U2 at the CNN

Yes, I know U2 is everywhere! Let´s take advantage, relax and watch them talk, sing and work!!!




source:http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2009/02/27/dq.soundcheck.u2.cnn

Bono Bores his own Children???

Bono and daughter Eve

As all parents of teenagers have at least once suffer, Mr Paul Hewson,a.k.a.Bono, does bore his teen kids.

"Apparently Bono overheard his eldest daughter call him "boring" during a dinner with superstar couple Beyonce and Jay-Z.
The singer, who has two daughters - Jordan, 19, and Memphis Eve, 17 - with wife Alison Hewson, admits he suffers the same fate as most parents.
And the teens' opinions became clear when he overheard Jordan talking about her dad while the family were entertaining celebrity guests at their holiday home in the south of France.
He says, "I went in to get some wine out of the fridge and I heard her talking to her friends, because she loves Jay-Z and Beyonce.
"I heard her saying, 'He's probably boring their a***s off talking about Africa '. And, actually, I think I was at the time."
And Bono concedes it's not the first time his antics have annoyed the youngsters, adding, "There was a funny moment on the last tour when there were formal objections by our kids to some of the music that was being played at the aftershow party."

source:www.contactmusic.com

US & U2

U2 to play mini-concerts in the US

• U2 are going to play in the famous show "Good Morning America".

• In the morning of the 6th of March, U2 are going to play the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University in the Bronx. (not confirmed though)They will perform from the steps of Keating Hall;Only Fordham University students with ID will be admitted to the well-secured campus. However, GMA indicates members of the public may be able to attend the event they are hosting.

• U2 will be staying in the US to make three more special appearances from the 9th to the 11th of March. FMQB Productions and Interscope records are presenting a "radio extravaganza" called "U2 3 Nights Live" that will be broadcast via satellite on ABC Satellite Services and Westwood One. These three appearances will be:

• 9 March: live from Los Angeles, "An Inside Look At No Line On The Horizon", hosted by Shirley Manson, the lead singer of Garbage.

• 10 March: live from Chicago, "Radio Takeover" featuring a DJ set by U2 and again hosted by Shirley Manson.

• 11 March: live from Boston, U2 will play live and answer audience questions. Host is yet to be announced.

As I wrote before, hell of a time for our fave band!!! Go ahead, guys,NLOYH deserves it!!!

Window in the Skies: U2 in the London Sky

Last night U2 played a surprise gig on the rooftop of of BBC Broadcasting House to promote the launch of their 12th studio album No Line On The Horizon.A crowd of around 5,000 watched the rooftop show.

They also played "Vertigo" and "Beautiful Day"

source:www.u2gigs.com

Just the 2

The Irish Times has published an interview to Edge and Bono, apart from talking about NLOT (obvioulsy!!) they remember some good ol´times...

Bono and The Edge discuss their posh bass guitarist, insecurity and megalomania in U2, “dealing with” skinheads, why their music makes Bono wince, how the recession has affected them – and that controversial tax arrangement. BRIAN BOYD takes their confession

FROM THE study of Bono’s home in Killiney, you search in vain for a line on the horizon. “That’s where the album title comes from,” says Bono as he does a quick tidy-up behind me and frets over seating arrangements. “This study is where I do all my work – in the morning it’s the band stuff, in the afternoon it’s all the other stuff.”

He thinks he has a seating plan. “Ok, me and Edge will sit over here and you can sit over there. Wait, no, maybe it should be the other way around. What do you think?”

The other night he had been to a very late Christmas party. “Aren’t they weird? Almost Freudian. All this repressed stuff gets released. This guy, who I thought sort of liked me, came over to me and starting telling me what a fucker I was and how much he hated me, and how he had always hated me right from the very start.” The Edge arrives and says: “That’s no way for U2’s drummer to be talking to you.” The yin and yang of U2 look at each other and dissolve into laughter.

It’s a lived-in home, but with the kind of order that comes from having an employee or two on the premises. The study itself is small, an old-style library busy with books and magazines, not a mess but clearly a working space.It’s an environment where its owner and his mate are at ease discussing their early years.

ON BEING BROKE (NOT RECENTLY): “ADAM CLIMBED UP THE RAILINGS AND STARTING KNOCKING ON THE WINDOW OF THE BANK”

“When we were young and broke and didn’t even have our bus fare, Adam used to ride the buses for free,” says Bono. “When the conductor would ask him for his fare, he’d just say in his west Brit accent [adopts accent]: ‘Can I sign you a cheque?’.” They laugh like a drain. But Edge thinks he has a better Adam story.

“I swear this is true,” says the guitarist. “I was 16, Adam was 17. We were stuck out in Malahide without any bus fare. Adam says: ‘I know, let’s get a bank loan. That’s what banks are for.’ We went down to the Northern Bank in Malahide, but it was lunch hour and it was closed. Adam climbed up the railings and starting knocking on the window of the bank. The manager came to the window with a sandwich in his mouth. I saw the door opening and Adam going in. A few minutes later, he re-emerged and had managed to get a bank loan of £2.”

They both fizz with laughter. Pushed up against each other on a couch, Paul Hewson and Dave Evans are all belly laughs and“Do you remember the time when ...?”

The young, broke U2 who managed to get a few gigs in dingy Dublin venues regularly had their shows broken up by a skinhead gang of the time called The Black Catholics. “There was this gang called The Black Catholics in (late 1970s) Dublin,” says Bono. “They would try to break up our gigs. But I dealt with it. I knew which bus stop one of them got off at on his way home. I waited for him. It ended after that, that’s all I’ll say.”

The study goes quite for a moment. Until Bono adds “I remember one of them chasing after Adam once. Adam turned to the guy and in his posh voice offered him 50 pence if he would go away,” and they crack up again.

ON THE NEW ALBUM: “I’VE NEVER SUNG LIKE THAT BEFORE”

One-hundred-and-forty million album sales later, U2 still guard their position vigilantly. Once they worried about belligerent skinheads; now The Killers snipe at their heels. “U2 are still a point that need proving,” says Bono. They still worry, they say. New album, new danger.

It wasn’t looking good at first for No Line on the Horizon . The first sessions with noted producer Rick Rubin were scrapped. Then Bono had a rush of blood to the head: “Let’s all move to Morocco.”

“At this stage we didn’t even know if we working on the new U2 album,” he says. “We were just playing about with forms. We just played and played in Morocco.”

“We don’t get excited until we hear something we’ve never heard before,” says Edge. “If things sound too regular or normal or predictable we just can’t operate as a band. We needed a shake-up, so we had Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois [two of the album’s producers] contributing to the songwriting – the first time it’s gone outside the band. We’ve had a long, creative relationship with them both, but this gave that relationship a new lease of life ... We found those new sounds.”

There are folk stylings ( White As Snow ), chanting ( Unknown Caller ) and spoken word ( Cedars Of Lebanon ) on the new album, as well as what some critics have called Bono’s best ever vocal on the stand-out Moment Of Surrender – a seven-minute slow-burner that could be this album’s Bad or One . He registers a cracked and quavering delivery far removed from his usual declamatory ways.

“I’ve never sung like that before,” he says of the song. “This voice just came out in Morocco and it was a shock to me. Not so much the tonality of it, but the character of it. We’ve literally only got one take of that ... It must have been an afternoon after the night before vocal. I’m not smoking now, but on occasion, you know ... that’s a real wine and cigarettes voice.”

“Bono’s been very dedicated to getting that wine and cigarettes effect on his vocal,” says Edge. “He’s selfless like that. He does it for the band and at a great personal cost!”

ON THE UPCOMING TOUR: “WE WANT TO HAVE A SIGNIFICANT PERCENTAGE OF CHEAP TICKETS”

After the album, a two-to-three year Horizon world tour will follow, and this is now a huge part of the band’s creative work and business. If you had gone to see the band play on their Joshua Tree tour, the ticket price would have been less than the price of the album. In a radically restructured music industry, the ticket prices for the Horizon tour will be between 10 to 15 times the price of an album.

Recognising the importance of live performance in the modern music industry, two years ago U2 signed a reported £100 million 12-year deal with the world’s biggest concert promoter, Live Nation. This will be the first tour under that arrangement.

The nature of the Horizon tour remains a closely guarded secret. “We haven’t announced any of this yet, so I’m not sure you can use this, but I’ve been working on this engineering idea for the last seven to eight years,” says the singer.

“It’s all to do with how you can play outdoors without using a proscenium stage with a big bank of speakers on the left and right. Every outdoor show you’ve ever seen has that. So at the moment we’re just trying to get the design architecture right – and the financial architecture. If we can get away with what we want to do, it will mean more people in the venue, better sightlines and everyone will be closer to the action. We want to have a significant percentage of cheap tickets. In this climate you have to give better value.”

ON SONGWRITING: “WHEN I HEAR A U2 SONG I WINCE”

“When I hear a U2 song I wince,” says Bono. “I wince because of what I think is an unfinished lyric or a vocal moment I don’t like.

“Do you want to know what my most humiliating U2 moment is?” he asks. “It’s Where The Streets Have No Name . Edge had come up with this amazing 120-beats-per-minute music for it. I had some ideas for the lyrics. I was sleeping in a tent in northern Ethiopia at the time [1985] and I scratched down some thoughts and they were: ‘I want to run, I want to hide, I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside’.

“I thought they were fairly inane, but in the studio Eno and Lanois thought they were perfect. I told them they were only sketches and I could do much better. But Eno is all about capturing the moment, so those words stayed. Now I have to sing them for the rest of my life. And it’s our most successful live song. That’s the U2 contradiction.”

ON THEIR TAX AFFAIRS: “WE PAY TAXES ALL OVER THE WORLD. WE ARE TOTALLY TAX COMPLIANT”

In 2006, U2 moved part of their business from Ireland to The Netherlands where the tax rate on royalty earnings is far lower than in this country. This followed an Irish Government decision to limit tax-free earnings for artists. Prior to this, all artistic earnings had been tax-free. Now artists would have to pay tax on earnings over €250,000.

Criticism rained down on the band, and on Bono in particular, from politicians, journalists and lobby groups.

“We haven’t commented on it,” says Bono.

“And we don’t comment on it for a very good reason,” adds The Edge, “and that’s because it’s our own private thing. We do business all over the world, we pay taxes all over the world and we are totally tax compliant.”

“We pay millions and millions of dollars in tax,” says Bono. “The thing that stung us was the accusation of hypocrisy for my work as an activist.

“I can understand how people outside the country wouldn’t understand how Ireland got to its prosperity, but everybody in Ireland knows that there are some very clever people in the Government and in the Revenue who created a financial architecture that prospered the entire nation – it was a way of attracting people to this country who wouldn’t normally do business here. And the financial services brought billions of dollars every year directly to the Exchequer.

“What’s actually hypocritical is the idea that then you couldn’t use a financial services centre in Holland. The real question people need to ask about Ireland’s tax policy is: ‘Was the nation a net gain benefactor?’ and of course it was – hugely so. So there was no hypocrisy for me – we’re just part of a system that has benefited the nation greatly and that’s a system that will be closed down in time. Ireland will have to find other ways of being competitive and attractive.”

In a 2007 report entitled Death and Taxes: The True Toll of Tax Dodging , the development agency Christian Aid examined the impact of tax avoidance on the developing world and mentioned Bono as one of the people responsible. When a group such as Christian Aid (with whom Bono would have some common cause) criticise the move, that must hurt?

“It hurts when the criticism comes in internationally,” says Bono. “But I can’t speak up without betraying my relationship with the band – so you take the shit. People who don’t know our music – it’s very easy for them to take a position on us – they run with the stereotypes and caricature of us. People who know the music know that the music reveals the people, not the edifice around it. That’s why we’ve decided to draw a ring around our audience and ourselves. Outside that there’s no point trying to explain ourselves. Without the musical part it’s all irrelevant.”

ON DIGITAL MUSIC: “THE CD IS DYING. WHAT’S REPLACED IS IT THE DOWNLOAD AND THAT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME”

U2 are releasing this album on five different physical formats. There will be a standard CD edition, a vinyl edition, a “digi-pack”, “magazine” and box set, each one with different “extra content”. Not all the added content will be available online, and in this way they aim to push people back in the direction of the much-battered record shop.

“The experience of buying an album used to be part of the pleasure of the listening experience,” says Bono. “When I lived in Ballymun, I used to have to take two buses to school. One into town and another one out to Mount Temple in Clontarf. The first bus would leave me off on Marlborough Street and I remember the Golden Discs shop there and then going over to Pat Egan’s Sound Cellar.

“The CD is dying and what’s replaced it is the pure download and that’s not good enough for me. We’re hoping to change that.

“When people get hooked up digitally, we want to have a whole new bunch of material that you can play on your TV as the album plays. We have it a bit on this album with an Anton Corbjin film that plays on your screen as a visual accompaniment to the music. I got that idea when I was playing my iPod through my TV one day. The screen was blank and I thought there must be a way of filling it with content that relates to the music.”

The interview has lasted longer than expected, and some salad and salmon magically appear.

The pair know they’ll be praised, pilloried and parsed in unequal measures over the coming weeks. “The thing about U2 that nobody seems to get,” says Bono, “is that the very things people think about us, which is the megalomania and the immodesty, they’re so far from the truth. People don’t see that. We had will.i.am doing some work on the new album and he was shocked by the absence of ego. He said: ‘Your fans have bigger egos than you do.’

“Yes, the guy out front, the performer, has the ego. But people don’t see the other guy – it’s like a Wizard of Oz thing. And I know why people don’t see that. I know it’s because of my mouth.”

Bono on ...

HIS FAVOURITE U2 SONG

Ms Sarajevo.

THE BEST EVER U2 TOUR

Pop is our finest hour. It’s better than Zoo TV aesthetically, and as an art project it is a clearer thought.

ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING

“There were huge tactical errors made by the music industry. I wasn’t going to get involved in the argument because I’m on enough soap boxes as it is. It was for younger bands to take on the fight but they were fooled into thinking it wasn’t hip, as they marched like lemmings off the cliff.

RADIOHEAD

“What they did with the release of In Rainbows was a really noble gesture. It was a new way of building a relationship between a band and their audience.”

Edge on ...

RECESSION

“It’s like someone let off a stink bomb at a party. People didn’t want to deal with it while the party was going full swing, but now the music has stopped.”

“We’ve lost a fortune, but it’s all on paper ... We still have our jobs.”

“As for the U2 Tower and the Clarence refurbishment, we’ve had to look at all these things with a different eye, a much colder eye.”

BRIAN ENO

“Brian Eno is our version of going to art school. From Unforgettable Fire onwards we have been using the studio as an instrument in itself and a lot of that comes from working with him.”

THE NEW ALBUM

“I wanted to stop people in the street and ask them what they thought of the new songs, because you’ve just no idea. What I do know is that you make your worst albums when you are over-confident.”

source:/www.irishtimes.com

Adam Clayton talks about NLOTH

He's the ever-urbane architect of U2's prowling basslines and, courtesy of Achtung Baby's sleeve art, the only member of U2 whose "old chap" is in the public domain. But Adam Clayton also has a plausible explanation of No Line on the Horizon's tortured delivery and that's not all. Did Brian Eno really throw "the rattle out of the pram"? And what did Bono get Adam for Christmas? In the director's cut of an interview printed in this month's MOJO magazine, all will be revealed.


MOJO: It's never a smooth process, finishing off a U2 record, and this seems to have been no exception. Was there much chopping and changing down to the wire?

Adam: There was sort of an 11th hour scenario, because we got caught up on the running order towards the end, primarily because we'd all come to the conclusion that How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb had suffered by having a compromised running order, and we didn't want to make the same mistake this time around. So, we pulled "White As Snow" out of the "maybe" file, and that seemed to balance some of the up-tempo rock tunes. It gave the listener a break.

We had another track called "Every Breaking Wave" which, if we'd included it, would have made for a very long record. Anyway, we decided that song just hadn't reached its potential, so, we put it back in the cupboard for the next record (laughs)."

Before Christmas, I heard a track called "Winter." Has that become something else?

That was possibly going to be on the record and possibly part of a soundtrack for an upcoming movie and it didn't make the record but may still be part of that movie soundtrack. [NB since this interview "Winter" has been confirmed as part of Anton Corbijn's "visual accompaniment" to No Line on the Horizon, entitled Linear, included in the Deluxe package of the album.]

It sounds like you've got a lot of material. Could you release another album quite soon?

Well we could, and it's part of our plan to not leave it too long. Once the tour is up and running there would be no reason why we couldn't find a week and go into the studio and work on things. It sort of depends on Bono and Edge's commitments; they've got a Spiderman project in the works too (laughs).

So, Spiderman permitting, you could be working on the new album during the next tour?

It would be nice to continue working in the same way. Instead of doing this record in one solid bloc, we sort of did two-week sessions with Brian and Dan, as writing collaborators, and out of those sessions came a lot of really good raw material. But it wasn't until April of last year that we went into the studio and said, Look, no one gets out of here until it's finished.

The breaks meant we could come back to things. And, I think that helped everyone. I think it worked really well for Edge from a compositional point of view; he really got to look at how the album hung together and to see what was missing musically. I think it enabled Bono to complete and fully resolve some of the lyrics.

Originally we were looking at a deadline of last August but I think by taking a break instead of trying to push through we were able to come back to it and to pull in some new material. For instance, "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" came out of that period and "Every Breaking Wave" came out of that period, even though the last one didn't get onto the album. It just made for a really good record and I think, from Larry's and my own point of view, it gave us a chance to live with the material and to really have an influence on how it was finished.

So I think the breaks stopped us getting snow-blindness. I also think there was a fundamental shift in the band, in that the material became much more internalised. It wasn't striving to reach out to connect to people; it became much more about inviting people to come in and be part of the experience.

That's interesting. I would say the last two records broadly fell into the "striving to connect" category...

I think that was the end of a period. When we were coming through the '90s and we were playing a lot of big outdoor shows, we lost some connection with ourselves because it was about reaching out to those really big places and that was how we probably conceived a lot of that music. All That You Can't Leave Behind was the beginning of the shift back, as we knew we were playing relatively small places, but they were much more musical experiences. I think it took the last two records for the band to value what we had together, to value our DNA. I think this record capitalizes and makes the most of that experience.

Did Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno's writing credits make them try harder?

I don't know about try harder but I think they were happier! [laughs] I think they both bring a phenomenal commitment to a U2 project in very different ways. Danny really does stay in the trenches and is the last one to leave the building. Brian tends to be the first man in in the morning, working on things that will influence the attitude of people, get them thinking in creative and inspired ways.

Long, creative relationships are unusual in rock 'n' roll, but the mileage and the knowledge and the understanding from having been around with them for 20 years makes them a pleasure to work with. And they haven't really changed much. They're still questioning in the same way.

Who has the final say?

I think it is us. And it's probably swung more that way. We've moved into a way of working where Brian will commit to a two or a three-week period then he goes off and does his other projects. And the same would be true of Danny [Lanois]. But there'll be other periods when we're just on our own.

It does come down to us ultimately. It used to infuriate Brian to the point of throwing the rattle out of the pram. Now I think he observes it and I think he has a healthy respect for it. Towards the end of the record, when we were in Olympic [Studios, South West London], he had a commitment to finish the record I haven't seen in him for a long time. He was there and really fighting for the record. Like a true midwife would be.

How early on were you aware of what kind of album you were making?

I think there was a lot more clarity around this record and I can't explain why. It just felt like people knew what this record was. Again, from a very personal point of view, it was like that from the beginning. When we first got together and started to play together, the sound that happened, there was a richness to it. The sound seemed to be a product of the time it was being created in. It was very unusual. The complex, sort of North African feel that's a part of the record was there right from inception.

Did the environment in Morocco have a marked impact on the finished product?

I think there was a time when it was more dominant. Earlier on in the record there was a time when it was a bit more challenging and questioning in a cultural sense -- east and west and the war was a bit more central to the record. And then it seemed to shift again and it became the record that it is now. I think you're aware that something has happened in the world. The world has changed and this record doesn't actually stand up and tell you that because you should know it anyway -- but it acknowledges that things are different now and there's a different value system. I don't know if you've read The Road by Cormac McCarthy? That has a very interesting, brooding atmosphere about it, a sense that you know that something has happened but you're not quite sure what it is. I think this record has that quality.

Does Eno like bass?

[Laughs] He loves it if he's playing it!

Do you and Eno always see eye to eye musically?

We have a really healthy respect for each other. It's probably taken a little while to get to that point but quite often we'll be digging in the same hole. The great thing about Brian is that he acknowledges his limitations and I have learned to acknowledge mine. He'll sometimes take something I'm doing and I'll think, "Oh shit, he's playing my bass part again!" And I have to go and do something else. But the result is always better. And quite often it'll be the other way around: he'll say, "Why don't you play this?" Or he'll give me a part and then he'll figure out something else around it. It's very much a collaborative experience.

The thing that I love about Brian is that he gets so excited that he's got a group of people to play with. Because a lot of his time is spent on his own. I think that's probably why he can be a little impatient. By the time he's worked something up he just wants to get off it and on to something else.

Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am is credited on "I'll Go Crazy..." What does he contribute?

Will helped early on in the arranging of the demo ideas in the summer. Then when he came in we recut it and he helped us push it up the hill. The final version is a recut that we did late on when we'd kind of played it in a bit. But he's a lovely, inspiring man to be around.

The version I heard before Christmas is almost more over the top than the version on the record...
You're absolutely right. We did try and take some of the bells and whistles off it and bring it back down to earth. It doffs the cap towards Motown and it's great to hear the band do a song like that. Unashamedly it's a pop song and it's got a pretty good one-two [chuckles]"

Interesting to hear French horns on a U2 record. On at least two songs I think.

Yeah. They're a lovely mournful sound. Real brass is something that you don't hear very much and it is a fabulous sound. Those tunes inherently had those brass parts written into them. But we did find a great horn player who came in and embellished them.

It works especially well with the guitar solo on "Unknown Caller..."

And that is one of Edge's great guitar solos. Fabulous.

The internal chemistry of the band must shift over time and the process of making a record must be intense. Have you all come out the other side happy?

Erm...[laughs] I think people are more relaxed now. When you have the kind of success that we had early on it brings a kind of responsibility with it. For some of the band, that became a burden that we fought against and wrestled with. But now instead of thinking that the band is limiting we feel it is very free. And we can do things that we can't do as individuals.

Most of us daydream about being millionaires. Do you ever wonder what you'd do if you woke up and weren't a millionaire?

Primarily, I don't identify myself as a millionaire but I am grateful on a regular basis that I don't have to think about [money] too much. If things changed, I could live within my means. I'd probably find it difficult but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

There's a lot of talk about the concert business downsizing. Could U2 tour on anything other than a massive scale?

I think it can change, depending on our appetite for big tours or for long tours or the economics of it. But for the tour coming up, I think we want to take on the big places again. It feels right to play the songs in stadiums this time. But I don't know what songs we're going to play yet. We're about to go off and do some promo for TV and when we get back from that we'll be rehearsing for the tour.

What did Bono get you for Christmas?

[Laughs nervously] Actually, we don't do Christmas presents any more. It was negotiated a few years back. We tend to pass books around.


© MOJO, 2009.

source:www.atu2.com

Hot Press & U2

The Irish mag and U2 have a long tradition together, since the early shows of the band to today.
The new issue is dedicated to the band and NLOTH...

U2 talk to Hot Press about their new album, the recession, politics and more

In the new Hot Press, Olaf Tyaransen talks to Bono, Edge, Larry & Adam.

In four separate interviews, the band cover a wide range of issues, revealing their thoughts on the current state of the music scene, and giving us the low down on where the band are at, as they prepare for the international release of their eagerly-awaited new album.

Over 12 pages, the band share their thoughts on the current economic crisis, and criticism about their tax situation.

As The Edge says: "We’re living in Ireland, we’re paying tax in Ireland. We’re totally tax compliant and we always have been. Our business structures and arrangements are there because we operate in every country around the world. We play concerts all over the world, we work all over the world and we pay tax all over the world... in the end, I don’t think most people think that we’re squirreling money in tax havens. We’re not!"

But Larry admits that although the group aren't being hit in the same way by the economic downturn, they're still aware of the effects it's having on people: "[The recession] doesn’t particularly affect me the way it’s affecting other people. I’m a rich rock star. There’s a lot of people really hurting out there and I’m not in that position... There is a certain amount of discomfort. I haven’t felt that before... but I’m definitely feeling it now. There’s a different mood."

Meanwhile, Bono talks about taking on characters to write the songs on No Line On The Horizon: "I’d just kind of worn out my own biography or autobiography. The last two albums were very personal. And I’m not sure if I could bear it any more, let alone anyone else. The irony is, of course, as Oscar Wilde taught us, the mask reveals the man. So you end up in fancy dress revealing your true self. You end up in these very emotional places which you shouldn’t understand, but somehow do."

Plus, The Edge says that the new material is "as good as anything we’ve written", and speaks out on Radiohead's Honesty Box experiment ("I do not like the concept of giving music away free"); Bono and Larry on their political differences of opinion ("We’ve been disagreeing on everything except music for more than 30 years"); and Adam on the media's insatiable appetite for new about Bono ("I don’t know who reads it, but there’s gotta be a point where they say, ‘Okay, enough!’").

to read the whole interview:http://www.hotpress.com/news/5288549.html

News and News on U2

The news about our overworking rock stars and the new album are now pouring...

• "HORIZON" ARRIVES. They were queuing up in Dublin last night to be first to get hold of the new record - scenes set to be repeated in other countries over the next few days.
  And the early reviews suggest the five year wait since 'Bomb' in 2004, will have been worth it.
  It combines two moments,' says Blender editor Joe Levy, 'the epic grandeur of The Joshua Tree and the experimental audio research of Achtung Baby and Zooropa. They're at a point where they can be the biggest band in the world and still be edgy, with a capital 'E' in this case. They haven't come out swinging this hard and reaching this high since Joshua. On the surface, it's classic U2. Put on the headphones, and you hear an album every bit as sonically ambitious as Achtung Baby."

source: www.u2.com

• Tonight at the BBC: "BREATHE' AND 'BOOTS'...And now performing "Breathe", please welcome U2...'
  
  The band were at BBC TV Centre in London today, recording two songs for the Jonathan Ross show which airs on BBC 1 tomorrow night. If 'Boots' went down well (a lot of fans in the 200-strong studio audience ) 'Breathe' took the roof off , and only the second time they've played it live.
  Other guests on the show included the actors Clive Owen and Emily Blunt and the naturalist David Attenborough. But the showbiz threesome were soundly beaten in a University Challenge contest with 'The School of Rock' (guess who that was) for whom Edge got all three quiz questions immediately, not least because he was one of the answers. Earlier , there was a special performance of 'Boots' for Red Nose Day (http://www.rednoseday.com, which is coming up next month) Friday, by the way, also sees a Radio 1 'Live Lounge' with U2 broadcasting from the BBC Theatre at Broadcasting House on the Jo Whiley show.

source:www.U2.com


And after the Jonathan Ross (BBC1 ) switch over to BBC 2 for an extended edition of The Culture Show at 11.30pm - all about you know who....

source.www.U2.com

U2 have performed a short set in the Live Lounge on BBC Radio 1.

Jo Whiley briefly spoke to U2 backstage before their set. Amongst other questions, she asked Bono about Chris Martin of Coldplay; Bono called Martin both "a wanker" and "a great melodist". The band also talked a bit about recording the new album, that the last week or two of recording was chaotic. Jo asked for their favourite tracks on No Line On The Horizon. Larry's pick was Breathe, though he said it could change by tomorrow. Adam named Moment Of Surrender, Edge said Unknown Caller, and Bono also chose Breathe.





The band then took the stage. The setlist was:

1. Get On Your Boots
2. Magnificent
3. I Kissed A Girl (snippet) / Beautiful Day / Blackbird (snippet)
4. Breathe


At the start of the set, Bono spoke about the appearance being a "great honour" and that he hoped they don't screw up. Unlike at recent TV appearances, there was no pre-recorded intro for Boots. Although its initial live renditions were shaky, the band now seem to be getting the hang of Boots and they performed a rocking, enthusiastic version today. It was followed by the first public concert performance of Magnificent.
After Magnificent, Jo Whiley asked the band about tour plans. Bono gave away little about the upcoming tour and said they aren't playing Glastonbury this year, though he mentioned that the band want to play the festival some day. She also asked about U2 playing a cover today; although the band intended to do one, they apparently ran out of rehearsal time. Nonetheless, Bono sarcastically sung a line of Katy Perry's I Kissed A Girl and asked the audience to imagine they are "a U2 cover band" before the band began Beautiful Day. It was followed by an energetic performance of Breathe to round out the set, ending with Bono holding a long note on "breeeeaaaathe".

source:www.u2gigs.com

photos BBC rooftop:http://twitpic.com/1q9am, http://twitpic.com/1q8rl

Willie Williams´s View from the Corridor

Willie Williams,U2´s video director, stage and lighting designer wrote two entries in his road diaries on the Brit Awards and lunch in Paris.

Wednesday, 18th February 2009
London. Brit Awards, Earls Court.

"A little known aspect of big TV awards shows is the disproportionate amount of time spent hanging around in corridors. They actually build extra corridors especially for the event, to maximise the corridor-hanging opportunities. There's a simple reason - a regular gig comes with a huge quantity of rooms available for band dressing rooms, hospitality, offices, crew rooms, you name it. However, when 30 acts are sharing a venue with the massive production team required to stage one of these events, the available space shrinks to almost nothing. Consequently, the producers build an entire 'farm' of office-cubicle-like rooms backstage, which becomes a hive of temporary dressing rooms. U2 had two rooms; a lounge room and a smaller changing room. The rest of our touring party is welcome to use them too, but clearly there are long periods of time when we want to give the band some space. In the absence of anywhere else to go we end up� hanging in the corridor. The corridor-view does provide an interesting perspective, though. The overall ambience of the multi-corridored dressing room area is that of a very well attended 'festival of doors'. There are doors everywhere, accompanied by oversized signage indicating who might be slumped on a rented couch behind the potted palms within. We were opposite Duffy's room, then further down the corridor were Girls Aloud, with Kings of Leon round the corner, Pet Shop Boys a little further afield, and so on. It's busy too, as people come and go to the stage, to the make-up room, or catering, or the spiffed up port-a-loos. Sitting on the floor, laptop on knees, gets to be like a real life version of flipping through Hello! magazine. Coldplay pottering about, the girls from All Saints coming to visit, Kylie charming as ever. When James Corden and Matt Horne went by, both wearing red mini-dresses and thigh-length black vinyl boots I began to wonder quite where I was. U2 were on first which is always a bonus - a little like getting your homework done on Friday night so you have the rest of the weekend to play. It went well, looked good in the truck and Gavin Friday texted in to say he thought it came over well on the telly. We returned to the dressing room for a lower-case moment of celebration then relaxed into the rest of the evening. News came in of a five star album review from Rolling Stone ... we're only a week or so away from release."


Thursday, 19th February 2009
London/Paris/London. Recce for "Le Grand Journal" at Canal +, TV Studios.




"Steve from management, Jake our production manager and I rendezvoused at St. Pancras railway station at the unholy hour of 8am to get the train to Paris. For reasons which never became apparent, despite making the booking at one time, we were seated all three separately, Jake in an entirely different carriage, which had me pondering train travel as a metaphor for life. On arrival, we headed for the TV studios of the 'Canal +' station and found our way to the studio of "Le Grand Journal" culture show.
We were met by the producers, director and technicians from the show, all of whom were extremely helpful. We figured out how the stage layout would be placed and I ran through the few basic points which I have learned to offer up as a guide to what works when shooting U2 for live television. It's a simple approach, which allows a good deal of local interpretation, so most TV stations appreciate the direction.
We were in and out of there in under an hour. It seems like a long way to come for a brief meeting, but even in these days of cellphone videoconferencing, there's still nothing quite so useful as a look at the space and a face to face chat. Jake headed for Charles de Gaulle airport to head on to Berlin to load in our equipment for the Echo awards rehearsal tomorrow, whilst Steve and I headed back to the Gare du Nord where we just managed to miss the 14.30 train. The next one wasn't until 16.30pm so we were forced to retire to the highly acceptable Terminus du Nord restaurant for a splendid white tablecloth lunch.
Back in London I had an evening engagement to see 'Avenue Q' at the Noel Coward theatre on St. Martin's Lane. It's a musical featuring depraved muppets and a great deal of very adult humour. I've never been a great fan of anything involving puppetry, but despite being such strange concept it was pretty entertaining all the same."


An interesting and not always thought of aspect of the rock scene...not everything that glitters is glamour...but definitely interesting!!!

source:U2.com

Reviews of NLOTH in UK

Read reviews on the new u2 album...


U2.com > News > 'Unusual ideas and influences...'

U2 in BBC "The Culture Show"

U2 were interviewed in "The Culture Show"... A very interesting one , ranging from their ealier music to today...

Spider Man, Turn Off the Dark

Marvel.com has revealed the first details for the upcoming "Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark" Broadway show:

"Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark" opens on Thursday, February 18, 2010 at Broadway's Hilton Theatre, 213 West 42nd Street. And some lucky Broadway goers will get to see the show when preview performances begin Saturday, January 16, 2010."

"The musical follows the story of teenager Peter Parker, whose unremarkable life is turned upside-down—literally—when he's bitten by a genetically altered spider and wakes up the next morning clinging to his bedroom ceiling. This bullied science-geek—suddenly endowed with astonishing powers—soon learns, however, that with great power comes great responsibility as villains test not only his physical strength but also his strength of character."



The musical is directed by Across the Universe and Lion King director Julie Taymor and the music and lyrics of the songs are created by Bono and The Edge.


source:http://www.superherohype.com/news/spider-mannews

Premier of Breathe in Grand Journal

Last night in the French TV programme Grand Journal U2 premiered the song "Breathe"

Amazing song, sounds great live!!!!

The Countdown Starts...

With just a week for the official launching of NLOTH, the guys are having hectic days.
U2. com reports their coming week...

"After the Echo show in Berlin last night the band went out for dinner with Michael Mittermeier, film director Wim Wenders and musician Herbert Gronemeyer.

Today(22nd) the band arrived in Paris ahead of some French promotional work, including a live performance for Le Grand Journal on Canal Plus on Monday night.

They then head for London where there's lots going on in the next few days. First up Monday, when new tracks from the album will be aired on Jo Whiley's Radio 1 show (10am-12.45pm) and on Edith Bowman's show (1-4pm).

On Tuesday tune in to Zane Lowe (7pm) when his guests include Bono and Edge.

At 10pm BBC2's The Culture Show has a special focus on the new album - and later in the week, on Friday, there's an extended version of the show, with even more U2, starting at 11.30pm.
Friday also sees a special Radio 1 'Live Lounge' with U2 broadcasting from the BBC Theatre at Broadcasting House.

That same afternoon check out Chris Evans's drivetime show on Radio 2 - the band are in the studio with him.

And then finish the week with the TV again - they'll be performing two songs on the Jonathan Ross show which goes out on BBC1 at 10.30pm (That's just before the extended edition of The Culture Show (id we mention that ?) at 11.30pm - over on BBC2."



HEY,who said that the life of the rock stars is easy???


source.www.U2.com//www.suckingrockandroll.com/actualites/u2-au-grand-journal-de-canal-plus-2

3/5 for The Times

Oh, yes you can´t please everyone...while for RS , NLOTH is a five-star album, The Times does not think the same...

"Talk about raising the stakes. “If this isn't our best album, we're irrelevant,” Bono declared when asked about U2's new album, No Line on the Horizon, released on March 2. Anyone who has heard the current single, Get on Your Boots, surely won't need reminding how quickly such statements can repeat on you. Quite how such a dog's dinner of Dylan-esque free association and Bolan-esque electric boogie made it beyond the rehearsal room is anyone's guess.

But even before that point the drip-feed of information around No Line on the Horizon had been worrying. Sessions with Rick Rubin were abandoned early. The group made better progress with Brian Eno and Danny Lanois, the producers of U2's 1987 album The Joshua Tree, which prompted Universal to set a deadline for release for autumn 2008. And yet no amount of frantic finessing could ensure the album's arrival in shops by Christmas.

It's a relief, then, to report that on their 12th album U2 come out of the traps sounding like, well, their old selves. The title track captures a band powering along with the majestic velocity of a Sherman tank. You want it to last, and it does for a time. “I was born to sing for you,” intones Bono on the stunning Magnificent, a lyric that brings religious intensity to what, by anyone else, would be a mere love song.

What follows is less a disaster and more a loss of focus, brought about, you suspect, because this is really a compilation of highlights from several disparately spread sessions. That they spent 16 months retooling Stand up Comedy should have told them that this lolloping mid-paced rocker simply wasn't good enough – and certainly not with lines such as “Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady”. Trailed as the centrepiece of the album, Moment of Surrender is regarded by the band as the equal of One (1991). But Bono's impassioned testifying is left exposed by a meagre tune.

About three quarters in, however, it's a relief to report that you have heard all of the new album's low points. Adapted from a folk song, White as Snow is Bono's best vocal, depicting a war-torn landscape through eyes exiled by it.

No less potently, Cedars of Lebanon takes shape amid a sonic fug that mirrors the exhaustion of its war reporter narrator: “Child drinking dirty water from the riverbank/ Soldier brings oranges he got out from a tank.”

No Line on the Horizon isn't U2's best album. But irrelevant? When four members of a group click and the tape is running, irrelevant doesn't really come into it. And, over 54 minutes, there are enough of those moments to remind you that you write off U2 at your peril. Next time, though, Bono might want to use his powers of diplomacy to the benefit of his band. If you can get George Bush to sanction the largest response by a Western government to the Aids crisis then can't you convince your label to wait until you have really delivered your best album?

Pete Paphides for The Times

source:http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

Better and better!

The successive presentations of GOYB makes it sound better and better.This is the latest at th Echo Awards last night...

5/5 for Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone Magazine has given NLOTH 5 stars out of 5 and has considered it :"Their best album since Achtung Baby".David Fricke from RS says:

"I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice but to lift you up," Bono declares early on this album, in a song called "Magnificent." He does it in an oddly low register, a heated hush just above the shimmer of the Edge's guitar and the iron-horse roll of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. Bono is soon up in thin air with those familiar rodeo yells, on his way to the chorus, which ends with him just singing the word "magnificent," repeating it with relish, stretching the syllables...

Bono knows he was born with a good weapon for making the right kind of trouble: the clean gleam and rocket's arc of that voice. "It was one dull morning/I woke the world with bawling," he boasted in "Out of Control," written by Bono on his 18th birthday and issued on U2's Irish debut EP...

He is still singing about singing, all over No Line on the Horizon, U2's first album in nearly five years and their best, in its textural exploration and tenacious melodic grip, since 1991's Achtung Baby.

It is a strange thing to sing on a record that more often reveals itself in tempered gestures, at a measured pace...

In "No Line on the Horizon," it is the combination of garage-organ drone, fat guitar distortion and Mullen's parade-ground drumming, the last so sharp and hard all the way through that it's difficult to tell how much is him and how much is looping (that is a compliment). ..

"We are people borne of sound/The songs are in our eyes/Gonna wear them like a crown," Bono crows, next to the Edge's fevered-staccato guitar, near the end of "Breathe" — a grateful description of what it's like to be in a great rock & roll band, specifically this one. Bono knows he was born with a voice. He also knows that without Mullen, Clayton and the Edge, he'd be just another big mouth..."


For the complete article: http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/26079033/review/26212378/no_line_on_the_horizon

source:www.U2.com// www.rollingstone.com

Echo Awards Here They Go

...And the saga of upcoming events is countless...U2 could have taken 5 years to release a new album but they are going to make sure, EVERYONE knows about NLOTH:

According to U2.com...

"The band have been in Berlin today, rehearsing at the O2 World Arena ahead of Saturday's ECHO Awards.

It's great to be back in the city where they spent so much time recording 'Achtung Baby' in the early 1990's - and the feeling is mutual. The exterior of the venue is emblazoned with a gigantic illuminated greeting:'Berlin Welcomes U2'.

The ECHO Awards are broadcast on ARD TV at 8pm, Saturday evening."

source: www.U2.com

U2 is Everywhere!!!

It is obvious that the promotion campaign for NLOTH is a huge thing.
The guys´new album will be premiere on "My Space". According to Ew.com:

"At 5 a.m. EST (2 a.m. PST) on Feb. 20, listeners can stream the entire album for free on U2's MySpace page (www.myspace.com/u2), meaning fans will be able to catch No Line on the Horizon well over a week before its official U.S release on March 3."

The magazine NME called U2 "The Superleague of Ordinary Gentlemen" (great title,BTW) in their february issue. Their caption reads...

"They sell out world stadiums,hang out with presidents,even save people´s lives,but when NME was invited into U2´s Dublin studio for three days two weeks ago,it was just four blokes making cups of tea and chatting..."
Interesting read...

Finally (only for the day...I´m exhausted already and I just type...) ABC announces...

"International mega band U2 makes history March 6 when it performs on ABC's "Good Morning America," making its first-ever live performance on a morning show. The location of the unprecedented morning TV event has yet to be announced, but the group's performance coincides with the release of its highly anticipated new album, "No Line on the Horizon," which hits stores Tuesday March 3."

source:http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/02/u2-album-myspac.html//http://www.nme.com/home//http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/WinterConcert

Rolling Stone on NLOTH

The next issue of Rolling Stone considers NLOTH "their best since Achtung Baby".
The whole article will be released soon, so watch out for the comments of this prestigious mag!!!

And on the 24th the guys will be showing in BBC "The Culture Show" Lauren Laverne quiz Bono and Adam Clayton from U2 about the characteristics of different members of the band.


source:www.bbc.co.uk/cultureshow//http://www.rollingstone.com/issue1073

A Hard Night for U2

Seems that the guys were more than busy last night.First they performed at the Brits Awards then Edge and Bono were intervierwed by Nicole Appleton and Melanie Blatt, and finally Bono sang with Coldplay and The Killers in The War Child Gig...a long, long night and full of fun.

Ah-mazing performance!!!!

"It's good to be back...' said Bono, at the end of a full-throttle performance of 'Get On Your Boots' , opening up last night 2009 BRIT Awards in London. Definitely GOYB is a blast live!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A giggling (and perhaps a bit tipsy) interview...

Edge on Bono: "He´s messy but he´s my friend..."




Bono said he wanted “to be in Girls Aloud” to The Sun, and Adam quipped: “Which one?”



And to round off the night...off Bono went to play with Coldplay and The Killers at the War Child gig.





source:www.U2.com//www.thesun.co.uk//u2.fanlife/gettyimages

Tonight at the Brits

U2.com reports that the band were in fine form yesterday and this morning during rehearsals for the BRIT Awards at London's Earls Court tonight.

U2 will kick off the biggest night in the UK music calendar with the new single, ‘Get On Your Boots’, released this week.

Pretty hot line up for the show: Girls Aloud, Coldplay, Kings of Leon and Duffy are on the bill while the Outstanding Contribution to Music Award goes to Pet Shop Boys.

(If you're in the UK, tune in to ITV at 8pm)

source: www.U2.com

Bono and Edge Talk about NLOTH

Access Hollywood Billy Bush interviews the guys and the result is a very good one...

What Mc Cormick and Bono think on NLOTH

The Telegraph.UK has published an article by Neil Mc Cormick, journalist and personal friend of the band´s (he grew up with the band and went to the same school), and co-author of U2 by U2 and Killing Bono.

"The new U2 album, 'No Line On The Horizon' will be released on March 2^nd. It is a great record, and greatness is what rock and roll and the world needs right now. From the grittily urgent yet ethereal title track all the way to the philosophically ruminative, spacey coda of 'Cedars Of Lebanon' it conjures an extraordinary journey through sound and ideas, a search for soul in a brutal, confusing world, all bound together in narcotic melody and space age pop songs.
"Let me in the sound" is a repeated lyrical motif (showing up in three songs, including current single 'Get On Your Boots'). The theme of the album is surrender, escaping everyday problems to lose (or perhaps find) yourself in the joy of the moment. For Bono, it clearly represents an escape from the politics of his role as a lobbyist and campaigner into the musical exultation of rock and roll, yet the very notion of escape remains political, if only with a small p. "Every day I have to find the courage to walk out into the street / With arms out, got a love you can't defeat" is the inspirational bridge in an epic, explosive rock anthem 'Breathe', that could be set in Gaza or at your own front door. Scattershot half-spoken verses fire images like news reports from the battleground of life ("16^th of June, Chinese stocks are going up / And I'm coming down with some new Asian virus ... Doc says you're fine, or dying") til he is "running down the road like loose electricity", tension building in thundering drums and grungey two note guitar riff until it all lets loose in a soaring, anthemic chorus, as Bono tells us "I found grace inside a sound / I found grace, it's all that I found / And I can breathe".

The theme is even more explicit on 'Moment Of Surrender', a pulsing, dreamily gorgeous 7 minute weave of synths, silvery guitars, sub-bass, handclaps, Arabic strings and soulful ululating vocals, in which the narrator experiences a spiritual epiphany at the very prosaic setting of an ATM machine. It is a beautiful piece that provides the album's beating heart and shows how far U2 can drift from their stereotype as a stadium rock band into unknown territory while still making something that touches the universal.

Musically, these songs might be the two poles of an album that switches between overloaded rockers and hypnotic electro grooves: the U2 / Eno divide. 'No Line On The Horizon' was produced by the professorially brilliant Roxy Music synth magus Brian Eno with his rootsy, muso collaborator Daniel Lanois, the same team that has presided over U2's finest albums, Unforgettable Fire (1984), The Joshua Tree (1987), Achtung Baby (1991) and their latterday reclaiming of pop's high ground 'All That You Can't Leave Behind' (2000). The chief difference is that here they have been explicitly invited into the songwriting process, with 7 of the 12 tracks credited to both band and producers, and recorded with a six-piece line up featuring Eno on electronics and Lanois on acoustic and pedal steel guitar. It is these songs, in particular, which push U2 towards the invisible horizon of the title, at once more linear (they tend to be driven, with singular grooves, often pulsing along on particular sound effect or rhythmic repetitions) and lateral (they defy obvious song-structure, choruses drop rather than soar, Bono's rich, high voice subsumed into stacked harmonic chants). These tracks draw out of Bono a contemplative depth, so even the fantastically odd 'Unknown Caller' hits a vein of emotional truth, when the spaced out singer is cast adrift on the soundbites of computer and communications networks ('Password, you enter here, right now / You know your name so punch it in') yet seems to find himself talking to the inner voice of God ("Escape yourself, and gravity / Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak"). Words and music dovetail in surprising ways that send the senses spinning.

Left to their own compositional devices, U2 produce rock songs of high-wire adrenalin and in-your-face immediacy. It is almost a relief when they arrive like a troop surge in the middle of the album, reclaiming familiar territory with a burst of shock and awe. This is U2 on safe ground, ramming home the kind of smack bang crunch pop rock that they know radio programmers will fall at their feet for, yet there is almost too much melody and a surfeit of lyrical ideas. Current single 'Get On Your Boots' is the prime example, walloping along with two note punk rock energy, a low-slung heavy metal guitar riff, an expansively melodic psychedelic chorus and playful sloganeering lyrics in which Bono gets off the soap box to pay homage to the more prosaic pleasures of a beautiful woman in comically "sexy boots". Along with the Oasis on steroids singalong pop of 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight' and pop Zepplin-esque grooviness and shuffling beats of 'Stand Up Comedy', these songs are the albums most immediate and yet least resonant tracks. They are light relief from the more demanding adventures into new sonic terrain.

Bono's worst reflex as a lyric writer is sloganeering, partly because he is so good at it. On the three songs just mentioned, he piles catch-phrase upon soundbite to build up a thematic idea, often one that plays with his image. So in 'Stand Up Comedy' the diminutive rock star in stacked boots warns us to "stand up to rock stars / Napoleon is in high heels / Josephine be careful of small men with big ideas" and in 'I'll Go Crazy' he confesses (or complains) "there's a part of me in the chaos that's quiet / And there's a part of you that wants me to riot." It is all good fun but too often sounds like a series of t-shirt slogans rather than a song with a heart of its own. His phrasemaking is put to much better effect when it pared back so that the emotion of the song takes precedence, as on the strange, addictive title track, where he loses himself in the blur of a mysterious love, a person whose unknowability represents a kind of Godliness and who tells him "infinity is a great place to start."

On 'Breathe', U2 locate the emotional and philosophical heart in an out and out ball busting U2 anthem (which Eno, apparently, asserts to be "the most U2 song" they have ever recorded). It is matched, in this respect, by the quite wonderful 'Magnificent', in which the U2/Eno/Lanois combo conjure up an instantly recognisable U2 classic in a love song with the flag waving pop drive of 'New Year's Day'. These are songs that will fill their fans with joy, but it is in the album's more intimate, off beat adventures that U2 lock into something that forces listeners to sit up and take note of them anew. There is a busy-ness in terms of sonic tapestry, the meshing together of Edge's sci-fi guitars and Eno's synths providing an intricate, detailed soundscape that constantly tugs at the ears and mind, but the U2/Eno/Lanois songs hold the centre, slowly revealing themselves, demanding repeat listens. It certainly sounds like U2 (as do a lot of groups these days) but in its boldest moments is as fresh and ambitious as the work of first timers, not veterans 33 years on the road.

If it has a flaw, it may be in U2's inherent tendency to want to be all things to all people, so that in album of surrender, they can't quite let themselves go all the way. They still want to bat the ball out of the stadium everytime, and so instinctively counterbalance their desire to reach something otherwordly with the safe bets of crunchy rock hits. In that respect, it doesn't have the innocence or singularity of 'Unforgettable Fire' or 'Joshua Tree', nor does it quite affect the bold re-wiring of their sound that was 'Achtung Baby'. To me, it is probably the album 'Zooropa' was supposed to be, building on the sonic architecture of classic U2 and taking it into the pop stratosphere. But what a place for a band to be, in orbit around their own myth, making music that bounces off the inside of a listeners skull, charged with ideas and emotions, groovy enough to want to dance to, melodic enough to make you sing along, soulful enough to cherish, philosophical enough to inspire, and with so many killer tracks it might as well be a latterday greatest hits. It is, at the very least, an album to speak of in the same breath as their best and what other band of their longevity can boast of that?

Anyway that's my opinion. I can tell you what Bono thinks, because he has been texting me. He comes (as he explicitly says on 'Breathe') "from a long line of travelling salesmen" and he would probably sell his album door to door if he could. "Lifeforce, joy, innovation, emotional honesty, analogue not digital, home-made not pro-tooled, unique sonic landscape," are his buzzwords (although punctuation and spelling are mine). "I pinch myself every morning, evenings no longer a trial. Soul music for the frenzied, rock music for the still. The album we always wanted to make. Now we f*** off ..."

Not for a while yet, I suspect.

source:http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/neil_mccormick/

The Song : New Line on the Horizon

After the leaking of the song a couple of days ago, more news on the album

Midnight opening for U2 album launch

U2 fans are expected to begin queuing outside Irish music stores next week to be the first to get their hands on the band's long-awaited new album.

HMV said it was opening two outlets in Grafton Street, Dublin and Galway at midnight on Thursday, 26 February because of overwhelming interest in the world launch of 'No Line on the Horizon'.

It is the first studio release from the band in almost five years and goes on sale in Ireland three days before it hits UK shelves on 2 March.

HMV will be opening their Grafton Street, Dublin and Eyre Square, Galway stores at midnight on Thursday February 26 so that Irish fans can be among the first in the world to get a copy of the album.

“We’ve had an incredible amount of interest with a considerable number of pre-orders,” says HMV’s Gennaro Castaldo. “We advise fans to come down early to be in with a chance of receiving a U2 goody bag.”

With No Line On The Horizon not out elsewhere until early the following week, it’s expected that hundreds of hardcore U2 fans will be flying in to get a head start on their compatriots.

source: www.rte.ie/arts/2009/0218/u2.html // www.hotpress.com/news/5267245.html

A Tale of Three Cities

The following video shows recording sessions of NLOTH in three different cities: Dublin, New York and London.

Watch the video here

source: U2.com