About five months and three weeks shy of St. Patrick’s Day, the Irish rock band U2 is set to perform two concerts at Giants Stadium, with a massive stage and blizzard of lights complementing a raw sound that borders on rock ‘n’ roll religion.

U2 is scheduled to perform at the home of the Giants and Jets football teams in northern New Jersey tonight and Thursday. And Hudson Valley fans of the Dublin-based band have plenty to say about this ensemble’s new album, legacy and live performances.

U2TOURFANS File Photo “What I love about U2, besides their incredible musical talent, is the fact that they are rock stars with soul. They’re all high school friends who came together through their love of music. They’re not manufactured by a big music producer, they didn’t answer an ad in the paper, they came together as friends who enjoyed playing music and remain friends to this day.That’s what it means to have soul. They’re family men who realize family (in whatever sense you believe that to be) is more important than money or any of the luxuries that come with it.

“If all the fame and fortune went away, they’d be just as happy - that’s soul.

“They understand their fans are the ones who have gotten them where they are today, not their music. They thank their fans for blessing them with the life they’ve gotten to live - that’s soul.

“They are the only ones who can sell out stadiums across the globe, and can unite thousands of people though music. They know, in those crowds, there are friends and foes. They know if enemies can share one commonality, they could become friends - that’s soul.

Need to Know:

Weather:  Expected Rain tonight ( light )

Parking: No comments or issues on tailgating have been posted

Trains: All trains in and out are expected to be fully loaded

Tickets: Yes you can still get tickets on STUBHUB (We do not endorse)

Directions:
View Larger Map

Camera/Videos:  Remember the band has no offical comment. However you run the risk of some secuirty staffer trying to stop you. Remember if its small its good.

Twitter:  We will along with about 20 other people twitter the show.

 Photos/Videos:  We have a video drop box.

Having played two nights in Boston, NYC is on the horizon.

Irish eyes smiled upon the boys from Ireland Monday night as they played their final show in Boston. Their tour moves forward to NYC. 

U2 used Monday night to change up the set a bit starting off with “Magnificent” as the open instead of “Breathe” (Considered to be the first major change of the tour).  Breathe was skipped all together. However “Your Blue Room” and “Stay” “Mofo” and “Stories for Boys” found their way into the show as snippets.

Wednesday night the band hits Giants Stadium for a two-night stand. Will the weather hold up? We will have to wait and see. Expected evening showers on Wednesday and a little rain on Thursday afternoon we will have just to wait and see.

Remember that the boys will be on SNL this weekend with Megan Fox. This should be an amazing short set.

Back to Giant Stadium, we have not heard the rules yet. Nor do we expect to hear anything about tailgating rules. NYC/NJ can handle the crowd. However we will keep you posted.  

If you happened to take a cigarette break on the north concourse of Gillette Stadium last night, about a dozen songs into U2’s US-tour kickoff, you might’ve noticed two young men who were not acting like everyone else. For one thing, they were facing away from the stage — a view that afforded them, if anything, a look across Patriot Place, in the direction of the ticketless crowd standing three ardeep in front of the CBS Experience. For another thing, they were wearing studio-monitor headphones and shit-eating grins.

It seemed an awful expensive way to listen to your iPod. Then I saw ‘em offering a few passers-bye a listen to the headphones, and decided to take a closer look. “Listen to this,” one of them said, and placed the headphones on my ears.

They were listening to U2 playing behind us, in real time — and the sound was impeccably crisp, full-bodied, with perfect instrument separation. Bono’s voice had the kind of standing-next-to-you-in-a-crowded-elevator feeling that no stadium speakers (and very few live albums) can reproduce. The sound through the headphones reminded me of a tape a friend once gave me of the Rolling Stones playing in Australia in 1973, taped off the soundboard, in which you can hear Mick Jagger’s breath on the mic in between verses. Commercial recordings clean that sort of thing up, so hearing that faraway voice so close, and unedited, delivers a startling intimacy.

So how’d they do it? Part serendipity, part genius: headphones-guy was plugged into a pager-sized Sennheiser wireless receiver — the type of device that has replaced on-stage monitors for musicians as the way they hear themselves during the concert. He believes his Sennheiser is identical to the model Bono uses . And during soundcheck, he’d simply run through the various channels until he found the one the soundboard was broadcasting on. Bingo.

There was another big difference between what was on the headphones and what the larger audience heard: the subtle but unmistakable sound of a click track. You could even hear a soft voice at the beginning of each song counting the band in, “One, two, three, four.” To longtime U2 fans, it will come as no surprise that the band uses one — lots of artists do, especially when their live show incorporates triggered samples or effects. The presence of the click track led headphones-guy to believe he might be listening to the mix being piped to Larry Mullen’s headset, though there was no way to be sure. Listening to the band the way they hear themselves suggested a plausible explanation for the size of Bono’s ego: maybe he thinks everyone hears him this way. 

Replicating this experiment yourself could get expensive: Sennheiser receivers run about $800 — about the price of three decent U2 tickets. But given the degree of outrage expressed by some upper-deck fans about the quality of audio at last night’s show (for the record: the sound from my seat, in the lower deck, was very good), you could certainly see some cheaper version of this technology — or perhaps a venue-operated version, perhaps a twist on the way Gillette gets a few bucks for binocular rentals — becoming an easy upsell. 

 Review due to be posted later today -

Review: Poor

Globe Staff / September 21, 2009

Editor Note: Be sure to see the video below.

Would you agree ? Let us know your comments below.

FOXBORO - U2’s two-day visit to Foxboro started uneventfully Sunday night.

State police had made no arrests at Gillette Stadium as of 9 p.m., shortly before the 360 Tour concert started, said Lt. David Wilson, state police spokesman.

Foxboro police said they had no arrest information at press time.

Wilson said concert traffic backed up Route 1 north around 9, but it was unclear how far the snarl went. He believed traffic would start flowing once the concert started.

Route 1 reportedly was backed up after the parking lots opened at 3 p.m. Stadium officials had warned that fans arriving before 3 p.m. would be turned away.

The stadium gates were scheduled to open at 5 p.m.

The same restrictions apply to tonight’s concert, which Foxboro police expect to be more challenging because it coincides with the evening rush hour.

The event is expected to draw about 65,000 fans each night, including 7,000 fans on the field. 

Last night the spaceship - as Bono called the in-the-round stage setup - landed at Gillette Stadium and four Irish aliens emerged as the biggest rock stars in the world. That’s what happens when you project yourself on a 360-degree, 14,000-square-foot video screen.

Those who despise Bono, Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. for growing up (and up and up) to be a parody of the furious, little new wave punks they began as would have hated U2’s latest, greatest show on earth. But for 60,000 fans last night (and for thousands more tonight), it was a mothership - a 150-foot tall, pastel green and orange-spotted, claw-shaped mothership buzzing with a million points of light - come to take them to planet U2.

Bono’s king, but Edge is the prime minster, the genius who fearlessly leads his ace rhythm section. His complex-and-simple, full-frontal, buzzing, reverbed, shimmering guitar drove “Get on Your Boots” and “Elevation,” “Vertigo” and “Where the Streets Have No Name.” Even Bono’s bigness was overcome by Edge’s intimate acoustic guitar and delicate high harmonies on “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.”

Taken in total it was a typical U2 show, which means it was unlike anything else. Bono championed peace and political awareness - “Sunday Bloody Sunday” was recast an anthem for a free IRAN, “MLK” and “Walk On” were dedicated to Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi. Edge was, as Bono said, a test-tube baby born of Jimmy Page and Stephen Hawking. Mullin and Clayton provided the brilliant heartbeat for hits from “One” to “With or Without You.”

Not the flash of Zoo TV or the earnestness of the Joshua Tree Tour, but a middle ground that topped neither. But not bad for a band that played the Somerville Theatre six-months ago.

FOXBORO - U2 didn’t so much play Gillette Stadium on Sunday night as it landed there, in a spaceship no less.

The Irish rockers brought their 360 Tour to Foxboro for the first of two concerts (the second being tonight), and while they’re touring in support of an album that hasn’t exactly torn up the charts, this tour has blockbuster written all over it with its dazzling displays of lights, fog, imagery and sheer size.

The band got a late start, not taking the stage until almost 9 p.m. after being ushered in by the sound system blaring David Bowie’s classic “Space Oddity.” Immediately, they ripped into four numbers from their latest CD, “No Line on the Horizon.” Bono started out with “Breathe,” then went into the CD’s title track, the toe-tapping “Get on Your Boots,” and finally “Magnificent.”

“We’ve got new songs, we’ve got old songs, we’ve got songs we can hardly play, and we’ve got a spaceship,” Bono declared to the crowd before launching into “Mysterious Ways” and “Beautiful Day.”

The “spaceship” Bono referred to resembled a giant canopy with green legs stretching over the round stage and catwalk, much like a giant bug, and a soaring steeple topping it all off. Hovering above the stage was a giant cylindrical projection screen that ascended and descended throughout the show and displayed the band in a gargantuan form just right for a stadium show.

The band followed “Beautiful Day” broke into a ripping version of “Elevation” with Bono sweating profusely in the chilly night and the crowd frenzied for the first time, fists pumping wildly.

“I think you’ll feel right at home in our traveling rock and roll laboratory,” Bono said in introducing his band mates, The Edge, Larry Mullen, and Adam Clayton, referring to them as Experiments 1, 2 and 3.

From there, they broke into “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and let the 60,000 or so assembled sing the first few stanzas.

And it seemed as though no one was at a loss for the lyrics.

Then Bono transitioned into a heartfelt few choruses of “Stand By Me,” again with the masses providing the sing-along. Then it was back to the “No Line on the Horizon” CD with the inspirational rocker “Rise Up.”

The band dipped back into the vault with a stirring “New Year’s Day” with Clayton crossing one of the stage’s two bridges to the catwalk to play before the fans and the Edge playing to the thousands who were watching the show from the rear.

The Edge grabbed an acoustic guitar for a poignant version of “Stuck in a Moment,” and also provided an effective falsetto at the end of the song.

At one point the giant circular projection screen extended almost to the floor and resembled a multicolored honeycomb with Bono and the band standing about ten stories tall over the audience.

For “City of Blinding Lights,” Bono plucked a young girl who looked about 12 out of the audience, though she didn’t seem to know quite what to do up there.

The concert struck a nice blend of rockers and rock ballads, with tunes like “Vertigo” picking up the crowd when needed.

One of the more inventive moments of the evening was an incredibly throbbing, rhythmic rendition of “I Know I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight.” “Sing for your sanity, Boston,” Bono implored as black and white images of the band members’ faces flashed rapidly on the screen.

Bono ended the song on his knees begging for “freedom on the streets of Iran,” then the band broke into “Sunday Bloody Sunday” as the images of Iranian reform protestors flashed on the screen.

Dozens of audience members walked out onto the ring in support of a woman named Aung Aun Syung Sun Kyi imprisoned in Burma for her opposition to the government.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu delivered a message that “God will put a wind at our back if we work with each other as one,” after which Bono broke into a heartfeld rendition of “One.” For the uplifting number “Where the Streets Have No Name,” Bono went into after singing a few bars of “Amazing Grace.”

The encore was ushered in by a poem by Maya Angelou while the video screen showed the solar system with floating apples, car keys other objects.

Snow Patrol, also from Ireland, warmed up the crowd in fine fashion after the inner circle of fans enthusiastically participated in a sing-along, something that hasn’t always been the case for the band in their role as U2’s opening act. Fans reacted enthusiastically to “Light Up” and, especially, “Chasing Cars,” and “All that I Have.”

Are you attending one of the 360 shows ? Are you going to see the Irish rock band U2 perform at either of this week’s concerts. U2 set to perform this week in support of their latest album, “No Line On the Horizon.” What do you think of the new album? The band’s catalog of records? Their past live shows? If you are going to see U2 and care to share your thoughts on any aspect of this band - the music, the legacy, the band members, the new album - please post your comments here. Please include your first and last name, town or village, state and country where you live. All submissions will be considered for publication.

U2 Tour Fans File Photo

FOXBORO-What weighs more than 54 tons, glitters like crazy, and swings? If you’re thinking Aretha Franklin in Vegas singing “Since You’ve Been Gone,” you’re not far off the mark.

It’s U2’s current tour, and it lands at Gillette Stadium for two shows Sunday and Monday. “Land” being the operative word: Bono refers to the stage for this tour as “the spaceship,” and for once the outspoken frontman is demonstrating some modesty. Put another way, if only Tom Brady could cover the field at Gillette like this 90-foot tall, steel structure that will reach to every corner of the field, the Pats would have won by three touchdowns Monday night.

Think Zoo TV, the band’s 1992-93 tour, on steroids.

The tonnage is to help mark the band’s first stadium tour in a decade, and its never-ending quest to take the spectacle and somehow find the intimate amid it all.

Proving you wrong

And, if you think you know U2, the band is hoping to prove you wrong. After two late-career masterpieces, “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” and “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” the band decided to toss up a few curveballs. Its latest CD, “No Line on the Horizon,” is not loaded with obvious hits that jump out off the speakers and grab you by ears and drag you to the dance floor, like “Vertigo” or “Beautiful Day,” nor drop-dead gorgeous ballads like “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own.” Its charms are a bit deeper. Too deep, some critics and fans seemed to think, as the album was not - relatively speaking - as well received as its immediate predecessors.

U2 TOUR FANS FILE PHOTO 2009But give U2 some props for still believing in the idea of The Album, with songs laid out like a roadmap that don’t give up their power in tiny bites or when downloaded one track at a time. Working with producers like Brian Eno, who the members of U2 knew would push them outside the Top 40, and traveling to Morocco to find new sounds to pour into their music, they weren’t afraid to turn their backs on the platinum blueprint. Sure, in interviews this soul searching sounded pretentious and self-indulgent. But if not them, who? Are you hoping Maroon 5 or Lady GaGa decide on their next records to push outside their and our comfort zones? I thought not.

U2, like Neil Young, is unafraid. Bruce, Joni, these artists had or have the cache to avoid the easy path, it’s true. But they also have more to lose by heading out for uncharted territory.

Of course, the primal elements of any U2 record remain on “No Line on the Horizon”: great melodies, the Edge’s amazing fretwork, and Bono’s vocals, always intense enough to move even the dead. In short, when “Get On Your Boots” blasts from the stage this weekend, shake your booty. There’s a reason a review in The New Yorker a few weeks ago made the claim that U2 was that rare band whose new material was as popular and relevant as its seminal hits of yesteryear.

More twists

Reviews from the North American leg of tour, which kicked off in Chicago a week ago, indicate the band has taken the groove-heavy aspects of some of “No Line” and incorporated it into the live show. Even chestnuts like “Where the Streets Have No Name,” have a new rhythmic feel with a percolating Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton. Subsequently, Bono’s vocals are more syncopated than they’ve ever been. Some of the songs, especially those off the new CD (recent setlists indicate about seven of these tracks will be played each night), retain their atmospheric nature in concert, as U2 finds the ghosts in its music.

It’s all part of the journey.

Some sameness

Some things will remain. Fans can expect Bono and company to use the huge stage to deliver high-tech histrionics one moment, and lighter-lifting intimacy the next. U2’s penchant for highlighting different causes will also be on display, always a fine complement to the band’s uplifting numbers. Then there’s the band’s awesome sense of theater: Bono’s never been within a mile of a stage he didn’t own.

U2 has a concert that starts in just 17 minutes and all of the band members must all cross a bridge to get to the stage. The four men begin on the same side of the bridge and you must help them to get across to the other side.

Due the weakness of the bridge, a maximum of two people can cross at one time. To make matters worse, it is night-time and there is only one flashlight. Alex MargosThe flashlight is always required when crossing the bridge and it must be walked back and forth, it cannot be thrown, etc. Each band member walks at a different speed and a pair must walk together at the rate of the slower man:

• Bono takes 1 minute to cross
• Edge takes 2 minutes to cross
• Adam takes 5 minutes to cross
• Larry takes 10 minutes to cross

For example, if Bono and Larry walk across first, it takes them 10 minutes to cross. If Adam then returns with the flashlight, a total of 15 minutes will have passed. How do they all get across in 17 minutes?

Just to be sure that everyone is clear the following was published - Released earlier today. Please Be advised.

• Patrons are to arrive beginning at 3:00 PM when the lots open.
• Early arrivers will be turned away and directed to return at 3:00 PM
• There will be no lining up for entry to the stadium prior to 3:00 PM on show day.
• This line will be formed beginning at the Patriot Place Gate at 3:00 PM
• The line will be formed on a first come first served basis starting at 3:00 PM
• Patrons will enter the Stadium in an orderly manner and as directed beginning at 5:00 PM. Failure to follow the directions of stadium and U2 staff could result in loss of ticket privileges so please be patient.

360 Stage File Photo U2TOURFANS

WICKED LOCAL FOXBOROUGH GILLETE STADIUM Officals have requested that we inform you AGAIN. DO NOT ARRIVE EARLY ! ( Before 3PM) We have included the must know details at the bottom of this story. Remember we told you. Hey take a photo with our name and send it us “U2TOURFANS”

Sunday and Monday about 140,000 of you get a chance to experience a show that has been considered the largest stage in the world. If you have been out to the stadium you may have had a chance to see the steel crew building the set for Sundays show. Be sure you read the details. You have warned. Really we mean it. Read it - 

We have some here is what you need to know

The songs: A big chunk of the set doesn’t change from night to night, including U2 opening with a quartet of new songs “Breathe,” “No Line On The Horizon,” “Get On Your Boots” and “Magnificent.” But among the new tunes and expected hits (“Beautiful Day,” “Vertigo,” “One,” “Bad,” “With Or Without You”) are some surprises. Last week, the band debuted “Your Blue Room,” a song from the “Original Soundtracks 1” album recorded under the pseudonym Passengers. Also, the band has been tucking in snippets of covers, including “All You Need Is Love,” “Blackbird,” “King of Pain,” “Stand By Me” and “Amazing Grace.”

Bono: U2TOURFANS FILE PHOTOBono has been quoted saying that this is really a two act show. The first act is about the personal, the soul-searching of a young man, expressed by “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of,” “Unknown Caller,” etc. The second half focuses on the political and global with “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “Pride (In the Name of Love),” “Walk On,” etc. Bono admitted that most people would not have thougtht or figured this out. However a few pints and you can see clearly the concept. 

The stage set: Nicknamed “the spaceship” by Bono, U2’s latest monstrosity is its most monstrous. Built for a reported cost of $40 million, the rotating stage features a 90-foot-tall canopy and a 54-ton, 360-degree video screen made up of a million pieces, including 500,000 pixels and 30,000 cables. Just when you thought Bono’s head couldn’t get any bigger, it’s about to be blown up by a million watts.

The opener: Remember Izzy from “Grey’s” well they made these boys famous, Snow Patrol has been out with U2 since the Euro days, ( miss only a couple of shows) Some the other cities will get the Peas, or Muse, sorry no such luck here.

U2TOURFANS FILE PHOTOThe new album: We will be the first to say that this album needs time to grow on you. Its really better then you think. You will want to listen and know a couple of the songs prior to going to the show. You can expect atleast seven songs from the new album

Is better than you think. Really. And you’ll want to get to know these songs before the show: expect seven of them to get played.

The details:

1. Dont arrive before 3PM the lots will not open and your wasting your time and you will be turned away. Now that does not mean you can’t line up on the street as if your going to a game which we all know happens. Either way Gillette stadium will not open the parking lots early.
2. GA Fans can line up at 3PM - Not earlier, so no reason to camp out or waste your time.
3. Opening Act “Snow Patrol” expected to start at 7 PM EST
4. Headliner: U2 will take the stage around 8:30 PM EST ( P.S. now thats the published schedule we all know that the band likes a well timed show. So that means it could start 8:35pm or 8:40 PM) Again chill your going to want to rest up for this one. 
5. One photo booth, now this is cool. Be sure to find it. Take a photo and your picture may be one of the photos that wll appear on the big screen.
6. Cameras: If your a true fan you know the band really does not care if you snap off a couple of photos. Small camera, video suggestion your choice small. Now that does not mean we said bring one. Thats really your choice.
7. Last important item: Bring lots of money your going to spend some coins and hey its worth it your not going to see U2 again for hum dare we say another year?
   

U2TOURANS Updates: You can follow us on twitter. You can view the videos on youtube and the photos and set lists can be found here. We also have a ticket exchange and a drop box for posting. Of course we wll give you full credit.

U2TOURFANS

U2TOURFANS Channel Follow us on twitter

Lst night U2 performed their second of two shows in Toronto. The tour schedule does not have the band coming back to Canada until the end of the North American tour late October. You can check the tour dates on our site.

U2TOURFANS FILE PHOTO 2009 Last night how had some surprises ! U2 changed the line up. The first four remained the same however they did add Mysterious Ways as the fifth song pushing Beautiful Day to the sixth postion. This was the first time Mysterious way has showen up on the North American leg.

U2GIGS has reported:   U2 considered performing Desire at this show. We have not comfirmed this of this morning. It appears in the printed set between New Year’s Day and Stuck In A Moment, but it is written within brackets, meaning its performance was not certain. Evidently, on stage, the band ultimately did not feel like playing it. We have our sources checking we will let you know later.

U2 fans will have to do a 180 if they arrive too early for the band’s 360 Tour concerts on Sunday and Monday.

Gillette Stadium officials said today that fans will be turned away if they arrive before the parking lots open at 3 p.m. both days. Also, fans will not be permitted to line up to access the field and general admission sections before that time.

The stadium gates will open at 5 p.m. each day. The event is expected to draw about 65,000 fans each night, including 7,000 fans on the field.

For the first time during a concert, Foxboro police will have detail officers at several intersections, including along Mechanic Street; Beach and Meadowview; North Street at Payson Road; and Main Street and Pierce. The goal is to keep fans from using the neighborhoods as shortcuts. Police have used the same model during New England Patriots games.

Also, to minimize tailgating, stadium officials will continue the policy of denying parking lot access to fans without tickets.

U2
Rogers Centre, Toronto
Wednesday, September 16

“It was the band’s call,” a representative from LiveNation confided, referring to who exactly was responsible for opening the retractable roof of the Rogers Centre for Wednesday night’s U2 concert.

After all, they don’t open the roof for just anyone. The last time - the first time - was for Bruce Springsteen, back in 2003. Not for The Stones, or AC/DC, nor U2 under-studies Coldplay, who played the same venue just a month prior. 
However, U2 is not just any band. From the Blackberry hawkers and Amnesty International and One Campaign booths greeting fans outside they gate, to the massive stage inside, they are a spectacle. Further, they are the world’s biggest rock and roll band, and they proved it once again on the first night of a two night Toronto run.Brett Gundlock/National Post

Let’s begin with the stage, because, well, it’s impossible to ignore. The centrepiece of the Irish band’s “360 Tour”, it is a stage so massive and interactive it had its own fact sheet, distributed to the various media covering the event. Nicknamed, “The Claw”, the steel structure stands 90 feet tall, and can support 180 tons. It takes four days to build and 48 hours to tear down.

After an opening set by Scots band Snow Patrol, the audience got a sense of what that stage could do. However, it was clear that there was more in store from it once U2 would take over. After the speakers were turned up with David Bowie’s Space Oddity - reinforcing the idea that stage was meant to be a spaceship - smoke escaped from the top, and the band - led by drummer Larry Mullen Jr, then his partner in rhythm Adam Clayton, and followed by the showmen, The Edge and, finally, Bono - opened the show with Breathe.

The hometown references began early, and in earnest, as Bono altered the line from the opening song: “walk out into a sunburnt street’ to “walk out into a Toronto street”. The name dropping continued: Yonge Street, Rogers Centre, the TTC and Union Station, followed by the band’s mission statement: “We’ve got old songs, new songs, songs we can barely play. We got a spaceship, but we’re not going to lift of without you.” Although he might have included something about helping the world, but that would come later.

As impressive as the stage was, the world’s most popular crusader for the impoverished had to at least acknowledge the opulence of it. And he did. As the band made it’s way through Magnificent, one of the strongest tracks from their most recent album, No Line On The Horizon, Bono smiled and he belted out the line : “This foolishness can leave a heart black and blue”, emphasizing the words “this foolishness” with a ringmasters wave around The Claw.

New songs aside, the band got the greatest reaction from their classics. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, had the greatest crowd reaction early on, and was followed by a soul-filled version of Ben E King’s Stand By Me. Until The End of the World featured Bono sprinting the entire radius of the stage, and followed by the 49-year old singer laying down (dramatic effect, or needed rest?) to start a stirring rendition of Stay (Faraway, So Close!).

Using the video screen, which extended to the floor of the stage, and retracted, throughout the night, the band had several guest stars join the show.  First was International Space Station astronaut Frank De Winne, reading out a verse of the welcome and rare set-list add Your Blue Room (technically not even a U2 song, but one from little known side project with Brian Eno, Passengers).

The screen was most active during the “message” part of the show, the part of the evening where the band made it clear that they politics remain at the heart of what they do. Starting with a green-covered montage of images from Iran, the band playing an impassioned version of Sunday Bloody Sunday, with The Edge shining in his solos, followed by Walk On, dedicated to Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest.

The first encore featured a message from the charismatic Desmond Tutu, talking about the ONE Campaign, which was followed of course, by the band’s One, then a cover of Amazing Grace, and concluded with Where The Streets Have No Name, which would have raised the roof, had there been one

The second encore featured a more measured light show, with disco ball lights and red laser beams and a hanging mic, that Bono swung about on while singing With Or Without You.  With the roof open, the ongoing CN Tower light display seemed to be playing along with the band’s light show.

Before launching into the last song of the night, Bono made sure to thank the corporation which brought them: RIM, or specifically its Blackberry division, which helped with the costs of the tour.

Ever the campaigner, Bono acknowledged he was a “pain in the arse” to Steven Harper, but thanked the Canadian Prime Minister “for increasing aid”.

“The world needs more Canadas”, he said, to obvious cheers.

As Bono thanked the crowd for “giving us a great life”, he also made sure it was clear that they band was “just getting going now.” And as they closed the night with a spot-on, soulful rendering of Moment of Surrender, it definitely seemed so.

Talk to most people from Toronto the weather and its a snore subject. Most fans concerned when Rogers Centre’s retractable roof was to be opened, but last night Mother Nature gave a boost to the year’s biggest concert.

A bit breezy, clear October evening the rook open as U2 kicked off is 2 night concert event. The venue only sold out for the second time in its history proves the band has power to draw in audiences.

Bono and the boys arrived over the last couple days to taken the area and drop in referenences to TTC and Yonge St. into songs and patter last night.

Stuck as they were in the middle of a football field, the mammoth stage, which includes an expandable cylindrical video screen, worked to bring what some call the Biggest Band in the World a little closer to the 58,000 people.

The set always starts off with a recording of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” that welcomed the veteran Irish rockers to the stage.

Not resting on any 30-year laurels, they kicked off with four songs from their current and 12th album No Line on the Horizon – the title track, “Breathe,” “Get on Your Boots” and “Magnificent.” The latter hit home with the hope and realism that defines their best work – “Only love can leave such a mark/But only love can heal such a scar.” This pretty much follows the format that has been working for a couple of shows now. No real changes.

Then they delved into their bag of hits for “Beautiful Day” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” – for which the crowd sang the first two choruses as Bono mouthed words, resuming the singalong when he segued into Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.”

“We got old songs, we got new songs, we got songs we can hardly play,” Bono had joked. Never saw any signs of the latter.

This was the second city in the North American edition of the 360 Degree Tour that debuted in Europe this summer. (Live Nation reps say it’s on track to be the year’s top-grossing tour.)

It’s a satisfying spectacle, with enviable musicianship – Edge the most dominant, with his intense ringing sound on electric guitar (and a deft acoustic turn on “Stay (Faraway, So Close)” – fantastic sound and consistent energy and emotion. They made use of the stage, wandering its outer rim and running across the moving bridges. Even drummer Larry Mullen Jr. left his kit at one point to walk around playing portable congas.

Bono, as limber physically as he was vocally, was jumping, skipping, spinning with arms outstretched. And they made sure to hit the political marks – dedicating “Walk On” to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi as fans walk the stage perimeter with paper masks, and running a video message of peace and unity from South Africa’s Bishop Desmond Tutu.

The encore remains the same, you can view the set list and photos already posted. Videos to be posted later today. What did you think of the show ? Do you have photos or video you would like to share. We want to hear from you.

Next up day 2 and then off to America again.

“We need to land this spaceship!”

U2’s spaceship has landed in Toronto. U2 frontman Bono’s nicknamed the stage way back during the EURO shows. The stage which will blow the roof off (literally) the Rogers Centre tonight, as the Dublin quartet kicks off the first of two sold-out Toronto shows on their 360 Degree Tour. TTom Podolec @Copyright 2009 he big news for Toronto’s 58,000 concert goers tonight and tomorrow is that they’ll have the added bonus of having the roof opened for both shows, as long as the pleasant late-summer weather continues. The only other rock show to have the lid open at the Rogers Centre was Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band in 2003.

“Due to the good weather and obviously better sound quality — and this sound system is unbelievable — it deserves the best possible scenario. Those domed stadiums, the roofs are so high, the sound tends to go up, and kind of swirl around and bounce around, a lot of metal stuff and cement. So it’s much better if it’s open.”

Photo Credit: Tom Podolec @COPYRIGHT 2009

U2 are among the special guests who will feature in a one-off concert for the (RED) charity next month, it has been announced.

The initiative was launched in 2006 by Bono and he and his fellow band members have confirmed their appearance at New York’s Carnegie Hall event.

Billed as “An Evening with Gavin Friday & Friends”, the bill also includes Laurie Anderson, Rufus Wainwright, Antony Hegarty, Scarlett Johannson and Courtney Love.

The members of U2 are expected to collaborate with the other acts rather than perform together.

Gavin Friday is a childhood friend of the Irish rockers, while (RED) is an organization which aims to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

The show takes place on October 4, with tickets going on-sale this week from CarnegieHall.com.

Bono and The Edge tapped an edition of the Elvis Costello TV show “Spectacle” Elvis and his band begin the show by performing three U2 songs -

• Please
• Dirty Day
• Mysterious Ways

Elivs did interview the boys with a couple of performance breaks to mix it up a bit. Bono and Edge performed

• Stay

Bono sings ‘Two Shots’ with Elvis’ rhythm section. Then the whole ensemble - Bono and Edge plus Elvis and his band - do the final three numbers together.

Tapping was done at Masonic Temple which is owned by MTV

Short Set list

• Stay (Faraway, So Close)
• Two Shots of Happy One Shot of Sad
• Alison
• Stuck In A Moment
• Pump It Up
• Get On Your Boots

News Credit: ATU2,U2TOURS, U2GIGS, Hollywood Reporter, U2TOURFANS,