Street Mission Added to Soundtrack

A long-forgotten U2 song has been unearthed for the soundtrack of a new film about the band’s early days.

Street Mission was a track recorded by Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen, and Adam Clayton in the late 1970’s when they were The Hype.

In the upcoming British film Killing Bono, the track will be performed by the actors playing the Irish rockers.

The comedy, which is based on the lives of the two schoolmates who quit the band that was to become U2, is based on Neil McCormick’s memoirs, I Was Bono’s Doppelganger.

The Chronicles of Narnia star Ben Barnes will portray McCormick in the film, which is set for release in Britain in April.



Bono and the boys headline Glastonbury

U2 have been announced as the headliner for the first night of the 2011 Glastonbury festival, one of the world’s largest outdoor music events.

The band will join Coldplay and Beyoncé at the top of the festival’s bill, which will take place June 24th-26th in Somerset, England.

Rolling Stone: Three decades of U2

U2 were originally scheduled to perform at last year’s Glastonbury festival but had to drop out when Bono injured his back. Gorillaz were brought on as a last-minute replacement headliner.

Rolling Stone: US’s magazine covers

U2’s Glastonbury performance will fall in the middle of the next American leg of their 360 stadium tour.

Given that they would need to bring their elaborate production overseas and back again in the span of a couple days, it seems safe to say that the band will be abandoning their 360 stage for this performance.

In other U2 news, an early song written by the band when they were known as the Hype will appear on the soundtrack to “Killing Bono,” a comedy film about the two members of the Hype who did not go on to join U2.

The song, “Street Mission,” has been bootlegged by U2 fans for years.

KILLING BONO soundtrack

KILLING BONO, the upcoming Irish rock movie about the rise of two Irish bands, one of which turned out to be U2 is to feature a brand new U2 song called ‘Street Mission’, the previously unreleased song is credited to ‘The Hype’ - which is the name of Bono’s band before they renamed it U2.

The soundtrack will also include U2 classic ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’. Grammy Nominated song writer Joe Echo has also written eight new songs for the album, which are performed by the film’s stars Robert Sheehan, Ben Barnes and Martin McCann.

The soundtrack is released on March 28th and the film will open in Ireland on April 1st.

U2 reveal massive Twitter and Facebook project

U2/ Facebook/ Twitter/ U2TOURFANS Irish rockers U2 have revealed a new social media that allows concert goers to tag themselves in the audience via email, Twitter or Facebook.

Last year the Orange, a brand of France Télécom used a similar system. They used a high-powered camera that allows you to zoom on every single fan in the stadium.

At U2’s concert in Johannesburg earlier this month a photograph like this was taken. This massive image allows users to zoom into the crowd and see if they can spot themselves. They can then tag their images.

These panoramic images are taken with what is known as a Gigapixel camera. Now we of course has a chance to test this out during the South Africa show. What see that amazed us is how clear each image of every person as well as the equipment was ( or is). We found all of our team around the stadium and thought this might be something new for us to spotlght in the weeks ahead.  

Blew the Cape off Capetown

U2 360 Tour Capetown 2/18/2011Several U2 fans said Friday night’s performance at Cape Town Stadium was a “life changing experience”.

The Irish super group wowed over 72,000 screaming fans for the band’s final leg of the 360 Degree Tour in South Africa. Special appearances by Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Miriam and Amadou had the audience chanting for more.

Fans told Eyewitness News that U2’s giant stage “The Claw” was the main draw card of the show.

They added that the whole experience was breathtaking.

Other fans enjoyed the moving screens and said the performances “blew them away”.

Top selling international rock band, U2’s Cape Town concert this Friday, February 18 will be broadcast live on Highveld and KFM in South Africa, alongside a live stream on Dstvafrica.com , only available and free throughout the African continent.

U2 played a huge show in Johannesburg last Sunday night, returning to South Africa for the first time since 1998. On the PopMart tour, U2 also played 2 shows and the Johannesburg concert was broadcast live. The audio stream on DStvafrica.com will be broadcast into, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkino Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comores, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, St Helena, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The webcast is flash-based and therefore will not work on devices not supporting that technology. The stream will be available www.dstvafrica.com

U2’s manager Paul McGuinness said “The band had a great night in Johannesburg and I’m sure we’ll deliver another big show in Cape Town”.

DStv Online CEO John Kotsaftis said: “At the Soccer City show Bono said ‘This place feels like the future’ and we are excited to be making the future happen right now on dstvafrica.com with this first ever live streaming of a U2 concert in Africa. We are very proud and excited to be working with Universal Music and U2 on this initiative and this is just one of many innovations we have lined up for our online audience in 2011.”

Want to work for U2 ?

Organizers of a U2 concert in Moncton this summer are on the hunt for hundreds of temporary workers needed to erect a massive stage, grandstands and lighting and sound systems at Magnetic Hill.

Pascal Dube of Stage Crew Inc. of Moncton is looking for riggers, forklift drivers, truck loaders, stage hands and general labourers.

It will be a huge job that will begin about a week before the concert.

The U2 stage, a huge metal claw with four legs and giant video screens that stands about 50 metres tall, will likely be the biggest yet erected at the outdoor venue.

As a contractor to the touring company, Dube will be responsible for working with U2’s road crew to make sure everything is set up and ready to go when the band arrives.

He can’t say exactly how many people he will need but said the AC/DC show in Moncton in 2009 required more than 200 people — and the U2 show is expected to be bigger with up to 100,000 spectators.

“We have people coming from all over New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia to work at the show. And they don’t come just for the work because they have other jobs — they gotta love doing it,” Dube said.

“In this job you get to meet people from all over the world and get to be part of putting this big show together. It’s all about the music.”

The July 30 show will be the final North American date of the U2 360 Tour. The opening act is Montreal’s Arcade Fire, which received a best album Grammy last weekend for The Suburbs.

Besides all the riggers and stagehands, the U2 concert is expected to provide many other short-term jobs in security, food service, beverage service, traffic control and the box office.

Shane Porter, the City of Moncton’s supervisor of special events, said extra security will also be recruited while traffic control in and out of the site will be handled by the RCMP.



Cape Town Fans !

CAPE TOWN’S fan walk will be opened again on Friday for U2’s 360° Tour concert.

The concert is due to start at 7.30pm with gates opening at Cape Town Stadium at 4.30pm. The fan walk will be opened at 3.30pm.

City of Cape Town spokeswoman Kylie Hatton said the city saw the fan walk as an important access point for people using public transport to get to the stadium.

“It is a good way of moving people safely from Cape Town Station, where a lot of people will be getting off, to the stadium. The fans will get to walk in a cordoned-off area past murals and other attractions.”

The fan walk will feature large print murals depicting the Irish band’s history as well as iconic elements from some of their best-selling albums.

Marc Le Chat, from Celebrity Service Africa, which is in charge of organising events along the fan walk, said Cape Town band Almost Famous would perform from the roof of a building on Somerset Road in Green Point and would also perform a repertoire of U2 hits.

He said there would be an LED screen at St Andrews Square that would display the band’s music.

Le Chat said they would also place sky search beams at Exchange Place, St Andrews Square and along Main Road towards the stadium and beam through the night. Fire dancers would perform after the concert on the route.

Meanwhile, fans still desperate to get their hands on tickets can win some with Kfm.

Since yesterday, stages have been set up and will be moved to locations across the city where fans who know the lyrics off by heart can sing their way to the tickets up for grabs.

Kfm programme manager Ian Bredenkamp said:

“If Kfm crosses live from the studio to the U2 activation site, the person currently singing on stage will win eight tickets. You don’t need to be good, you just need to be there.”

Tomorrow the Kfm stages will be at the Edgemead Spar Centre (Letchworth Drive) from 9am to 10am and Thibault Square between noon and 1pm; on Thursday at Tyger Valley Mall and the V&A Waterfront between noon and 1pm; and on Friday outside Cape Town Stadium between 8am and 9am and noon to 1pm.

For more information visit www.kfm.co.za

Full details of road closures are obtainable at www.capetown.gov.za or at 0800 65 64 63.

U2 wows crowd in Joburg

With a roar that could rival the one seen last week in Tahrir square, Cairo, fans at the FNB Stadium last night gave U2 a rousing welcome.

But unlike the relief of Egyptians at President Hosni Mubarak’s exit from his position, fans here were celebrating seeing their favourite band playing in their own back yard.

And as lead singer Bono led the band up a stairway to the stage milking the applause and waving to all corners of the dimly lit cauldron, you knew why they’d sold over 150 million albums worldwide.

After the deafening welcoming screams, Bono wasted no time in belting out one of their biggest hits, Beautiful Day.

For another hit, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, legendary trumpeter Hugh Masekela was called on stage - to yet another massive cheer.

Former president Nelson Mandela also got a special mention, and even a video of his speech calling for “a united South Africa” was played on the big screen. Bishop Desmond Tutu sent a video message.

In between songs, Bono said: “We told you in 1998 that we’d be back … never trust a rock star. Anyway, we’re not finished yet … we’re happy to be back.”

Fans marvelled at the massive cylindrical big screen, as it expanded and contracted to create a kaleidoscopic mosaic.

Earlier in the evening, two unruly fans who got involved in a scuffle with security, were kicked out before U2’s roadies were done with sound checks. By the time the Malian duo of Amadou and Mariam, said their “merci beaucoup”, the stadium was rocking.

Local outfit the Springbok Nude Girls, led by the energetic Arno Carstens, played an impressive and compact set, which included the songs Gang Gang, I Love You, Genie and Bubblegum.

Almost an hour and a half before the Irish rock band hit the stage, thousands of fans, some in wheelchairs, others heavily pregnant and others drunk, took pictures and danced under the imposing “Claw” - the name given to the band’s 360-degree stage.

There were scores of fans in their U2 attire, standing in queues for refreshments and for toilet breaks.

Eyewitness News was inundated with calls about long queues, traffic problems and a lack of water at the concert. Jack Longford, CEO of organisers Big Concerts, denied there was a shortage of water or food and said people needed to be patient.

The band will play at the Cape Town Stadium on February 18 before heading to South America. The tour ends in July.