2010 North American tour continues to take shape, with the Irish rock icons unveiling a new stop in the Midwest and locking in a venue for a previously announced Montreal stop.
The tour—which, as previously reported, gets underway with an early June two-night stand in Southern California—now includes a June 27 engagement at Minneapolis’ TCF Bank Stadium, and the July 16 stop in Montreal will officially take place at that city’s Hippodrome stadium. The full itinerary is included below.
Tickets for the Minneapolis and Montreal performances go on sale Saturday (11/21), and ticket pre-sales for both—as well as for the tour’s June 30 stop in East Lansing, MI—(11/17). Details are posted at U2’s website.
In addition to its ever-growing North American run, U2 will embark on a new leg of European shows next year, beginning in August and extending through early October. Those dates can be found at U2’s website.
The 2010 shows—which also will include a late-summer/early fall European trek—will continue to feature the massive stage set the band has been using over this year, designed by long-time U2 associate Willie Williams in collaboration with architect Mark Fisher, an “in-the-round” design that seeks to afford every fan in attendance an unobstructed view of the band on stage.
In late October, TheWrap.com reported that the “170-ton, $40 million, four-pronged stage [is] so enormous, its overhead so costly,” that the band still hadn’t broken even on the tour, even after four months on the road in the US and elsewhere.
With shows so far this year in 44 cities, the band has already played before more than three million fans in 2009, according to a press release.
U2 is touring behind its 12th studio album, “No Line on the Horizon,” which surfaced in February. The set debuted at No. 1 in 30 countries, including the US, where it posted first-week sales of about 484,000 copies.
U2 will be playing in the first concert at the TCF Bank Stadium in late June. However, if it’s a cocktail you’re looking for at the U2 concert, you’ll never find it.
U2TOURFANS 2009Live Nation and U2 are OK with that. We think it’s the right thing to do as we first move into this new venture here at the TCF Bank Stadium so there will not be alcohol served there,” said University of Minnesota Athletic Director Joel Maturi.
University of Minnesota administration said the band and promoters approached them about staging the concert at the new stadium. They will be playing at the stadium June 27.
However, the University has no problem selling alcohol at Northrop auditorium in the heart of campus.
“This is something run by the University but controlled by intercollegiate athletics. We’ve made a decision not to sell at the football games. I think we are trying to be consistent in regards to that,” said Maturi
They have decided to not allow alcohol even though the rock concert is not an official university event.
“It seems a little incongruous,” said U2 fan Matti Smith. “I guess that’s up to the U of M. If they’re trying to keep the students safe that’s one thing but it’s an unfortunate loss of revenue.”
However, even a booze ban won’t keep true fans away.
“People who are U2 fans are die hard U2 fans. They will go. As Bono says: ‘Walk away, I will follow.’”
Gophers football season ticket holders and University students will get a chance to purchase U2 tickets before they go on sale to the general public Nov. 21.
Ticket Alerts: We have not be able to get an answer back as to why double messages are going out on ticket alerts and why the short notices on pre-ticket sales. All we can suggest is that you sign up for updates, from either U2.com, Facebook, Twitter or Youtube to stay current.
U2 concert at Spartan Stadium will go on sale today for some of the band’s most dedicated fans.
The band’s promoter, LiveNation, said in a statement that tickets for the general public go on sale Monday. But a sale through U2’s Web site (www.u2.com) starts today, giving fans who subscribe to the band’s site first crack at tickets for the June 30, 2010, show.
Tickets also will be on sale for one day only at the Breslin Center ticket office on Michigan State University’s campus — from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday.
The Irish rock band is stopping in East Lansing as part of its 360° Tour that started this year.
There are four price levels for the MSU show: $30, $55, $95 and $250. At least 85 percent of the tickets at Spartan Stadium will cost less than $95, with at least 10,000 tickets priced at $30.
People who have subscribed at U2’s Web site the longest will get the earliest opportunity to buy, starting at 10 a.m. today. Those who joined the site more recently — including this week — can buy tickets Wednesday.
Starting Monday, tickets may be bought at Livenation.com, at Ticketmaster outlets or by calling (800) 745-3000.
Spartan Stadium can seat as many as 75,000 for football games. The U2 show will be the first rock concert since the Rolling Stones played there in 1994.
MONTREAL – It’s confirmed. U2 will play Montreal on July 16, 2010. The band will perform on the polo field at the Montreal Hippodrome, kicking in $3 million for the construction of a temporary open-air stadium to fit between 60,000 to 80,000 people.
It is the only date for which U2 is not performing in a pre-existing stadium. The fact that the band is fronting the costs of building the venue for this event is a testament to its love of Montreal, according to Jacques Aubé, vice-president and general manager of promoter Gillett Entertainment Group.
“It’s unprecedented,” Aubé said Monday. “It’s historic. It will be the biggest paid show in an open-air stadium in Montreal.
“After the concert, the stadium will be demolished and (the site) will become a real-estate project.”
It’s also a testament to the grand scale on which a monolithic rock band such as U2 can afford to operate. Tossing in $3 million to build a stadium for a night (or maybe two - don’t discount the possibility that a second show could be added once the first one sells out) is the privilege of the mighty, and wealthy.
Aubé attributed U2’s gesture to its love of Montreal and its fans here, but you can bet the band is also getting bang for its buck.
Do the math and it’s not hard to see that this is a money-making enterprise. Tickets for the show cost from $30 to $250. Average that out to, say, $100 per ticket, with 70,000 tickets sold, and you’ve got a cool $7 million.
That’s not counting beer and food sales, merchandise, and spinoff CD sales for the band. Aubé said the event would inject $10 million into the Montreal economy, not counting revenues from the concert itself.
But while nobody’s working for free, here, U2 is apparently doing its best to make this affordable to everyone - 55 per cent of the tickets cost less than $55, Gillett proudly announced Monday.
Gillett and tour promoter Live Nation have been working on the possibility of a Montreal date for months. The biggest problem was finding a venue big enough to host the show (including the 150-foot-wide stage, featuring a massive, steel spider-like structure) and comply with U2’s request for an open-air stadium.
The Olympic Stadium’s roof is not retractable; Jean Drapeau Park is too small; even the Hippodrome wasn’t big enough originally, which led to talks of constructing a venue specifically for the event.
“C’est assez flyé comme idée,” Aubé said. (Rough translation: “It’s a pretty wild idea.”) The last time U2 was in town was in November, 2005. The band performed two sold-out nights at the Bell Centre, with opening act the Arcade Fire.
This is U2’s first North American stadium tour since 1997’s Popmart tour. Apparently Bono and his boys still have something prove.
U2 performs July 16 at the Hippodrome. Tickets cost $30 to $250 and go on sale Saturday at noon
he New York Times has published Bono’s column on the 14th. What interesting was that we just completed a five part series on “One” Bono’s NY Times article takes us thru a five scene tour of Germany between 1990 and the show at Brandenburg Gate. Giving us a view into the meeting of the owns of the German house he slept in during the Achtung Baby sessions as well as the conversations with his bandmates. He talks about “One” and how that song came about.
Bono, U2 360 Tour 2009 (U2TOURFANS) The camera cranes over a crowd of thousands gathered in Pariser Platz.
An Irish band plays its song “One” in the city where it was written nearly 20 years earlier. The band is here for an MTV broadcast celebrating the anniversary of the wall’s falling. A helicopter shot glides like a ghost through the architecture of this most modern of cities: the avant-garde Chancellery, the glass dome at the top of the Reichstag, the refurbished Brandenburg Gate. Images of East and West Berlin dancing to the music are projected on the gate, turning this monument to peace into a graffiti wall of the same….
Now the rest of the news from around the globe.
Fined: Bono some might argue U2’s been responsible for noise pollution in the past, be it parts of 1997’s ‘Pop’ or even this year’s ‘No Line on the Horizon.’ But now the city of Dublin has made that notion official, taking its hometown heroes to task for breaching noise levels during their Croke Park concerts last July.
Concert promoters MCD were fined €36,000 (approximately $53,000) for Bono and the boys’ offense, according to Ireland’s Evening Herald. Dublin City Council levied the penalties against the firm for allowing U2 to exceed allowed noise limits on a number of occasions during the shows.
2010 Shows: Montreal is one step closer to seeing U2 perform on July 16, 2010. Promoter Gillett Entertainment Group has called a press conference for Monday morning concerning the band’s 360 stadium tour. The band’s web site has had Montreal listed next to the July 16 date for several weeks, with venue TBA. It is expected that the venue will be revealed on Monday, along with ticket information. Likely venue candidates include Jean Drapeau Park, Blue Bonnets or perhaps the Olympic Stadium.
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Top Story of the past week: Amazing you would think tour news was the top story, or tickets for 2010, or rumors about new concerts. Not a chance against Bono’s salt in take.
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The song has since become regarded as one of the greatest songs of all-time. It was ranked #36 in Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, the highest ranked U2 song. The track was also voted #1 on Q’s “1001 Best Songs Ever” list, VH1 ranked the song #2 in its list of “Greatest Songs of the 90s”, and voters in an April 2006 poll on VH1 named the song as having Britain’s number one lyric – “One life, with each other, sisters, brothers”. The song is currently ranked as the 94th greatest song of all-time, as well as the fourth best song of 1991, by Acclaimed Music. A listener’s poll conducted by the popular Israeli radio station Galgalatz ranked “One” as the best song of the 1990s.
Performed Live
Since its first live appearance in 1992, the song has been played at every concert of U2’s subsequent tours. It has also been played at several benefit concerts, including the 1995 Pavarotti and Friends concert in Modena, the 1997 Tibetan Freedom Concert in New York, the 2003 46664 concert, at Live 8 in 2005, and with Mary J. Blige on Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast. The song took on an even more emotional meaning at a Popmart Tour show at Mexico City in 1997, as featured on PopMart: Live from Mexico City, where the tearful rendition was dedicated to the late Michael Hutchence of INXS. Live performances of the song are also depicted on the concert films Zoo TV: Live from Sydney, U2 Go Home: Live from Slane Castle, Vertigo 2005: Live from Chicago and U2 3D. Until the second leg of the U2 360 Tour, One was played live in the key of A flat minor, while the recorded version is played a semitone higher.
Mary J Blige:
After being invited to join the group on-stage at a New York concert in 2005, Mary J. Blige performed the track with U2 and received a standing ovation. A recording of the song was later created, with Blige on lead vocals, Bono supplying additional vocals, and the band performing the music. This recording was featured on Mary J. Blige’s multi-platinum album The Breakthrough, released in late 2005. It was released as the album’s second international single in April 2006, having already been featured heavily on BBC Radio 1’s playlist, and it has been a staple record on Capital FM’s playlist since late January 2006. In May 2006, Blige performed the song at the finale of American Idol with finalist Elliott Yamin, ahead of its full release to American radio. It was also used by Fox for its end-of-season montage after game five of the 2006 World Series.
On December 31, 2006, “One” was announced by BBC Radio 1 to be the thirty-fifth highest-selling single of 2006 in the UK. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in December 2006.
Did you know this?
In late 2006, a Bank of America employee sang “One” with lyrics modified to refer to the Bank of America and MBNA merger. The video subsequently became an Internet phenomenon. Universal Music Group, the copyright owner of the song, posted a cease and desist letter directed at Bank of America in the comments section of Stereogum, one of the blogs that posted the video.
While bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. preferred a sound similar to U2’s previous work, vocalist Bono and guitarist The Edge were inspired by alternative rock and European electronic dance music of the time and were advocating a change. Mullen, in particular felt his “input was being diminished”, as The Edge was delving into drum beats from electronic music, while Mullen was focusing on learning to play differently.
The band also had difficulty in developing demos and ideas into completed songs. Bono and The Edge believed the lack of progress was the fault of the band, while Clayton and Mullen Jr. believed the problem was the song ideas. Mullen said he “thought this might be the end” of the band.
A breakthrough was achieved when The Edge combined two separate bridge sections of a song. Playing alone in another room, Edge was improvising chord progressions, which he did not like in the context of the song on which he was working (which conflicting sources claim to be “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)”, “Mysterious Ways”, and “The Fly”).
Producer Daniel Lanois overheard him and asked him to play the separate sections together. The Edge played acoustic guitar, catching the ear of those in the studio. Bono joined in with vocals, improvising lyrics and melodies. The other band members joined in, as well, and soon afterwards, the band had improvised the piece of music into “One”. Bono recalls that “the melody, the structure - the whole thing was done in 15 minutes.”
He also stated that the lyrics “just fell out of the sky, a gift”; the concept was inspired by a note Bono sent to the Dalai Lama declining to attend a festival called Oneness - the note read, “One - but not the same”. The song’s writing inspired the band and changed their outlook on the recording sessions. Mullen Jr. said the song reaffirmed the band’s “blank page approach” to recording and reassured the band that all was not lost.
Following the song’s initial improvisation, tapes of the recording sessions were delivered to producer Brian Eno in order to gather his input. The band was rather anxious about the quality of their material, but when Eno arrived in Berlin, they were surprised to hear that he liked most of the tapes. However, as Bono recalls, Eno said, “There’s just one song I really despise, and that’s ‘One’.” Eno felt that they needed to deconstruct the song.
U2TOURFANS. 2009
The band returned to Dublin in 1991 to record at the “Elsinore” mansion on the Dalkey coastline. The band continued to work on the song there, adding various overdubs, but not finding a mix they were satisfied with. The Edge thought that they had the foundation for the song, but that it needed “foreground”. Eno interceded and created his own mix, which gave the band a better idea of an arrangement they liked. Eno wanted the band to remove the melancholy elements of the song and persuaded them to remove the acoustic guitar from the song. Eno also worked with Lanois and Edge to “undermine the ‘too beautiful’ feeling”, which is why the “crying guitar parts that have an aggression to them” were added.
Engineer Flood was unconvinced by the song’s mix, saying he “was the nagging doubter. I always felt it was a bit straight, until we did the final mix.” The final mix was completed at Windmill Lane Studios in August 1991 on the last night of the album’s recording sessions, when some last minute additions were made to “One”. Bono did not like a line in the vocals and spent most of the day re-recording it. Later, after the song’s mix had just been completed by the production team, The Edge came up with a guitar part he wanted to add to the song’s end near the lyric “Love is a temple”. After convincing the production team to allow the addition, Edge played the part once and had it mixed in ten minutes later.
Bono described the song’s theme as such: “It is a song about coming together, but it’s not the old hippie idea of ‘Let’s all live together.’ It is, in fact, the opposite. It’s saying, we are one, but we’re not the same. It’s not saying we even want to get along, but that we have to get along together in this world if it is to survive. It’s a reminder that we have no choice”. The band has mentioned that many people tell them they have played “One” at their weddings, prompting Bono to respond, and “Are you mad? It’s about splitting up!”
