Tour grosses over $703 million

The Edge / Adam / Bono / U2 360 Tour Denver 2011NEW FIGURES show that U2’s 360° Tour has grossed more than $703 million (€534 million) after seven million rock fans paid to see the band over the past three years.

According to figures published by music industry journal Pollstar, the tour grossed $231.9 million last year after 2.38 million music fans paid to see the band at 34 gigs across 26 cities.

The US-based publisher shows that the tour grossed the highest amount of any rock band last year and on average grossed $8.9 million per gig with an average attendance of 91,828.

The figures show that U2’s three-gig stint at the Morumbi Stadium in São Paolo, Brazil, alone earned $32 million.

The $703 million is a gross figure and does not take into account the significant costs of staging the tour, which involved 110 gigs in 79 cities around the world over three years.

Hundreds of people were employed in transporting and constructing the 360° “Claw” stage, while the concerts provided a major economic boost in the cities where they took place.

The profits from the tour are shared between the four members of the band – Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton – their manager Paul McGuinness, their promoter Live Nation, and the local venue operator.

The 360° production increased the capacity of venues by up to 25%, resulting in record attendances.

The Pollstar figures show that one of the top-earning stints over the three years was the band’s sold-out three-night run at Dublin’s Croke Park, where the tour grossed $28.5 million.

A breakdown of the annual figures shows that the tour grossed $231.9 million in 2011; $160.9 million in 2010; and $311 million in 2009, when three million people paid on average $101 to see the band play.

The year 2009 was the largest grossing year of the tour, when the average gross per concert was $10 million.

The drop-off in revenue in 2010 came as a result of the band postponing a North American leg of the tour after Bono sustained a back injury in Munich.

The latest figures for U2’s main Irish company, U2 Ltd, for the 12 months to the end of 2010 show that its cash pile increased almost fivefold to €4 million.

The principal activity of the company is the creation, protection and licensing of intellectual property.

Fans Pick 22 Songs

U2 360 Tour / Mark Peterson

Fans your votes are in for the 22 live track double CD album to be released to celebrate the 360 tour.  Fans had 46 songs to choose from and of course the main stays like “Where The Streest Have No Name, One and some lesser known Ultravoulet and The Unforgettable Fire have been chosen. Take a look at the list. What do you think ? Did they get it right ? Or is something missing ?

U22 tracklist:

1. Bad
2. Where The Streets Have No  Name
3. Magnificent
4. One
5. Ultraviolet
6. Even Better than The Real Thing
7. With or Without You
8. Beautiful Day
9. City of Blinding Lights
10. The Unforgettable Fire
11. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
12. All I Want is You/Love Rescue Me
13. Moment of Surrender
14. Until The End of the World
15. The Fly
16. One Tree Hill
17. Stay (Faraway, So Close)
18. Walk On
19. Zooropa
20. Elevation
21. Out of Control
22. Mysterious Ways

From the Sky Down: Released Today

From the Sky Down is a 2011 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about rock band U2 and the production of their 1991 album Achtung Baby. The film documents the album’s difficult recording period, the band members’ relationships, and the group’s creative process.

Guggenheim, who was commissioned by U2 to create the film to commemorate Achtung Baby’s 20th anniversary, spent several months in 2011 developing the documentary.

Archival footage and stills from the recording sessions appear in From the Sky Down, along with unreleased scenes from the group’s 1988 motion picture Rattle and Hum.

For the documentary, the band were filmed during a return visit to Hansa Studios in Berlin where the album was partly recorded, and during rehearsals in Winnipeg for the Glastonbury Festival 2011.

The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2011, the first time in the festival’s history that a documentary was screened as the opening film.

The following month, it was broadcast on television and commercially released in the 20th anniversary reissue of Achtung Baby. Standalone copies of the film were released on December 12, 2011 on Blu-ray and DVD.

Critics’ reviews of From the Sky Down have been mixed. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an enthusiastic review, describing it as “one of the most transcendent close-up looks at the process of creating rock & roll I’ve ever seen.” In his opinion, the film was a “stirring testament to what it really means when four people in this world can create magical things because they band together.”

Hank Steuver of The Washington Post called it an “intriguing” documentary that “becomes a revealing and even enlightening meditation on the mystery of why some bands stay together and some don’t.” The review said the film is “refreshingly blunt and beautifully assembled”, and it praised Guggenheim for asking the band tough questions about that period in their history.

Bono in Timbukto

U2 front man, Bono, takes to the stage in Timbuktu as Mali raises security for it’s desert music festival.

Many reports are comiong that Bono appeared in the music festival.The festival used to be a major world music event but al Qaeda threats have kept crowds away.

Roughly 300 paying tourists attended, about half the number in 2011 and well down on the thousand-plus of past years. Around three thousand non-paying Malians also turned up for the three-day event, including nomadic Tuaregs.

Bono, put in an appearance on the opening night on Thursday in what organisers said was a show of support for the event.

Mali and the nieghbbouring Niger have ended years of uprising which began in 2009. The area faced a new security threat bandits teamed up with al Qada’s Saharan wing. ( who knew that even was a real group)to suppply a lucrative trade in ransoms of Western hostages.

Aside from the impact on tourism, the kidnappings have made it harder for international aid workers to operate in the semi-arid Sahel region which faces regular food crises and has some of the worst health statistics in the world.

Temper Trap inspiration 4 new U2 album

In a chat online,Bono said the band was working on three albums with different musical directions.

“Something really exciting is that finally the rock band is melting into clubland and experimenting with sounds that are not normally deemed authentic for the rock band - synthesizers, experimental sounds - which you can hear in an album by the Temper Trap,” Bono said. “That’s exciting, a new hybrid.”

The Temper Trap, whose hit Sweet Disposition was compared with the sounds of U2, has been recording its second album, due for release mid-year, in LA and London.