Documentary on Achtung Baby

Twenty years after the release of 'Achtung Baby',  director Davis Guggenheim's documentary 'From The Sky Down' will open the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

Guggenheim (Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get  Loud) charts this groundbreaking album with new interviews, stories and  unseen footage from Berlin and Dublin.  Now a key chapter in their  career, Achtung Baby was, in Bono’s words, 'the sound of four men  chopping down The Joshua Tree'.

'In the terrain of rock bands, implosion or explosion is seemingly  inevitable, ' explains Guggenheim. 'U2 has defied the gravitational pull towards destruction,  this band has endured and thrived. The movie From The Sky Down asks the  question why.'

The Toronto International Film Festival® opens September 8  with the world premiere Gala Presentation of From the Sky Down, the first time in 36 years that the Festival has opened with a documentary.


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End of tour party: Minneapolis, (TCF Bank Stadium) ,

'When the night has come
'And the land is dark
'And the moon is the only light we'll see
'No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid
'Just as long as you stand, stand by me...'

One of the stand-out moments in tonight's show in Minneapolis was when Bono brought on stage the Somali rapper K'naan to join in a duet of 'Stand By Me'.
'I want to introduce you to a very special spirit.
'Showing great leadership on behalf of his country, Somalia
'Get used to his name cos your going to hear it a lot...K'naan.'


Another poignant moment  introducing 'Stuck In A Moment': 'We wrote this for Michael Hutchence... but tonight you will understand when we play it for Amy Winehouse.'


'Get on your boots in your fancy new stadium, handsome place for us to be hanging in tonight...'
Bono reminded us that Minneapolis was originally set to be the last night of the tour and the next two shows had  only been added when this leg was rescheduled. This show, however, marks 'the place to begin the end of tour party.'
'It's amazing to be on stage with these people,' he says. 'Really amazing. At the end of the last show I thought I heard thunder and saw lightning flash from behind me, I thought I 'd been hit by truck,
I thought Mike Tyson had jumped out... but it was Larry Mullen playing the drums.'
Then he felt the ground shaking beneath his feet and when he looked around it was the 'handsome Adam Clayton on bass, a force of nature'.
In this vision he also saw angels, 'some friendly, some wearing beanies but all creating chaos with a host of crazy harmonies.' Turned out it wasn't angels at all, 'it was The Edge on guitar and everything else...'
'And then I heard the voice of God .. and you know what God said?
'He said, 'If you think you're having fun now, wait till you get to Minneapolis...
'The end of tour party starts here...'

Didn't matter that by the time we reached 'Elevation' the rain was getting serious and continued pouring for 'Pride', 'Miss Sarajevo' and Zooropa'.  We were having a  wet and wonderful party. 'America in the rain, singing your heart out - and it's a beautiful heart'.
By 'Blinding Light's we were all 'singing in the rain' and so it continued: 'Don't know what's happening, but we like it,
'Just want to thank you for standing in the rain...'

SET LIST

Even Better Than The Real Thing
The Fly
Mysterious Ways
Until The End Of The World
I Will Follow
Get On Your Boots
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of
Beautiful Day
Elevation
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Miss Sarajevo
Zooropa
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I'll Go Crazy / Discotheque
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Scarlet
Walk On

ENCORE

One
Where The Streets Have No Name

ENCORE 2

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
With Or Without You
Moment Of Surrender

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U2 in July`s issue of Q Magazine

Q magazine has published an interview to U2 when they were touring in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The interview appears on July`s issue of the magazine. Some of the  band`s comments:

"It`s a pity that Horizon...had a limited horizon...because we  just got the single wrong." Adam Clayton (he means "Get on your Boots"). "I think it`s pretty outrageous now , but I guess it must have been a pretty crap single."

"Steve Lillywhite would always come to our shows and say ' You, fuckers,that was so much better than the album version.Next time, please tour the songs for a few months and then we`ll make the album," says Edge. "This time we thought ,well yeah, let`s see what happens..."


More on the current issue of Q Magazine.

www.qthemusic.com

Nashville, July 2, 2011

'I went out walking under an atomic sky
Where the ground won't turn and the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye.
Yeah, I went with nothing, nothing but the thought of you.
I went wandering....'


On a hot night in Nashville, the first time the band have played the city in thirty years, it was a spine-tingling moment as 'Still Haven't Found' ended and Bono, accompanied by Edge, segued into The Wanderer  -  the first performance at a U2 show of a song the band wrote for - and performed with - Johnny Cash, for their 1993 album Zooropa.

And there was a second special moment - right at the end of the show - when one fan came up on stage and led the band and stadium in 'All I Want Is You'. Something else!

Inside the Vanderbilt Stadium the atmosphere was electric with the stage almost covering the whole field and the audience packed to the rafters.
'Where you gonna take us Music City?'
Soon enough The Fly took us to Berlin, circa 1991 but it wasn't long before the 360 spaceship took us even further back - to Underwood Auditorium on December 2nd 1981.
'Wow, that's a hard fact to take in...'
'Well, we're here now, some things remain the same: my name is Bono and we're a band from Dublin.'
Larry, explained Bono, is the man who gave them their first job and rendered them unemployable: 'He's handsome - and he's had that haircut since 1981!'
Adam is a 'prince of a man, one of the most 'gifted rock'n'roll bass players of all time' while without us Edge 'would still be in his bedroom twiddling knobs.'
'In a city of masters, we are students - will you sing with us?'
Nashville said Yes to that and Still Haven't Found became The Wanderer which led to memories of 'some special times with Johnny and June here in Nashville over the years.'

Big thanks to the crew tonight, on the occassion of the 100th 360 show, shout-outs to campaigning politicians and country music folk and special mention of a visit to Nashville in 2002 when Bono hooked up with Charlie Peacock and Jars of Clay - credit to the USA for the role it is playing in fighting HIV/AIDS in the poorest countries.

'You've heard of the miracle of the loaves and  fishes? We're going to try to make this spaceship disappear. Let's turn this place into the milky way and  think of our little planet spinning around the sun... Thank you Nashville.'

But this show had one last surprise and a  moment one fan will never surrender. With the band  about to walk off stage, Bono started talking to someone on the front row: 'You want to play what?'
Before you know it, this dude was up on stage,  holding Bono's Irish Falcon guitar and being introduced to Music City.
'My wife's name is Andrea,' he explained. 'I'm kinda nervous man!'
But as he started playing, the band backing him, Bono started singing, 'All I Want Is You' and the nerves disappeared.

'You say you want diamonds on a ring of gold
You say you want your story to remain untold....'

A spine-tingling moment and when it was over Bono hugged him and gave him his  guitar - something to pinch when he wakes up from his dream. 

SET LIST

Even Better Than The Real Thing
The Fly
Mysterious Ways
Until The End Of The World
I Will Follow
Get On Your Boots
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
The Wanderer
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
Beautiful Day
Elevation
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Miss Sarajevo
Zooropa
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I'll Go Crazy / Discotheque
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Scarlet
Walk On

ENCORE

One
Where The Streets Have No Name

ENCORE 2

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
With Or Without You
Moment Of Surrender

Picture gallery 


www.u2.com

"catholic"

Gavin Friday grew up on the same street as Bono, and was part of the ‘Lipton Village’ gang with Bono and their mate Guggi.
Gavin formed the Virgin Prunes with Guggi (and Edge’s brother Dik, among others) in 1977, and has enjoyed a celebrated and eclectic career since - as punk, performance artist, actor, soundtrack composer, and much more.  He also advises U2 on the visual and performance side of their work -  an “aesthetic midwife”, is the phrase he uses.
Gavin’s first solo album in 16 years – ‘catholic’ - was recently released to widespread acclaim. A good moment for U2.com to track him down again. (Here’s part one of our interview, with part two coming in a few days.)


U2.com:The world has changed dramatically since you were young. Where does music fit today, for you? 
I formed the Virgin Prunes as a 17-year-old from Dublin in the 1970s. Music was this incredible escape route, a way to express myself and to get out of a place I thought was going nowhere. The punk movement gave me the energy and license to form a band. I was making it up as I went along. Thirty-odd years later, I’ve learned a lot, I’ve become more of a musician than just a performer, but, at root, it’s what I do, it’s my life. I have no choice.

U2.com:Does music have the same power as it used to? 
It can make a difference. There’s so much you can do and say and create. But I look around now, and see our country in ribbons, and I’m mystified that bands aren’t annoyed or angry or even writing about it. It seems like young people are treating music as a commodity, whereas for our generation it was a lifeline; it was blood. I was interviewed on a TV chat show recently, and they showed a clip of the Virgin Prunes from 1979. And the anger and the rage were phenomenal.

U2.com: But there’s a time to mature, presumably. 
Yep. People say to me, “What you did in the Virgin Prunes was so anarchic, so expressive, so of a moment, and now look at you, making this album...” But this album is beautiful: it’s mature, and if you’re 51, you can’t be running around with make-up on, screaming.
How old is rock and roll? 55? 60? It was built on Elvis shaking his hips, the Beatles screaming, the Pistols spitting... But now, it’s a grown man. And the poignancy lies in its wisdom and its poetry. Look at U2 -  probably the most potent song for me in the last couple of years is ‘Moment of Surrender’. That came from the pen of a grown man. A 25-year-old couldn’t write that.

U2.com:How would the young Gavin Friday react to ‘catholic’? 
It’s melodramatic enough, so he’d probably like it. I was a big fan of Bowie, Roxy Music and then punk, but I always liked Leonard Cohen as a kid; I liked the melancholy. When I heard Bowie on the radio, or Roxy Music, or later the Smiths, I’d think, “I’m not alone; someone else has been there.” And the poignancy of such kinsmanship is huge.

U2.com: Bowie developed personas. Were the names you gave each other in the Lipton Village an attempt to do something similar? Did they turn out to be more than just nicknames? 
There was something to it, yes. I mean, we were only kids - 13 or 14 when we started giving each other names - and of course, most gangs of kids give each other nicknames. My real name is Fionan, you know, and my brothers call me ‘Finna’. But I was christened Gavin Friday by Bono and Guggi, because of my personality, my physicality... So the names came from something to do with our essence.
I’m not trying to big it up or put it down, but there was intuition there. A real intuition. And we held to it. When we were 17, we had these crazy ambitions - we’ll make films, we’ll do this, we’ll do that - and still, if I go out for a pint with Bono and Guggi, we’re making plans. We still have that thing that we want to keep doing.

U2.com: You’ve said that ‘catholic’ is about “waking from a deep sleep, letting go and coming to terms with loss”. What were you awakening from? 
I was at Island Records for 12 years, but by the end of the 1990s they were taking down the posters of Bob Marley and Tom Waits and putting up the Sugababes. I was dropped. At the same time, I turned 40, my marriage broke up, and I got a serious illness... But then my father died, and it was then that I started waking up. I started writing again, but more from a personal point of view.
When I turned 50, Bono and Hal Willner organised a gig in Carnegie Hall in tribute of my work... I was on stage singing my own songs again, and that was it: I wanted it more than anything.

U2.com:From Lipton Village to Carnegie Hall! 
I was completely blown out by that night. It was unbelievable who was on the stage.

U2.com: U2 were there, but didn’t play as U2? 
When Bono first suggested the Carnegie night, I said, “OK. But there’s one thing: if the four of you are playing, you’re not playing as U2, and you’re not playing any U2 songs.” It was quite liberating for them all. I never saw a happier Larry Mullen in my life than when he was playing T-Rex.

U2.com:Have you helped to save U2 from themselves? 
Yeah, I have. And they’ve helped me, too. We’re mates. We’ve been doing this since day one. I’d knock on the door of number 10 Cedar Wood and Bono would say, “Listen to this. It’s a new song we just wrote.” And I’d say, “That chorus isn’t good enough!” And he’d say, “Ah, maybe you have a point...”
So it started as kids, you know? “You’re set’s too long! Why are you doing a Ramones cover? Do your own song!”

U2.com: And still you knock on their door to lend an ear? 
When you make an album, it’s like going into a cave. You’re living, breathing, eating it. Two months later, you’re like a rabbit in the headlights... So that’s when I’ll walk in on U2 and say, “What’s that? What’s this?”
I question. I kickstart. There is no bullshit. We speak the same language. I’ve known those four people for 35 years. I can smell them. And by the way, they’re the same with me. I was once at the end of my tether, recording Shag Tobacco, and Edge and Bono walked in and said, “Look! You’ve got a single there...” I said, “No I don’t!” Well, it ended up being ‘Angel’, one of my most popular songs, but I couldn’t see it at the time.

(Part Two of the interview coming shortly)


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