THE rock singer and activist Bono took some time out from his tour schedule to meet the Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, at the Sydney Opera House yesterday.
The pair had a 45-minute meeting with the co-chairmen of Make Poverty History, Andrew Hewett and Tim Costello, where they discussed Australia’s aid program and the challenge of global development.
A spokesman for Mr Rudd said Bono praised Australia’s bipartisan support to reduce poverty globally.
Slipped into Sydney on Saturday - as he has done many times before - and wasted no time heading out to some of his favourite watering holes.
The renowned Irish rock institution, who spent two weeks at Bungan Beach with his family in 2006 completely undetected, casually strolled into Rose Bay nosherie Catalina yesterday for a seafood feed with guitarist The Edge (aka David Evans) and the eatery’s owner, Michael McMahon.
Earlier in the day he had met with Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd to discuss poverty and aid.
On Saturday night, the sunnies-obsessed singer arrived unannounced at Icebergs Dining Room.
And, like all diners, he had to wait for a table at the “no bookings” restaurant.
“Bono was having a red cocktail but didn’t get to finish it because a table then became available,” said an onlooker.
Bono has been travelling with an entourage of five, including a burly Irish security guy.
While he will turn the Opera House and Harbour Bridge red tomorrow, the U2 360 tour actually will kick off in Melbourne on Wednesday night.
The tour, with a daily running cost of $850,000, arrived on six 747 jets to be assembled by a crew of 130.
“You compare a tour by the number of trucks they use,” production manager Jake Berry said. “The Rolling Stones ran 46 trucks. We are running 55. This is the biggest.”
The centrepiece of U2-360 is a so-called claw, an imposing bug-like structure that houses 200 tonnes of light, sound and video magic.
U2-360 stage designer Willie Williams said: “The breakthrough was to make it so big that it becomes part of the stadium. But, in a funny way, it’s invisible because the performance area is not connected to the structure.”
Indeed, the stadium of fans surrounding the claw and stage become part of the show, too.
“It’s a cross between a rock show and a sporting event because you can see the other people,” Williams says.
U2 redefined stadium rock with their ZooTV and PopMart tours. But U2 bassist Adam Clayton says U2-360 is revolutionary. “We know it’s a game changer,” he said. “These football stadiums can be quite imposing for music. But this has a different atmosphere. There is humour to it, almost something ridiculous about it. “You think ‘How is this going to work?”’
In terms of box office receipts, U2-360 is working incredibly well.
It took $123 million to be the highest grossing tour of 2009.
A back injury flattened the band’s lead singer, Bono, and tour profits, for most of this year.
U2-360 resumed in August with sellout dates across Europe. US dates are scheduled next year.
U2’s manager, Paul McGuinness, confirmed the $850,000 daily running cost of U2-360. “That’s the overhead cost of being out here whether we play or not,” McGuinness said. “It’s important we play regularly. There is a discipline involved.
“Even though we’re spending a lot of money, we’re making a lot of money.”
McGuinness knows U2-360 is a new model for stadium rock. “We’ve always done landmark productions, or so we think,” he said. “Being able to play in the round, in stadiums, is the holy grail.”
Put simply, in the round means up to 30,000 more seats, which equals lower ticket prices.
“I can assure you the costs of putting this show on are the highest in history,” McGuinness said.
“But the audience looks at the show and can see what we spent the money on.
“They see an incredible spectacle.”
Clayton agreed: “There is a financial risk when you do something that hasn’t been done before. It’s a bit like inventing the wheel.
“We’ve now proved you can do a show by hanging light and sound off a structure. But to build that structure is a very high price. You have to make sure your tour is doing all right.” Clearly, U2 are astute businessmen.
But McGuinness said the numbers must never get in the way of creativity.
“The reason for being good in business is so you can do what you like creatively,” McGuinness said.
“By and large, we have succeeded. There aren’t too many instances of the business getting the better of the creative process.”
Berry said U2-360 took the creativity of stadium rock to an end game – purely because of cost. “It’s like the Beijing Olympics,” he said.
U2 will play Estadio Unico de la Plata in Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA on March 30th, and Estadio Morumbi, Sao Paulo in BRAZIL on April 9th, 2011.
Tickets for both shows go on sale to the general public on Tuesday December 7th but U2.com subscribers can enter a special advance presale for tickets beginning this Wednesday, December 1st and running until Friday, December 3rd.
Subscribers will be emailed ahead of this presale with details of timings.
Regardless of the weather the boys will play !
The Irish band’s enormous “claw” stage sticks out of the top of Etihad Stadium, meaning the roof cannot be completely closed.
Fans should prepare themselves for wet weather, but possible thunderstorms and lightning will create more of a problem.
“If it rains we’ll get wet,” the band’s site manager Bart Durbin said.
“Unless there’s torrential downpours, that may affect it slightly, other than that the show goes on. The roof has to be open. We’ve done shows in the rain before. We get wet. It’s not the best thing but we’ll go on.”
The stage for the band’s 360 Degrees tour began being assembled inside Etihad on Friday. The weight of the stage, said to be the largest in touring history, has required extra reinforcement in the car park under the venue.
About 60,000 fans will watch tomorrow’s show, the first of U2’s Australian tour.
Three “claw” stages will criss-cross the country.
One is already being prepared in Brisbane for U2 shows there next week.
The tour, which ends in Perth on December 19, requires 48 trucks to transport the steel in the staging, 17 trucks for flooring and 60 trucks for the lighting and sound production.
Tickets are still available for U2’s shows tomorrow and Friday, with hip hop star Jay-Z as special guest.
Music fans will be hoping Kanye West, in town on a low-key visit to record an album with Jay-Z during down time from his U2 commitments, will join his fellow rapper on stage in Melbourne.
’60 Minutes’ went behind the curtain to give the world a glimpse at “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” on the evening it opened on Broadway. So far the reviews from the preview performance have been mixed.
The musical which was frequently delayed and cost $65 million to stage features music from U2’s Bono and The Edge. Entertainment Weekly said the music “sounded terrific…or bombastic”.
The snippet from ’60 Minutes’ (see right) features footage of Bono powering through some songs that he co-wrote. It also has some shots of the amazing visuals and wire acrobats zooming around the theatre.
On Sunday night the opening preview, at Foxwoods Theater in New York, lasted 3 hours and 20 minutes and included some pauses due to technical difficulties.
New York Post critic slammed the show calling it an “epic flop”.
He said “At various points, overhead stage wires dropped on the audience, scenery appeared on stage missing pieces - and the show’s star was even left swaying helplessly over them midair during what was supposed to be the climatic end to the first act.”
New York Daily News’ review also mentioned the stops and said that a number of the audience left the performance.
However the fans on the ground, speaking to the newspaper seemed impressed. One gentleman said “It was really good…I was pleasantly surprised.”
According to WENN the show’s scheduled full dress-rehearsal was to cancelled on Saturday night so Sunday night’s preview was the first time the show had been performed in full on the stage.
It has taken nine years for “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark”, the most expensive Broadway musical in history, to become a reality. Here’s hoping that it pays off.
It’s been seven weeks between tour legs on U2’s monster 360-degree tour as U2 stroll on to David Bowie’s Space Oddity.
And the first things a pent-up Bono hollers are drawn-out “kia ora” chants as he struts, skips and runs around the circular runway. And kia ora to you too, brother Bono.
Then, with his trademark serenading stance - squat, gesture, grasp the air and sing - they break into Beautiful Day.
It’s the first of a string of sing-a-longs. The Irish band’s original and raw anthem I Will Follow is next up, then Magnificent, Mysterious Ways, and an all-in fist-raiser in Elevation.
Bono also acknowledges New Zealand’s sombre mood and struggles for words to express the band’s condolences to the Pike River miners and the people of Greymouth.
So he says, “In Ireland we sing”, and launches into I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, followed by the poignant One Tree Hill - written for New Zealander Greg Carroll, Bono’s roadie, who died in 1986 - which he dedicated to the “29 lost”.
As the song plays the names of all the miners are beamed onto the video screen in a touching tribute.
Earlier, support act Jay-Z also paid his respects to the Pike River miners, putting them alongside late hip-hop greats Tu Pac and Notorious BIG.
The big man of rap - who is the hip-hop equivalent of Bono if you like (although the rapper had darker shades when he came on during Sunday Bloody Sunday) - also got the party started with a set including hits Empire State of Mind, Run This Town, and Big Pimpin.
The giant claws arc out into the crowd, dwarfing them, but also drawing the masses in and making the set seem immense, yet intimate.
Then there’s the full-surround barrel-like video screen that becomes a cylinder like an inside-out kaleidoscope beaming everything from close-ups of the band to visuals of naked writhing bodies.
It’s testament to U2’s songs that the visual experience and scale of the production don’t overshadow the songs because tunes such as Where The Streets Have No Name and City of Bright Lights are powerful and chest-beating.
Gavin Pike is proud to be representing Rotorua on an international stage.
The social worker and security guard will be part of a Rotorua team providing security at U2’s New Zealand concerts.
The Irish rockers will be performing two shows at Auckland’s Mt Smart Stadium, with the first one tonight.
Mr Pike works for a Rotorua-based company called Venue Response Limited.
“There is about 40 of us going up to Auckland to do security for the show,” he said. “It is great to help out at such a high-profile event.”
Mr Pike said it was exciting to be a part of a big international show. “As far as I am aware, I will be providing on-stage security during the concert.”
He said this role could change if needed. “I will be helping with monitoring the crowd and containing issues that may present.”
Mr Pike said he had worked at several music concerts, but U2 was definitely the biggest act.
“We worked at a show when a gangsta rapper came to Rotorua. We had to do weapon checks and the removal of gang patches,” he said.
“This show would have a completely different atmosphere and those are issues we wouldn’t expect to deal with.”
As security guards, the workers didn’t get to see the show but Mr Pike said there would still be a good atmosphere at the stadium.