Who are you ? Fans already standing, sleeping, eating or just kicking around some time. We want to know who you are ? Why are you already lined up almost 3 days before the show. Who is paying you to stand in line ?
Send us some daily photos of your line experience fans around the world want to know why ? Memphis Mullen has not even arrived to the venue yet so your ahead of the game - Well good luck to you the mighty fan.
U2TOURFANS.2011@twitpic.com
Live Nation is releasing a block of field-level seats for the June 28 U2 concert at Sun Life Stadium.
According to a release, Live Nation will make these tickets available on Wednesday morning. When the concert was first announced for the band’s 2010 tour, these tickets sold out in a day
In their fullest comments yet about the creative clashes this winter inside “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” Bono and the Edge, of U2 — first-time Broadway composers — said they originally embraced Julie Taymor’s script and characters for the show but were wholly ill-prepared for putting her ambitious ideas onstage. They ultimately lost faith in her and quietly maneuvered to overhaul “Spider-Man,” before finally shocking Ms. Taymor, their longtime collaborator, with her ouster in March.
Bono and the Edge expressed regret at not being on site during previews in December, saying they were locked into a U2 tour of New Zealand and Australia. Most Broadway composers, both veterans and especially newcomers, are in their theaters virtually every night during previews, watching and taking notes. The Edge said they watched videos of performances from Australia yet were not in the theater again until early January, by which time the musical had become a late-night TV punch line.
They then went to work on sound design and new lyrics; despite hints and promises of new music, however, there is only one fully new song in the show, a version of which had been pitched to Ms. Taymor.
Even now, Bono and the Edge said, the musical is just 90 percent complete, with a final 10 percent of work — in their view, chiefly involving the relationship between Peter Parker and the villain, the Green Goblin — to be done this summer.
“The first time I loved ‘Spider-Man’ was two and a half weeks ago,” he admitted, but added, “Even when I was really angry about its obtuse story and some of the awful readings of the music — even then I was still saying, it was kind of magical.”
Well lets see what the reviews are.
Bono and The Edge will also be on NBC Nightly News on Tuesday with Anchorman Brian Williams
Dre: The tour season for U2 will come to an end in an interview posted on Rolling Stone The Edge and Adam talked about the next tour and gave some ideas of what it could be like. Also within the interview we learned about the 2011 ablum.
Brian Hiatt from RS had a chance to catch up with Adam and The Edge at the Denver show. Here is some of that coversation.
Adam was asked there are a number of No Line On he Horizon songs not on the setlist so the show does feel like a NLOTH show at this point, Adam said yea its unfortunate, we would like to be playing more from the album, we did get good reviews however the fans did not catch on, think of it this way the single did not work so fans did not have a road into the album. We would have to agree however since we know a deeper U2 lies within we gave the album second and third chance.
The tour was to be over by now. The timing of the tour was nothing we could do. What happened to Bono was fairly serious and at the time he could not have gone on. He needed to be operated on now. That gave us a chance to work on material. However we have not had a chance to go back and work on a completed set. Pretty much why we will not have a record this year.
The Edge talked abit about the next tour and said that we could expect something different, the interview did go on about spiderman which seems to be a sore subject for Bono and The Edge not a project that will go down as perfect, more like it was a labor of love. Well thats alot of love.
Read more of the interview within the Rolling Stone online -
Irish rockers U2 have postponed the release of their latest album, due to troubles with their ‘Spider-Man’ musical. The band, who have been in the studio working on the follow-up to 2009’s “No Line On The Horizon” , now aim to have the new album out by next year.
“We had to have a meeting and look at the schedule to see if we could pick up any extra time to work on it. We just realised that we couldn’t. To be honest, everyone was a bit gutted. But it was the only sensible decision,” U2 bassist Adam Clayton told Rolling Stone.
Remember RedOne the producer that worked on a couple of tunes with the boys? Well, Clayton said that:
”We have to focus on what we do best, and the work we did with Danger Mouse came closest to that. In the end, the thing we did with RedOne doesn’t feel like the right fit.”
RedOne works include Lady Gaga, and Ms Lopez and Danger Mouse - So for now we wait 2012 for a new album and you can expect the full power of the marketing machine behind them.
Spidey is expected to arrive June 14th and you can bet that Bono and The Edge will be happy that its finally ready to go - The preview season was longer than most runnings on Broadway. So lets get it running
By Aidin Vaziri: It was massive. It was relentless. And, above all else, it was heartbreaking. But enough about the gnarly traffic jam outside Oakland’s Overstock.com Coliseum on Tuesday, which turned a typically easy commute to the ballpark into a panic-laced three-hour ordeal dotted with beaming red lights and a robust chorus of car horns.
The real action took place inside the stadium, where nearly 70,000 fans slowly filtered into their seats to finally catch a glimpse of U2’s big-budget 360° world tour, rescheduled from last year after the group’s front man, Bono, injured his back during rehearsals.
The singer, wearing his ever-present sunglasses in the middle of the evening, made up for the nightmare commute with a little flattery and a lot of passion.
“You guys invented the 21st century, didn’t you?” he said, surveying an eclectic audience that boasted lifelong fans, kids, unwitting contest winners, Silicon Valley glitterati and even a few real-life rock stars (Lou Reed was reportedly in the house).
Bono regaled the audience with details of a dinner the night before at San Francisco’s A16 with members of local platinum-shifters Metallica and Green Day. “Music shaped the Bay Area,” he said. “And the Bay Area shaped the world.”
Or as guitarist the Edge put it, “We talked about the most important issues of the day - the best Tequila available.”
U2, meanwhile, put on a formidable live show, with the singer breathing new life into some of the band’s most well-worn hits. Bono bellowed his way through decades-old songs like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” as if he were singing them for the first time.
With the Edge at his side, the front man delivered a stunning, full-throated acoustic version of “Stay (Faraway, So Close!).” He even convincingly filled in for Pavarotti on the understated operatic duet “Miss Sarajevo.”
The concert, built around a circular stage and enormous four-legged 400-ton structure known as “the Claw,” initially launched two years ago in support of the group’s indifferently received 12th studio album, “No Line on the Horizon.”
Going by the fervent reception that greeted the band at Tuesday’s concert, though, U2 didn’t lose any of its momentum during the time off, even though it failed to finish a promised follow-up release and has spent a good deal of time trying to untangle the problems with the Broadway production of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” (finally set to open next week).
In fact, the politically charged concert was part of what has officially become the highest grossing tour of all time (and most expensive to produce thanks to the 500,000-pixel video screen).
“Thank-you for your patience,” Bono said. “Some of you were two years younger when you bought those tickets.”
Despite the focus on the special effects at the outset of the evening, the band was never swallowed up by the technology - even when they were completely enveloped by it during “Zooropa.” The Claw came to life a few times during the 2.5-hour show, spouting green smoke and shooting red lights high into the sky, but it never felt like the main attraction.
Some people in the crowd grumbled that the giant screens made it feel like watching a DVD at home - especially from the back rows. But no amount of high-definition engineering could wring out the kind of emotion the group - rounded out by bass player Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. - summoned during its mesmerizing run through “One.” That took real soul.
I have not seen it in some years. I think I shot on a whim, either for class or to finish out a roll of film. Either way, it doesn’t matter as it captured a time of innocence in my life. I loved those years on campus at the University of Iowa. The highlight was seeing U2 play live when they stopped in Iowa City on the Joshua Tree tour. The four Irishmen were supposed to perform at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, but they didn’t. Rumor was they wanted to set-up their outdoor stage but were not allowed to. Instead, they came to our campus, much to our delight.
I always wanted to sit in Carver-Hawkeye arena where I sat for that show on October 20th, 1987. Three years ago, I had that opportunity when my wife sent me packing to work on my memoir, I’m a Fan: How I married U2 into my life without going to the altar, at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. She had no idea she was sending me back to the place where the fandom took hold. She has always felt there was another person in our relationship. Yes, it is U2 and this time I was going back to work on a book and visit a familiar space.
I’m not sure how many people can walk into an empty arena and sit for a few minutes in a space where their life changed. Luckily, I had that opportunity and I lived in the moment again. It was helpful, as I wanted the reader of my book to understand the excitement, the anxieties and the immense distance, from my seats in section JJ row 25, to the stage that night. The passion I had to create a flag and hoist it on a concrete column behind us, letting U2 know from the farthest seat sat their biggest fan, only to have it taken away.
The innocence found in this picture is what I wanted for the book. The not knowing where the world would take me next, but the knowledge that U2 would always be with me is the crux of the story. It is something all of us fans can identify with as we have so passionately followed them throughout our lives. Sometimes, we cannot answer why we are fans. Inside, we just know we are and that is okay.
Eric’s Book can be found here -
I’m a Fan: How I married U2 into my life without going to the altar
Well the first review is in - While we await for Memphis Mullen’s review we have Jim’s review. Now Remember everyone has a point of view.
By Jim Harrington: One has to wonder whether U2 gets the irony of opening its shows with the tune “Even Better Than the Real Thing.”
For that’s really the issue that’s up for debate on their gigantic, record-setting 360 Tour, which finally touched down on Tuesday night — nearly a year later than originally scheduled — at Overstock.com Coliseum in Oakland.
Is watching U2 perform on giant video screens, on a mammoth stage that makes it hard to pay attention to the actual musicians, even better than the plain old concert experience?
I guess it depends on what one is looking for. The sheer magnitude of the production — by far, the largest ever in rock ‘n’ roll history — is breathtaking. The four-legged “Claw” stage, which each leg able to support 125 tons, is 157 feet tall and 200 feet wide. The in-the-round stage is designed so that every fan in the stadium — totaling some 69,000 in Oakland — can, at least in theory, see what’s happening onstage. Thus, the 360 name.
But the apparatus is also a huge distraction, one that even made the band seem quite unnecessary at times. If you weren’t in the first few rows, you might as well have been watching a DVD on the big screens. Sure, that’s true, to some degree, of most stadium shows — but never before to the extent witnessed on this 360 Tour.
Not that fans are arguing. This 2 ½-hour Oakland show — originally scheduled for last June, but postponed when Bono injured his back — was the 94th of a 110-date sold-out trek that already ranks as the top-grossing tour of all time.
There were a number of highlights on Tuesday night, just not anywhere near as many as found during the local stops on the band’s two previous tours, 2001’s Elevation and 2005-06’s “Vertigo.” Those previous treks played arenas, and the intimacy of the settings did more for the music than any “Claw” ever could.
U2, however, wouldn’t make us wait long for the night’s first highlight, following up the 1991 “Achtung Baby” track “Even Better Than the Real Thing” with a powerful version of “I Will Follow,” the early single from the 1980 debut “Boy” that still stands as the band’s best anthem.
Then the Irish quartet, which consists of vocalist Bono, guitarist the Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr., would quickly let the momentum slip away as it delved into the new album for a lukewarm “Get on Your Boots” and a version of “Magnificent” that was anything but.
The band recovered nicely as it moved back to the juicier part of its songbook for the “Achtung” offerings “Mysterious Ways” and “Until the End of the World,” as well as the uplifting “Elevation,” from 2000’s great “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.”
Yet, the whole affair felt overly rehearsed and rote. That’s part of the deal with these big stage productions, which leave little wiggle room for veering off the set list or ad-libbing in any form. It still shouldn’t “feel” that way. But it mostly felt so choreographed, from the song selection (which closely mirrored other shows on this leg of the tour) to the stage banter.
There was, however, a handful of refreshing exceptions to that rule. The first came when band members discussed how they’d spent the previous night partying with Metallica and Green Day.
“We talked about the most important issues of the day — the best tequila available,” the Edge said of the meeting of rock greats. “I remember at least the first hour. The rest is kind of fuzzy.”
The second was an impromptu version of “Perfect Day,” the sensational song by Lou Reed, who was reportedly in the audience. And, most significantly, Bono did take the time to recognize that this crowd had to wait so long to finally be able to see this show.
“Thank you for your patience,” he said. “Some of you were two years younger when you bought those tickets.”
The delay didn’t affect the performance. The band sounded strong through much of the evening, continuing through such fan favorites as “Beautiful Day,” “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “Where the Streets Have No Name.” Bono was a powerful frontman — proving one more time that he’s the best in the business at playing up to the camera — and the Edge had the guitar effects humming as usual, while Clayton and Mullen, Jr. again formed one of rock’s most potent rhythm sections.
And that fact only made it harder to accept the “Claw.” The band sounded so good that I wanted to actually watch them, yet my attention was continually drawn up to the giant video screens and to the four-legged monster of a stage
