U2 tops this week's Hot Tours ranking with the first boxscore totals reported for their massive "360" tour" which kicked off in Barcelona's Camp Nou on June 30th. With six total sold-out shows from the first three stadiums on the tour, the band grossed more than $55.8 million. The group's top take comes from Paris with over $20.9 million earned at the Stade De France. A total of 186,544 tickets were sold for both performances. The "360" Tour will be playing European stadiums through August before kicking off North American dates in September.
Happy Birthday David Howell Evans
David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), more widely known by his nickname and stage name The Edge (or simply just Edge), is an Irish musician known best as the guitarist, keyboardist, and main backing vocalist for the Irish rock band U2. His distinctive electric guitar timbre and percussive style of playing, along with his innovative use of digital sound processing — delay in particular — have been instrumental in defining U2's unique sound. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine named him at #24 on their list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Did you know ?
In 1981, leading up to the October tour, Evans came very close to leaving U2 for religious reasons, but he was persuaded to stay.[5] During this period, he became involved with a group called Shalom Tigers, in which bandmates Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. were also involved.[7] Shortly after deciding to remain with the band, he wrote a piece of music that was to become "Sunday Bloody Sunday".[5] The Edge married his secondary school girlfriend Aislinn O'Sullivan on 12 July 1983.[8] The couple had three daughters together: Hollie, in 1984, Arran, in 1985, and Blue Angel, in 1989.[7] The Edge and O'Sullivan separated in 1990 but could not divorce due to Irish laws regarding marriage annullment; divorce was legalised in 1995 and the couple legally divorced in 1996.[7]
During U2's groundbreaking Zoo TV Tour, The Edge met Morleigh Steinberg, a professional dancer and choreographer employed by the band. The couple began dating in 1993, and had their daughter, Sian, in 1997, and a son, Levi, in 1999.[7] They were married on 22 June 2002.[7]
The Edge's hair started thinning in his early twenties, and as a result, he has worn hats or caps on stage, in photo shoots, and on album covers since The Joshua Tree album and tour. From the period of The Joshua Tree up until Achtung Baby and early Zoo TV, he had very long hair.
He now wears a toque at all times in public, and even wore one at his wedding to Steinberg in 2002. He has since made very few public appearances without a hat or cap, such as during the 1995 "Pavarotti and Friends" concert where he performed "Miss Sarajevo" and "One" with Bono.
This cap has become part of his distinctive "look". As of September 2007 he owned 375 hats according to his most recent count at the time and 14/15 bandanas.
He says he has a hat wing in his house. He has also been distinguished by wearing shirts with numbers during the Elevation Tour, and by a cowboy hat and Fu Manchu moustache during the PopMart Tour.
He is currently focusing his humanitarian efforts on Music Rising, a charity that provides musical instruments to those who lost instruments in Hurricane Katrina. He also owns the 140-foot, $20 million Codecasa yacht The Cyan.
70,000 Poles Rocked/ Twitter Users/ Videos
Boots gets kicked to the Streets on VMA Nomination
Everything you thought MTV was can get throwen right out of the window of "PC" correction world crap.
Now we all agree that U2 "Streets" video should have won a long time ago. However to come back around today and make up a catergory called "Should have won" No way whats next?
Awards for:
- Hall of Famers that we think should be ones.
- Grammy Awards for those that should have won
- Oscars for poor acting skills.
- Sun Dance awards for movies that did not make it to the dance.
Oh come on now lets call it as we see it. U2 is on tour, its the biggest tour of the year and MTV did not want to miss the chance to grab those eye balls for at least one night. Lets face it when was the last time you saw an U2 video on MTV? Or for that fact when was the last time you saw any video on MTV. Its dead as dead as Spring Break in Florida. Gone of the way of TC's TOP Dogs in Daytona Beach. Yea I worked for MTV too when younger. Who has not.
Best Video (That Should Have Won A Moonman)
- David Lee Roth, "California Girls"
- Foo Fighters, "Everlong"
- U2, "Streets Have No Name"
- George Michael, "Freedom"
- OK Go, "Here It Goes Again"
- Tom Petty, "Into the Great Wide Open"
- Dr. Dre(featuring Snoop Dogg), "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang"
- Beastie Boys, "Sabotage"
- Björk, "Human Behavior"
- Radiohead, "Karma Police"
I bet we see them win as they are out on Tour with a "live" video cut in from the show. Wanta bet ?
Follow us via twitter @ U2TOURANS
Adam Clayton in his own words
This much I know ( Series )
Luke Bainbridge
The Observer, Sunday 2 August 2009
Adam Clayton, musician, 49, Amsterdam
Adam Clayton in Paris. Photograph: Kevin Davies
I don't think rock'n'roll is necessarily a young man's game. I think Neil Young is just as rock'n'roll now as he was in his 20s. I'd like to think we can still be edgy and challenging.
I was not an obvious contender. I was actually pretty shy in school. My defence mechanism was to be the class clown. I remember getting into a lot of trouble for being disruptive, and I was brought in front of the headteacher, who said: "What's going to happen to you; what are you going to do when you grow up?" and I said: "Well, I'm obviously going to be a comedian."
From an early age I didn't buy into the value systems of working hard in a nine-to-five job. I thought creativity, friendship and loyalty and pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable was much more interesting.
The longevity of U2 is primarily based on the friendship of four men that have grown up together. Four men that respect and support and love each other. We won't let each other fail.
It's very confusing when fame comes early on in your career. You get a little bit bent out of shape in terms of what's important. Fame is like the dessert that comes with your achievements - it's not an achievement in itself, but sometimes it can overpower the work.
I really enjoy the privileges of fame now. It opens doors and allows you to meet people, and you're in control. When fame first happened I didn't feel in control, and it closed doors to me.
I've never necessarily chosen to be a bachelor. I've had girlfriends throughout the last 20 or 30 years. It's just that there were times when I met people that fascinated me and times I didn't.
The biggest misconception about me was that I was some kind of wild, crazy rock'n'roll firework. It was an easy image to pick up on, but I'd like to think I was a little deeper than that.
I stopped drinking 12 years ago, and it was time. I'd had enough of drinking, drugging and nightclubs. It was a difficult decision to change my life, and it took a while to reprogram, but I've no regrets at all. I've enjoyed every bit of my life. I've had the best of it both ways.
My greatest achievement is managing to cope with four fingers and four strings.
The worst thing that ever happened to me was being busted. It wasn't that I was treated particularly badly, it was just so stupid, so pathetic, to be busted for cannabis. It was a big newspaper story, and it becomes a whole talking point with your parents and your parents' friends and your friends' children, and you just don't want that debate opened up.
I feel there is a lot more to achieve. In the first 20 years I was functioning on instinct and attitude and rawness, and now I know what I'm doing and can apply those skills in a different way. It's no longer about attitude and rawness, but it's about sophistication and understanding.
If I could only take one thing on tour it would be Irish tea bags. Barry's decaffeinated tea bags. I know it sounds crazy, but if you don't travel with your own tea, it never tastes the same.
In a loving relationship, as an expression of freedom and fantasy, I think sex is very important.
I don't think I would ever try and repeat U2. I'd be very happy when U2 came to whatever end, and there is no end, really. But I would be happy to move on. It's a very fast world, and a quieter world would be welcome at some stage.
I can look at myself in the mirror. I didn't use to be able to do it. I see someone who is incredibly lucky, who still has so much ahead of him rather than behind him, and I'm very grateful. I cannot believe how good my life is. I did not expect this.
• U2 plays Wembley Stadium, London on 14 and 15 August
U2 360º Tour - Gelsenkirchen Set List
Comments: Fans have said this show should be a do over. Not the best. A couple of errors, slow, and even a stop and re-start.
- Breathe
- No Line on The Horizon
- Get on your boots
- Magnificent
- Beautiful Day
- Elevation
- Still haven't found what I am looking for
- Stuck in a moment
- Unknown Caller
- The Unforgettable Fire
- City of Blinding Lights
- Vertigo
- Crazy to tonight
- Sunday Bloody Sunday Rock The Casbah snippet in SBS
- Pride in the name of love
- MLK
- Walk On/You'll Never Walk Alone snip
- Where The Streets Have No Name
- One
- Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
- With Or Without You
- Moment of Surrender
How Many trucks can fit in a U2 yard !
u2conference: U2 The Band, The Music and more
Have you been thinking about how U2 has impacted your life, the music industry, third world counties or is a bit more personal for you.
To begin to understand the mystique of the Irish rock band U2, one needs only to experience the presence of Bono: the leather-clad, Scripture-quoting, wraparound-sunglasses-wearing lobbyist for third world debt relief whose larger than life personality effortlessly lights up a room.
Or a stadium. A tireless performer on the concert stage, Bono pursues an assortment of social causes around the world as well. A rock star who hangs out with Senator Jesse Helms and Pope John Paul II, Bono also gave the commencement speech at Harvard University’s graduation in 2000.
I believe that contemporary cultural attitudes are influenced more by the people who write popular songs, movies and television programs than all the classrooms and pulpits in this country put together.
But even this most thoughtful band has a fair amount of contradictions. In a global environment, where most people live day to day, this group enjoys the high life in penthouse suites at the finest hotels around the country while it is on tour.
Maybe there is still room for God in the decadent world of rock-and-roll, as U2’s song lyrics are among the most socially aware, compassionate and hope-filled on the radio today. The realms of the sacred and the profane have never been so blurred.
Follow me because I follow him
Accepted Papers and Presenters
01. “Whither the Spiritual? A Content Analysis of Reviews of No Line on the Horizon in U.S. and European Magazines and Newspapers.”
John A. Ballard, College of Mount St. Joseph, and Anjelika Gasilina, Wittenberg University
02. “’The Ground Beneath Her Feet’: U2, Salman Rushdie, and the Political Frontiers of Artistic Collaboration.”
Jordan A. Berard, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Ottawa
03. “’O may the moon and the sunlight seem / One inextricable beam:’ The Imaginative Experience in Yeats’ ‘The Tower’ and U2’s ‘Lemon.’”
Joe Bisz, CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College
04. “All That You Can’t Leave Behind: The Conservative Voice in the Songs of U2.”
Stephen Catanzarite, Managing Director, Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center
05. “Grace Makes Beauty…: The Rhetorical Strategies of Powerful Emotions in U2.”
Prof. Christine Chaney, Chair of English, Seattle Pacific University
06. “Bono Versus Nick Cave on Jesus.”
Dr. Greg Clarke, The Centre for Public Christianity, Sydney
07. “Sometimes Melodies Are Not Songs, They’re Ideas: The Creative Life of Bono and Implications for Talent Development.”
Jeff Danielian, The National Association for Gifted Children
08. “The Quest for the Musical Jesus: Finding Jesus in the Music of U2.”
The Rev. Robert Derrenbacker, Jr., Ph.D., Thorneloe University, Sudbury, Ontario
09. “Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: U2 and the Politics of Irony.”
Kevin Dettmar, W. M. Keck Professor and Chair, Pomona College
10. “Pro Bono: Translating and Transforming Africa for the Consumerist West.”
Bruce Edwards, Professor of English and Africana Studies, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
11. “Deconstruction by Stratification: Vocal Layering as Commentary, Criticism, and Reinvention in the Music of U2.”
Christopher Endrinal, Assistant Professor of Music Theory, University of Massachusetts Lowell
12. “U2: Fallen Angels.”
Deane Galbraith, University of Otago, New Zealand
13. “Vertigo-Event-Context: The Interpretive Lyric/Music Binary in the U2 Corpus.”
Grant Horner and Richard Pressley, The Master’s College
14. “Boy, (Achtung) Baby, and Bomb: Anti-Language in the Songs of U2.”
John Hurtgen, Dean, School of Theology, Campbellsville University
15. “Singing Truth to Power: Bono Meets Bonhoeffer.”
Dr. Mark Husbands, Leonard and Marjorie Maas Associate Professor of Reformed Theology, Hope College
16. "Uncertainty Can Be a Guiding Light: Why and How U2 Made Zooropa."
Kevin Jackson, M.A.T. student in English Education, SUNY Cortland
17. “U2’s ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ as Public Song-Memorial.”
Brian Johnston, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Communication, University of South Florida
18. “’O Can’t You See What Love Has Done?’ – U2, Paul Ricoeur, and the Hermeneutics of Personhood.”
Dr. Jeffrey Keuss, Associate Professor of Christian Ministry and Theology, Seattle Pacific University, and Dr. Sara Koenig, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Seattle Pacific University
19. "Is this rock and roll?: Sources, Contexts, and Intertexts of U2's ‘Until the End of the World’."
Daniel Kline, University of Alaska Anchorage
20. “U2 in the Church - How it is Done in Denmark.”
Rev. Jens Moesgaard Nielsen, M.Th. and Rev. Joergen Lasgaard, M.Th., The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark
21. “I’m Still Waiting: The General Admission Queue and Fan Self-Organizing Culture at U2 Concerts.”
Dr. Barbara LoMonaco, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky
22. “From ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ to ‘Angel of Harlem’: Irishness, American Blackness, and U2's Authentic Performativity.”
Kimberly Mack, UCLA, Ph.D student in English
23. “U2: Identities Covered and Revealed.”
Mark Mandarano, Artistic Director, Sinfonietta of Riverdale; Principal Guest Conductor, Moscow Chamber Orchestra; Adjunct Lecturer, Lehman College-CUNY
24. “U2 Live: Where Leitourgia Has No Name.”
The Rev. Beth Maynard, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
25. “Teaching U2: The Classroom as Gathering Place.”
Tim Neufeld, faculty in Biblical and Religious Studies, Fresno Pacific University, California, and Jessica Mast, senior student, Fresno Pacific University, California
26. “U2: An Elevated Brand.”
Michele O'Brien, Cawley Nea\TBWA, Dublin
27. “Common Aspirations: Media Theory and U2’s Zoo TV Tour.”
Corey Palmer, Huntington University
28. “Music for Marching: Forming an Army Through the Politics of Love.”
Dr. Darel Paul, Associate Professor of Political Science, Williams College
29. “U2 and Igor Stravinsky: Textures, Timbres, and the Devil.”
Dr. Dan Pinkston, Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition, Simpson University
30. "U2 as a Pedagogical Resource: Faith Integration and Social Justice"
Brian Porter, Professor of Management, Hope College
31. “U2 and the Poetics of Absence.”
Dr. Rene Rodriguez-Ramirez, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedra
32. “A Preacher Stealing Hearts at a Traveling Show: Bono and North American Evangelicals.”
Dr. Paul Rowe, Associate Professor, Political and International Studies, Trinity Western University and Matthew A. Kerr, Associate Pastor, Worship and Small Groups, Faith Baptist Church Huntsville, Ontario
33. "When I Look At the World: Viewing the Impact of U2’s Music on Listeners’ Consciousness and Activism Through the Lens of Narrative Inquiry."
Rachel Seiler, LMSW, Ph.D. Candidate, California Institute of Integral Studies
34. “Desire: U2 and the American Dream: The United States as Imagined in Music and Activism.”
Kristina Shull, Ph.D. Candidate in History, University of California, Irvine
35. “The Meme of Surrender: Bono's Lyrics of Recovery and Revelation.”
Andrew William Smith, Tennessee Tech University, Editor, Interference.com
36. “Irish Identity and Utopianism in the Music of U2.”
Ann Morrison Spinney, Assistant Professor, Music Department, Boston College
37. “Sampling and Reframing: The evolving live concert performances of ‘Bullet the Blue Sky.’”
The Rev. Dr. Steve Taylor, Laidlaw College, New Zealand
38. “Not Afraid to Die: The Grave as a Groove.”
Henry VanderSpek, Youth and Campus Coordinator, World Vision Canada's Advocacy & Education Department
39. “Botanizing on Asphalt: Representations of Laissez Faire Inherent in U2's Music.”
Paul Viotti, Professor of Political Science, California State University, Chico
40. “With a Red Guitar ... on Fire: The Convergence of Spiritual Longing and Sexual Desire in the Music of U2.”
Christopher West, Fellow, Theology of the Body Institute
41. “Water: Hope in the Name of H20”
The African Well Fund, Diane Yoder and Rob Triaglet (organization presentation)
42. Organization Presentation
World Story Organization, Justin Copyrights