Social Media Brings U2 Closer

MONCTON – 75,000 plus fans descended on Magnetic Hill for the final U2 show of its 360 tour, millions of diehard fans were in Moncton in spirit as social media and smart devices became the eyes and ears of the show to the world. 

Fans around the world that could not attend the show live could follow any show via twitter with show hastags assigned to them, Moncton was #U2360MON the tags used communicate news, comments, share the set list, photos to bring fans even closer. 

Fans from Brazil, Chile, Portugal and Australia shared the tweets, photos and kept communication going with the pleas for more show details.

“It’s kind of funny that I’ve never heard of Moncton before in my life, but now I’ll never forget it! Wish I was there!!” tweeted @U2junkie, a fan from the United States. Our social media channels had over 1 milllion vistors on Saturday night. At one point it looks as if U2 was trending on every social media outlet.

“It seemed like a whole other audience had tuned into the gig, reading rather than listening. It’s not my idea of rock ‘n’ roll but whatever turns you on. Virtual music. Read the tweet, hear it in your head.”

From Tyler, Texas, Lauralynn Wagner followed the show on Twitter from beginning to end. People around the world were interacting on Twitter during the set, she said, giving the event the feel of a “global experience.”

“It’s just really amazing how technology has been able to connect us, as fans, that way,” Wagner said, adding that she saw people re-tweeting concert tweets from as far away as Argentina.

“There were tweets in Spanish. To get to talk to people from all over the place sharing in this experience - it was just really cool to be able to do that.”

For fans who couldn’t make it to the show, Twitter provided the next best thing, said Dale Rideout-Moores from Paradise, Newfoundland. Rideout-Moores, a U2 fan since the 1980s, followed a handful of Moncton concert-goers online along with a group of about 50 other U2 fans who didn’t make it to Moncton.

“A bunch of us stayed online and talked about the songs as we got individual updates on Facebook or on Twitter,” she said.

“It was nice, because even though you couldn’t be there in person, you sort of had the opportunity to be online and feel like you were at the last show.”

The hashtag #U2360Mon had close to 5,000 significant mentions by the end of the concert, according to the social media analytics site Topsy.

Argentina Ready?

Tonights show is the first of three shows the boys have planed for Argentina. The stadium de la Plata is ready to host the crawl and give way to some 70 thousand expected fans. Tonight doors open at 16:00 and the show starts at 19:30 with Muse warming up for U2. The next two shows are  april 2nd and apirl 3rd. With thousands of fans already outside waiting near the entrance its just a matter of time before we get to see our boys someone screams from the crowd.

Third visit

U2 in Argentina took place in 1998, River, when they were in full Popmart tour. At that time, Bono invited the leader of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo to the stage, a gesture that is expected to repeat. The second time on Argentine soil was in 2006, also in the Monumental, during the  the Vertigo Tour .For the third visit to our country, the band consists of Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton promises an outstanding show, a show that some do not hesitate to describe as the most ambitious in the history of rock.

Follow tonights show via twitter or facebook - Of course we will update the videos after the show.

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.  

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Remember Dallas ?

A slow news day today for the boys, everyone else has begun to talk about who has been added to the list of opening acts, done that, or talking about what Blackberry and U2 have planned, Or just throwing up some interesting facts. We thought we would go back to our concert collection of videos and pull up a show that we thought was spot on one of the best.

U2 360 Tour Dallas TxMore than 70,000 people witnessed the North Texas stop of the Irish group’s 360 Degrees Tour. The floor, which was standing-room-only and surrounded the mammoth stage, was an ocean of human beings.

Then we have that platform contraption. Let’s call it a spaceship merged with a spider, its four claw-like structures flanking a circular riser and an outer ring. The two were connected by movable bridges. Above the band was a spectacular rotating video screen that extended into a funnel-like cloud constantly lit for maximum effect.

And of course, there’s Bono, Larry Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton and The Edge. These guys couldn’t be more comfortable before a humongous mass, or underneath such high-tech gadgetry. For about two hours the U2 members sang and played with passionate precision. They backed up the spectacle with plenty of dramatic substance.

Bono was a messiah figure when he performed. Dressed in black and prone to raising his arms and tilting his head back, as if basking in the presence of his disciples, he wasted no time in preaching peace, asking for a “non-violent revolution” and turning “Walk On,” the final number before the encore, into a thought-provoking tribute to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi.

For sheer U2 explosiveness, we got “Vertigo,” “Get On Your Boots,” “Elevation” and “Beautiful Day.” If you wanted a good groove, they delivered with “Mysterious Ways” and “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight.” The tunes from No Line On the Horizon, the quartet’s newest disc, blended perfectly with older material.

One more song deserves mention: “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” an anthem that prompts fist pumping. It’s just as inspiring a song now, with all the violent political unrest in the world, as it was back in 1983 when it was originally released.

Mullen’s militaristic drum work filled the stadium with crisp, measured marching beats. Which brings us to the sound at the venue, a constant source of argument among concertgoers. Two colleagues of mine sitting in section 449, basically nosebleed seats, said the sound was “pretty muddy” during opening act Muse. It only got “marginally better” for them during U2’s set.

Bono’s all-you-need-is-love message may have its roots in the ’60s, but it’s a sentiment that will never get old, not when it’s delivered with such spiritual and inspiring sincerity. Like the final encore says, we all need that moment of surrender, a time when we give in to some higher power and decide to make this world a better place.

Setlist

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