your an ass we may just point it out.

Tooth-sized phallus, Bono, is probably swimming in his room of coins right now while he waits for The Edge to finish making his 500 ft tribute to Barbara Cartland made out of diamonds, saffron and black printer ink.

Oh, not to mention also having the audacity to expect people like us, who earn about 6 pence an hour, to cough up our meagre incomes into the hands of whichever plight they’ve aligned themselves with when they woke up this morning. And we know Bono & Co. are rich because Forbes have released their rich-list of musicians which, for the most part, is a list of artistes so dull that you might need to staple your eyeholes open just to get through it.

Over the past 12 months, U2 have been raking it in, earning an outrageous £84.9m. If you believe the rumours, most of that tootles off to some offshore account in Holland, which probably has cheque books made from African children’s woe.

Easter Eggs on U2 Blue Ray !

Last month, the band gave a push to another up-and-coming technology — BD Live, which was installed on copies of its “U2 360° Tour” Blu-ray DVDs.

Using an Internet-connected player, BD-Live connects discs to a website where content is uploaded from a host.

Every time a user inserts the disc, new items and feeds, such as clips from the band, can be accessed through their television set.

Users are given a live feed of the band’s progress throughout the tour: The first download will feature a video that U2 filmed for users, in which they apologize to fans for missing a leg of their tour.

“U2 360° Tour,” released through Universal Music, marks the first Blu-ray title to be produced in the U.K. with BD-Live content. It was installed through specialty content production company the Pavement.

Cost to install the program code is around £200-£300 ($300-$450), while cost to manage the website averages approximately $7,600 per year.

“It’s important that the world knows the tech is out there,” says Pavement founder Andy Evans. “One of the biggest concerns I hear from clients is that they fear BD-Live costs too much to install and maintain. The reality is it probably costs less than a full-page magazine ad.”

Evans adds that while Hollywood majors currently use BD-Live as a means of streaming up-to-date trailers on Blu-ray discs, it also a marketing tool for distributors.

“With BD-Live, you can monitor how often people are watching your DVD, who they are and where they are viewing it,” he says.

Evans says that soon users will be able to buy tickets through their Blu-ray disc and link up to friends and communicate through the disc.