Global-straddling super-group U2 will perform a bunch of their biggest hits in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate as part of this year’s MTV EMAs.

The Oirish four-piece will put on a free ticketed gig as a prelude to the Fall of The Wall celebrations in the famous city and the show will be beamed into the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards.

The band’s manager Paul McGuinness said: “It’ll be an exciting spot to be in, 20 years almost to the day since the wall came down. Should be fun.”

Tickets to attend ’MTV EMAs present U2 at the Brandenburg Gate’ are free of charge and available by registering on www.u2.com and www.mtvema.com.

Tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis and will be restricted to a maximum of two per applicant.

Executive VP of Music Brands, MTV Networks International and Executive Producer for the MTV Europe Music Awards, Antonio Campo Dall’Orto, said: “The exceptional musical heritage of this year’s EMAs spans genres and generations and we are extremely proud to be bringing U2 to Berlin for this extraordinary performance.

“This year’s Awards will be remembered as the night when the world’s major music players came together against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall to celebrate music, freedom and the birth of a new age in Europe.”

Green Day. Leona Lewis. Kings Of Leon and Jay-Z are among an array of top artists who’ll play on the night.

We can’t wait!

The 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards will premiere on MTV Australia, Friday November 6 from 4:30pm(AEDT). 

It’s a big week of 2010 presales for subscribers in North America this week.

Some people have been reporting problems seeing their presale codes when they log-in. This is a temporary problem which will be fixed by the time the presales open. 

Rest assured that if you have a presale code in an email from us as a subscriber - and it has not been used for tickets - it will definitely work in the presales this week.

The presales this week for Anaheim, Denver, Chicago, Miami and New York:
Horizon Group - Tuesday 10AM local 
Breathe Group - Tuesday 3PM EST/2PM CST/1PM MST/12PM PST 
Boots Group - Wednesday 10AM EST/9AM CST/8AM MST/7AM PST 
Magnificent Group - Wednesday 3PM EST/2PM CST/1PM MST/12PM PST 
Presale ends - Thursday 5PM local 

If you did not use your code 2009 it will work for 2010 - However if you did use it no matter if you purchased 2 tickets - You can not use it again. You can not buy a membership now and be in on the Horizon Group.  Don’t delay. 

Bono and company continued their record breaking ways last week. U2’s Oct 25 Rose Bowl performance has set a new US attendance record.

Billboard reports that the legendary Irish rockers have smashed their own attendance record for the best-attended single concert performance at a U.S. venue by a headliner.

The “With or Without you” hitmakers brought their 360° tour to Pasadena, CA’s. Rose Bowl last Sunday and played to a record breaking sellout crowd of 97,014.

U2 set their previous record during their Joshua Tree tour back on Sept. 25, 1987 at the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, playing to a soldout crowd of 86,145
.
Earlier this week, YouTube announced that the simulcast coverage of the Pasadena concert was watch by 10 million fans from 188 countries, making it the video site’s largest streaming event ever.

After playing their final show of the 2009 North American leg of their tour in Vancouver, BC on Wed, U2 headed east to headline the 2nd night of the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at New York’s Madison Square Garden show this past Friday (10/24).

The “Beautiful Day” hitmakers will play a free show in front of the Brandenburg Gate on Nov. 5 that will be beamed into the MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony at Berlin’s O2 World arena and will bring their 360° tour back to Canada and the US in the summer of 2010.

See U2’s official website for more tour details.

For the latest info on the band, check out “U2 heads back to North America in 2010” “U2 concert sets record on YouTube”

Did you know? U2 holds the top 3 positions among the top 5 single-concert attendances on record in the U.S., 

U2 star The Edge got to play one of the most distinctive electric guitar riffs in history this weekend when the band covered a Rolling Stones classic.

The Irish rockers were appearing at the second night of this year’s Rock and RGetty Images 2009 oll Hall of Fame event in New York when they were joined by Stones frontman Mick Jagger to perform Gimme Shelter.

Jagger stuck around for another song to duet with Bono on U2’s Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.

This was one of several collaborations to take place at the gig, as Aretha Franklin and Lenny Kravitz joined forces on Think, while Metallica played with ex-Kinks frontman Ray Davies on You Really Got Me and All Day and All of the Night.

Metallica also performed Black Sabbath’s classic Paranoid with Ozzy Osbourne, as well as Iron Man.

The first night of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame also saw a number of artists joining forces, with Stevie Wonder for example performing with acts such as Jeff Beck and Smokey Robinson.

In addition, music fans were treated to the sight of Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon taking to the stage together to play Bridge Over Troubled Water.

U2 still running high off their Rose Bowl show came in to Vancouver for the last stop of 2009. Yes more dates have been announced as we said earlier we can expect to see this tour roll thru 2011. (just a guess on 2011). The crowds packed the ferry to capacity as the crossed over to see the world’s largest tour.  U2 knows how to keep the show current and fresh with their ever-evolving set list mixing in tracks off their latest album which I confess took some time to slip into my U2 rotation mix. As they has said early on this was going to be different. However after a couple of listens and a couple of shows, this could be possibility be their finest work.  

The stage — a sprawling entity dubbed “The Claw” — acted as Bono’s pulpit.

Head thrown back and arms open wide; he lifted the adoring crowd, even if just for a moment, out of the stadium’s concrete confines with the sheer power of his voice.

And the audience was ready to receive his word.

They were ready, fists raised and hearts pounding, to go forth unto Vancouver’s streets and spread the gospel according to U2: one love, one heart. 

We will skip telling you that the set change for this tour was a bit longer than most in the past; however it’s clearly due to the size of the stage and the amount of gear that has to come on and off the stage. We have photos that suggest that it takes the band about10 minutes per show to reach the stage. Sometimes they begin the walk as early as 15 minutes. 

 The show kicks off at 9:00PM local time as most twitter fans on the east coast have retried for the night. However you have a small group of dedicated twitter U2 fans that tweet every show, every song and Vancouver’s show was no different.

Kicking off the show with a trio of tracks from their latest release, No Line On the Horizon: Breathe, the decidedly un-U2-like Get On Your Boots and Magnificent. Bono, clad in traditional all-black and patented sunglasses, is basking in stadium love and has already covered more square footage than any of the Peas. (which was to be expected the opening act is never allowed to use all of the stage)

“Where are we going on the SkyTrain? Millennium Line. Expo Line. Canada Line.”

The reference to Vancouver’s public transit system sent the crowd into a frenzy and was one of the very few surprises of the night for anyone who has been following the band’s much-publicized tour – in particular, Sunday night’s live web cast of their Los Angeles concert which featured an identical set list and some of the same word-for-word on-stage banter from Bono.

The show took off when Bono launched into Mysterious Ways, strutting across the enormous catwalk – and the crowd was on its feet.

What we have always said from the beginning of this tour was “City of Blinding Lights” fits so well with this stage is as if the two were made or each other. Every tour stop Bono drags someone on stage to walk with him as he sings about the youth he misses, the beauty in side of me, as if we did not know that each show the person selected was pre-selected. The only difference tonight was that it was a little girl.

Back to our twitter fans, we all seem to have differences on the encore set. Tonight everything matched up, due mostly to this was pretty much the same set list from the last 4 shows.

The main set end around 10:30pm with the standard Sunday Bloody Sunday and Walk On/You’ll Never Walk Alone. BC Place came alive once more for “Where the Streets Have No Name” most will agree one of their best songs that never won a VMA award.

The encore was three songs, Ultraviolet which gives Bono the chance to drive a glowing red steering wheel dangling from above. Next “With or Without You” the wheel turns blue at this point. Closing out 2009 with Moment of Surrender, not before Bono asks “Let’s turn this place into the Milky Way” and as true fans do, they followed.

A couple of notable shout outs to Liam Neeson and football great Warren Moon in attendance, guitarist The Edge’s mother (“our very first crew member,” said Bono) and Bill and Melinda Gates. Bono led the crowd in a rendition of Happy Birthday for Mr. Gates, who celebrated his 54th birthday at the concert.

The sound was inconsistent, not surprising for this venue. But if anyone can sound good at BC Place, it’s U2.

U2 never let on that they just finished playing to 95,000 people and millions watching online. The energy was high and Bono’s voice was fine for the most part, of course in play back we will hear some stress points.

Closing out the show, Bono said” this was the best crew we’ve ever worked with” and while we can’t help but remember all the other crew members tonight was for this crew. Let of pats on the back for the set designer and big hugs for all the band mates.

 “It’s getting very emotional around here,” Bono said toward the end of the show.

It was, indeed.

Now on to Germany for a free concert at the Wall.  

We want to thank all our twitter followers, the U2 Twitter writers group.(with most we shared information back and forth, learning how to play in the sand box better)

To our photog Dave Long to whom made this tour light up for us and millions of fans

To our Youtube Channel team, you guys did a great job after some bumps early.

Our hosting provider, which at times we know we shocked you, we shocked ourselves.

Most of all we want to thank you the FAN for this wonderful experience.

Cheers, we will see you in 2010

Reportedly, U2’s 360 tour requires anywhere from 120 to 189 trucks and busses to haul its giantclaw-like stage and the 500-strong crew needed for the production around North America.

Add to that the bands private jet and its 70,000 miles logged over the course of the two-year, worldwide tour and, well, thats a pretty substantial carbon footprint.

However, if we’re to believe the spin from a certain American music rag, the timing for such a colossal greenhouse fart couldn’t be better.

After all, with the world mired in its various crises, they argue, what better time to tour with such an audacious, irresponsible rock spectacular?

And that’s probably true, if yo’ure they type of person who thinks its kosher for a company to throw a lavish Christmas party for its management the day after laying off 90 per cent of its staff.

Then again, this is U2. The biggest band on the planet, in case you havent heard. And, frankly, whatever irrevocable damage to the environment a giant, upside-down claw in the midst of an elaborate goliath of a live show causes, it’s at least less annoying than some of the hot air frontman Bono has spewed into the atmosphere over the years.

Besides, the band promised to buy carbon offsets. They even hired a company to help. And thats almost as responsible as personally planting the 20,118 trees environmental activist Helen Roberts claimed were necessary to neutralize the tour.

The logic behind the scale and timing of such a production can be argued until Bono wears his patented shades to the grave after all, U2 certainly doesnt require it to fill seats.

But no one in the 60,000-strong crowd was debating the entertainment value added by it Wednesday night at BC Place.

7:00 p.m.

Forget Swine Flu, because more than a few dudes filing into BC place early to catch the Black Eyed Peas have Bono Fever. Symptoms include wearing tight t-shirts and sunglasses at night. Regardless, the stage - which resembles a giant alien ship - is ridiculously massive, the Pointed top almost touching BC Place’s fabric roof. The stadium’s not even half full yet and the Black Eyed Peas have just taken the stage, with will.i.am greeting the crowd with a drawn out “Vancooooooouver…”

7:30 p.m.

There’s an army of dancers onstage dressed as robot/speaker hybrids and the whole thing is quite silly. The Black Eyed Peas don’t sound too bad, but the cavern that is BC Place just isn’t a hospitable evironment for musicians. They are making the most of it, however, and will.i.am is playing a keytar. A keytar! That’s what I would play, if I was a musician. And the cowbell.

7:45 p.m.

Inherent acoustic challenges aside, Fergie sounds pretty good as she works her way through Big Girls Don’t Cry. She’s wearing some serious spikes on her feet and her disco-ball top is shimmering as she prances about the stage. The crowd is on its feet for the familar guitar riff behind Pump It. So far none of the Peas are utilizing the 360-degree ramp that wraps around the in-the-round setup. Perhaps it’s reserved for Bono.

Wednesday’s sold-out U2/Black Eyed Peas concert in Vancouver resulted in sailing waits for Islanders headed to the mainland.

Reservations were fully booked yesterday for today’s 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. sailings from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen.

The busier traffic for a Wednesday resulted in a two-sailing wait at mid-day today.

B.C. Ferries’ spokeswoman Deborah Marshall said an unscheduled extra sailing was put on at noon.

Westcoast Air said it was adding flights today for concert-goers

Follow U2TOURFANS on Twitter for show details.

U2 360° is coming back to North America in 2010, the band said on their website Sunday. Here is the rest of the announcement:

The tour will touch down next summer in Anaheim; Denver; Oakland; Seattle; Edmonton; East Lansing; Miami; Philadelphia and Montreal. U2 360° will also return for one night only in Toronto and Chicago before finishing the North American leg in New York at the New Meadowlands Stadium. On U2 360° the band currently play 22 live tracks, the first time fans have heard tracks from No Line On the Horizon, one of the best selling albums globally this year..

Tickets for the performances in Oakland, Edmonton, and Toronto will go on sale Monday November 2 with additional North American on sales taking place over the following few weeks in November. (Tickets are also about to go on sale for 2010 European dates in Athens, Greece and Istanbul, Turkey

Youtube:  Did you miss the show ? Living under a rock, well you just don’t know. Enjoy the rebroadcast of the show. Sign up here to be able to get the most current concert videos from the tour as we progress thru 2010.

The band have announced a free gig in Berlin next month outside the Brandenburg Gate to mark 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The gig, on Nov. 5, will be staged as part of the MTV Europe Music Awards which are being held in the city this year. The free show will also kick off a range of events marking the fall of the barrier, widely seen as the end of the Cold War.

U2 have a strong affiliation with the German capital — in 1990 the band moved to the city to record their album ‘Achtung Baby’ at Hansa Studios. Tickets to the show will be made available off the band’s website and MTV’s. U2, incidentally, have been nominated for best rock band at the awards this year.

The band’s performance will be beamed into the MTV Awards, which are taking place at Berlin’s O2 World arena. U2 manager Paul McGuinness said, “It’ll be an exciting spot to be in, 20 years almost to the day since the wall came down. Should be fun.” The news of the free Berlin gig comes days after the band played a show streamed live over video-sharing website YouTube. The Pasadena, Calif, show is thought to have been seen by more than 2.5m people.

The band also recently announced more dates in their 360° tour for next year, with a cluster of shows in the US and Canada as well as more European dates — including German shows in Frankfurt and Hanover.

Antonio Campo Dall’Orto, executive producer of the awards ceremony, said the “world’s major music players” would be coming together “against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall to celebrate music, freedom and the birth of a new age in Europe”.

The ceremony, which will be hosted by US singer Katy Perry for the second year in succession, will include performances from Robbie Williams and Jay-Z.

Lady Gaga and Green Day lead the field with five nominations each, while U2 are in the running for best rock band.

Pixie Lott has already been announced as the winner of best UK and Ireland act, and will compete for the best European act trophy with 21 artists from across the continent.

‘This ain’t mere genius, this is rock ‘n’ roll…’ (Kerrang, October 1984)

U2’s fourth album, The Unforgettable Fire, has been remastered and will be released by Mercury Records on 26th October.

This special edition marks 25 years since the album’s original release in October 1984. Recorded at Slane Castle, Ireland, The Unforgettable Fire was the first U2 album to be produced by Brian Eno and Danny Lanois, and spawned two top 10 UK singles - ‘Pride (In The Name Of Love)’ and ‘The Unforgettable Fire’.

Special formats of The Unforgettable Fire will also feature bonus audio material, including two previously unheard tracks from the Slane Castle sessions: ‘Yoshino Blossom’, and ‘Disappearing Act’ (a track which the band recently completed), and a DVD including music videos, a documentary and unreleased live footage from the Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope Tour in 1986.

The Unforgettable Fire has been remastered from the original audio tapes, with direction from The Edge and the album will be available in four formats:

* Limited Edition Box Set: containing 2 CDs (remastered album and bonus audio CD), a DVD with live footage, documentary and videos, a 56 page hardback book with liner notes by The Edge, Brian Eno, Danny Lanois, Bert Van de Kamp and Niall Stokes, and 5 photographic prints

* Deluxe Edition: containing 2 CDs, the remastered album, and the bonus audio CD which features B-sides and previously unreleased material, a 36 page booklet with liner notes by The Edge, Brian Eno, Danny Lanois and Bert Van de Kamp

* CD format: featuring the remastered album

* 12” vinyl format: 16 page booklet with liner notes by Brian Eno, Danny Lanois and Bert Van de Kamp

The Unforgettable Fire track listing is as follows: A Sort of Homecoming, Pride (In The Name Of Love), Wire, The Unforgettable Fire, Promenade, 4th Of July, Bad, Indian Summer Sky, Elvis Presley and America, MLK.

City, Rose Bowl officials call U2 concert a smashing success

 PASADENA - As the mammoth stage was dismantled Monday and 96,000 U2 fans recovered their hearing after Sunday’s show, the largest concert in Rose Bowl history was being hailed by officials as an all-around musical, financial and logistical triumph.

“This event will go down as one for the ages for the Rose Bowl - and that’s tough to say given the history of events here,” Rose Bowl General Manager Darryl Dunn said. “The atmosphere was electric, people were so excited, and all the reports received from those assisting with the show and the promoters of

The Edge perform in U2’s 360 Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009. (SGVN/Staff Photo by Eric Reed/)

the tour were outstanding.”A team of 5,000 worked Sunday’s event, Dunn said, calling it a “true collaboration.” The event is expected to make between $300,000 and $400,000 for the stadium, he said.

Ten months of preparation with the Pasadena Police Department and event transportation consultants, The John Blanchard Co., paid off, Dunn said.

“It just got bigger and bigger and bigger as it got closer,” he said. “I’m really proud of the effort and the results.”

Audiences heeded the Rose Bowl management’s appeals to arrive early and make a day of it, pre-pay parking, carpool and use shuttles and public transportation, Dunn said.

“We knew it was a challenge,” he said, adding that an estimated 8,000 to 9,000 people used public transportation and 20,000 used shuttle services from Pasadena City College and Parsons parking lots.

“We ended up not even parking the whole Rose Bowl and (Brookside) golf course,” Dunn said. “People did listen to the recommendations…The typical mentality of the concert crowd is to come within one hour of the event.”

Lee Zanteson, president of the Linda Vista/Annandale Neighborhood Association, said traffic control went well, apart from two small streets that should have been barricaded and were not - which he called “less than a crisis.”

“And it was not quite as loud as I expected,” Zanteson said.

Even the fact that the concert went about 15 minutes past its official 11 p.m. curfew didn’t bother him, he said.

“I was sound asleep, I don’t care - I expected they would,” he said. “In this case, it was for the greater good - the Rose Bowl was making money, the town was making money and it made a lot of people happy.”

Dunn said technical issues made the concert run a little late, and they were in touch with the promoters over a possible penalty imposed by the city.

U2 fans apparently spent time in Old Pasadena before and after the concert, said Steve Mulheim, president and CEO of the Old Pasadena Management District.

“It was hopping all day,” Mulheim said of the city’s retail and restaurant hub, although no figures are available yet.

“A number of stores we’ve called said it was a phenomenal day, the best they’ve had in a long time, and can we have U2 here every weekend,” he said.

Not everyone used shuttles or public transportation - there were plenty of limos delivering celebrity fans.

Among those spotted by U2 fan Courtney Saavedra - in the VIP section courtesy of a friend’s husband in U2’s entourage - were Barbra Streisand, Demi Moore, Ewan McGregor, Hilary Swank, Elvis Costello, Winona Ryder, and Cindy Crawford.

“It was fantastic,” Saavedra said of the concert. “I felt that I was part of history, that the world was watching … and that it was the biggest party I’ll ever attend in my life.”

U2 played to 96,000 fans at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. At the same time, they were playing to who knows how many more people around the world who tuned in for a live stream of the full show on YouTube. Pretty cool, right?

The stream is down now, but a message posted at U2’s YouTube hub — say that five times fast! — promises that it will all be available for encore viewing “soon.” And while I’m sure a YouTube stream can’t compare to an in-person performance, or even to a high-res TV simulcast, it still seems like a promising option. I know there have been lots of shows over the years that I’ve been unable to attend due to scheduling or location issues, and that I’d have loved to watch online. That goes double if YouTube would let me see a show the next morning. (Case in point: I, personally, was unable to tune in last night because I was watching the Yankees win the pennant.)

Did any of you catch U2’s show on YouTube? Or do you plan to watch it later? Let us know how the whole YouTube concert thing worked out for you — and make all the U2-YouTube puns that you can think of — in the comments below. And hey, if you’re really dying to see U2 in the flesh, you can try and make it to one of the new North American shows they’ve just announced for 2010…

The concert was bookended by songs from the band’s latest album

Irish rock group U2 have broadcast an entire live show via the video sharing website YouTube.

Although 96,000 people turned up to see the show at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in California, many times that number were expected to have watched it online.

As he took to the stage, lead singer Bono said: “Thank you Los Angeles. Thanks to everyone watching on YouTube all over the world - seven continents.”

The quartet played hits including Beautiful Day and Mysterious Ways.

‘Mad scientist’

Other tracks in the 24-song set included Vertigo, One and With Or Without You.

The entire show, which Bono described as a “space adventure”, is being repeated on YouTube.

The singer introduced his bandmates as famous characters from Hollywood history. Drummer Larry Mullen was “James Dean”, while bassist Adam Clayton was Clark Gable as Gone With The Wind’s Rhett Butler.

Hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas were the night’s support act

“Every horror movie needs a mad scientist,” Bono continued as he introduced The Edge, “and ours is just to my right.

“He wants to boldly go where no guitar players have ever gone before. He’s Mr Spock to us, he’s The Edge to you.”

The singer went on to compare himself to “Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito with a little bit of Dennis Hopper thrown in”.

It was the band’s penultimate date of the year, with one more concert to take place in Vancouver, Canada, on Wednesday.

The 360 Degrees World Tour resumes next June in Anaheim, California.

Meanwhile, the band have been speaking candidly about the mixed reaction to their recent album, No Line On The Horizon.

Although it among the best-selling albums of the year to date, it has underperformed compared to their previous records.

It has been certified platinum in the UK - meaning 300,000 sales - while in the US it has shifted just over 1m copies. Those figures mean it is the band’s least successful album since the experimental Zooropa in 1993.

The towering “claw” stage has allowed U2 to squeeze in bigger audiences

Speaking before Sunday’s concert, Bono admitted the album had lacked a big, commercial hit like Vertigo or Beautiful Day.

“We weren’t really in that mindset,” he said.

“We felt that the album was a kind of an almost extinct species, and we should approach it in totality and create a mood and a feeling, and a beginning, middle and an end.

“And I suppose we’ve made a work that is a bit challenging for people who have grown up on a diet of pop stars.”

“The commercial challenges have to be confronted,” bassist Adam Clayton added.

‘What time is it in the world and where are we going?’ Bono asked after ‘Get On Your Boots’. Tonight it was every time on the clock, depended which country you were in as the U2 360°: show went out live on YouTube to millions of viewers on seven continents.

We’ve been getting messages from fans all over the world who were loving the show tonight: you were watching in China and New Zealand, in Iran and in North Korea, in Russia and Latin America, in Canada and right across Europe.

From Iceland (‘Definitely the greatest economy class I have ever had…’) to Peru (‘amazing, incredible and exciting…’) the whole world seems to have been at the show.

‘It’s like we are all there at the concert,’ said Baadsilver on our Zoootpia live thread ‘We ALL have our hands in the air and are singing… crazy tonight for U2.’

Or as one smart Tweet put it, ‘This has to be the best U2 concert I have never been to.’

From Breathe to Moment of Surrender, felt like a moment of rock’n’roll history tonight.

It’s kind of crazy to think that the band U2 has been popular for about 30 years now. Over that three decade span, the group has had music that has ranged from brilliant (War, The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby) to self-indulgent (Pop) to a bit odd (Zooropa). But there has been one constant: They’ve always been a great live act. And tonight, a lot of the world will be able to see that from their computer screens.

After weeks of hype — and multiple traffic warnings from Rose Bowl and Live Nation officials — the U2 fanatics have invaded Pasadena. Some, writes L.A. Now, have been hanging out since 4 a.m. A record crowd of more than 95,000 people is expected — the Rose Bowl’s largest attendance since the 1994 World Cup finale. 

Concertgoers will witness the spectacle that is the Claw, a giant alien-like contraption that’s generating far more media attention than any recent U2 song. The 90-foot-tall structure takes about four days to build, and was inspired by the the Theme Building at LAX. 

U2’s 360 Tour is in support of its early 2009 release, “No Line on the Horizon.” To date, the album has sold just over 1 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. A respectable number, no doubt, but it took U2 about 30 weeks to reach the seven-figure sales mark. By comparison, rapper Jay-Z hit the milestone in less than 2 months with his “Blueprint 3.”

Nevertheless, U2’s touring power has never really been in doubt. Tonight’s Super Bowl-sized show is sold out, and will be streamed live on YouTube. Additionally, by mid-afternoon, plenty of the U2 faithful were out and about in Pasadena. 

We are still looking for Fans for the U2 ROSE Bowl FAN Photo Booth. Check into the story here. -

The current president appeared in a video graphic and a former one — Bill Clinton — was in the press box. But the night belonged to U2, the rock ‘n’ roll royalty that convenes a party at Sam Boyd Stadium about once every president or two.

And frontman Bono, who’s had the ear of those presidents for his social activism, needed only to spin around in circles a couple of times, arms overhead, to rechristen the stadium for a sold-out crowd of more than 40,000 for the “360” tour.

But, as he sang in the second song, “Get On Your  Boots,” it was too nice a night “to talk about wars between nations.”

“Every religion has its Mecca,” Bono told the crowd. “We (entertainers) end up here, sometimes on our knees, but we come to Vegas.”

He introduced his bandmates with comparisons to every entertainer from Bette Midler to David Copperfield before declaring, “My name is Wayne Newton.”

Before long, he was leading a “Viva Las Vegas” sing-a-long.

The Irish rockers and Sam Boyd Stadium don’t get together too often, but when they do it’s an affair to remember, fleeting but passionate.

It started in November 1992 with the “Zoo TV” tour, the first 80-foot stage with 1,200 tons of giant TV screens the stadium had ever known. It continued when the “PopMart” tour launched in April 1997. Parking-lot bootleggers rolled tape (yeah, it was tape back then) on the nightly rehearsals.

But even after a lot of practice, that date was best known for the boys getting stuck, “Spinal Type”-style, inside a giant lemon.

Now the tour is sponsored by BlackBerry and everyone used their smart phones to talk to friends on the other side.

The massive “360” stage made it look like the stadium came out on the losing end of a flying saucer invasion, almost a living-room show compared to a recent stop at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium where photos reveal the earthlings won.

Not many bands can host this kind of party. Festivals such as Vegoose — already come and gone since the last U2 stop — mostly replaced single headliners for gatherings of this magnitude. Other stars on the short list, namely the Rolling Stones, opt to play big-money indoor dates on the Strip instead.

The weather smiled on the band’s choice to take the path less Vegas on one of those fine desert nights that wasn’t too hot, too cold or too windy. The crowd had clearly aged along with the band. Tailgating was light and refined; one party of about two dozen even hired a hosted bar with table cloths and a bartender in bow tie.

As he cooked chicken fajitas for a group in the parking lot, Las Vegan Rick Wylie said he was here for the Zoo TV tour in 92 as well, but there was no cooking then.

“Just heavy drinkin’” he said with a laugh. “That’s when we could handle a hangover.”

More current pop stars, Black Eyed Peas, were added as the opening act, possibly to youthen the demographic of a stadium light on the “Now Generation” they sang about.

The crowd was more on the cordial side until frontman will.i.am. won them over with sincerity, a shout-out to U2 and other bands who manage to “stay together for the love of the music,” and a little humiliation of those who would be “chillin’ lackadaisical” up in the stands while Fergie did her “Boom Boom Pow.”

Friday also offered a pleasant morning to those who started arriving at 6 a.m. to line up for a preferred spot on the general-admission floor.

Fans debated whether it was better to be inside the race-track ramp that circled the stage or on the outside of the rail.

“We’re just addicted to it, to be honest with you,” said Pat Dalug, the Princeton, N.J., man who had a place near the front of the line. “Some people don’t understand, but we understand. I always tell my wife — it’s better than smoking crack.”

Dalug even was on the clock, sort of, passing out sunblock samples. As he eyed other fans sipping coffee or napping on air mattresses, he noted, “You forget about all the problems, all the responsibilities.”

“Chicago was a little crazy,” Dalug added. But neither U2 nor its fans are spring chickens anymore. “If you get arrested, it’s on our record. We’re not underage anymore.”

Boris “Bowman” Poehland from Hamburg, Germany, was trying to follow as many shows as he could in the United States.

“This show is all about different perspectives,” he says. “I’ve been almost everywhere with this show.”

But, he confessed, “U2 is the name of my traveling agency. I love this band, but it’s only 40 percent the show. Sixty percent is traveling around the world meeting old friends, meeting new friends, being in G.A. line for two days. That is the fun.”

U2 Rose Bowl Fans: All 90,000 of you we want to hear from you. We have a project called Fan Base view. It’s really easy. We want you to share the show from your view.  Fans from many of the shows have joined in on this project. It’s simple, easy and most of all fun. Your photos will be posted real time during the event. All you need to do is take a photo email it to us from your mobile phone (of course we would suggest Blackberry or iPhone but hey neither pays us so choose your camera phone of choice)

You can take photos of getting ready for the show, tailgating, pre show photos of anything and everything related to U2. You choose what to send to us. We have opened our Fan Base photo booth up to handle as many Rose Bowl fans that want to send us photos.

First Fan Submitted U2TOURFANS ROSE BOWL 2009All you have to do is take a photo on a white paper “U2TOURFANS ROSE BOWL 2009 YOUR ID” send it in to us at the following email address u2tourfans at gmail dot com. That’s pretty simple right ? Oh your id is anything you would like, your name, your twitter id, make up something, but be clean and cool.

Remember we need to hear from you within the next 24 hours to give you a special email address you can save to your phone address book. Check out the photo section and see what our friends in Houston have to say.

U2 Tour Fan coverage will continue as the tour leaves America and heads to Canada. Once the tour comes to a halt for the holiday season we will be changing our format to focus on different sides of U2. We have more to follow on that.  However we have updates on many other fronts.

• Twitter: Follow us via U2TOURFANS. We update set lists live every show. No matter what time zone, country its all available for you. 
• Youtube Channel:  Have you signed up for U2TOURFANS direct ? If not, why wait? We have the most concert videos from you the FAN. Every 360 show has been updated and we tons videos to screen and we will be posting long after the boys leave America. You can expect us to have video teams on the shows all the way to the end of 2010.
• Fan Photo Booth:  You the U2 Fans are the stars here. We have setup a really cool way to be apart of the massive show. Sign up to get a special show code so that you can send photos direct to us. Posted for everyone to see.
• SetLists: We update our set list live, during the show. After the show you can re-check as often as you like via our Set Lists link, currently set to North America.
• Photo Purchase: We have a photographer that has chosen some great tour shots that we will be offering for sale. Check back with us. We have a couple of great limited selections that we will not offer to everyone. Limited means just that. 
• Discussion Board: Your comments on anything you like, raw unedited facts from you. Live it, Post it and Share it. 
• FACBOOK: The U2TOURFANS Facebook site is up and running, your comments, photos again all welcome. Enjoy share and be a part of it.

Last, we want to thank you the Fan for making this possible. The concept was simple create a place for you to come share and be part of the experience. Watch for greater fan experience in 2010