U2 WINS TOUR OF THE YEAR AT LOS40 AWARDS IN SPAIN

U2 picked up two awards Friday night at the Los40 Music Awards in Madrid. First was the Golden Music Award 2017, a sort of career achievement-type award that was announced earlier this year. The band later picked up a second award, as The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 won for Tour of the Year.
Bono and Adam both gave brief speeches while accepting each award. Bono spoke a bit in Spanish and gave special thanks to U2's Spanish audience. Adam praised U2's crew for the work they do while the band is on tour. They sat at a table with their manager, Guy Oseary, and longtime friend, actor Penelope Cruz.

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Bono on How U2's 'Songs of Experience' Evolved, Taking on Donald Trump

I've always believed in working across the aisle ... but there's a bully on the bully pulpit and silence is not an option," says the U2 frontman


You started this album three years ago when the world was a very different place. How did the chaos of Brexit, Trump and everything else shape the eventual course of the album? Would it have been a very different album had those things not happened?

On the latter part of the question, it's hard to quantify but I would say the emotional temperature is up about 25 percent.

You've spent the past few months playing The Joshua Tree on tour as you put the finishing touches on the album. Has the tour impacted how you thought about Songs of Experience? How?

In truth, there's a couple of reasons why we delayed Songs of Experience. One personal, one political. The world around us was certainly changing out of all recognition, we nearly lost the European Union, something that has helped keep the peace in our region for nearly 70 years. Globalization replaced with localization is somewhat understandable, but the return of hard right views is not to be tolerated. If Marie La Pen had been elected president of France, the whole idea of a European Union would have been vulnerable.
You've had the same sort of disaffection in the United States with the rise of a new kind of constituency, people on the both left and right who have lost faith in political process, the body politic, in political institutions. These sentiments are easily played and manipulated by the likes of Donald Trump. In a world where people feel bullied by their circumstance, sometimes people fall prey to a bully of their own. Lots of people around me, both conservative and liberal, feel that this is one of those defining moments in their life and in the storied life of their country. After the election, some people on the left were almost grieving I'd say and when I try to understand this, I realized there was a kind of mourning, a mourning for innocence that was lost.
For the first time in many years, maybe in our lifetime, the moral arc of the universe, as Dr. King used to call it, was not bending in the direction of fairness, equality and justice for all. The baseness of political debate, the jingoism, the atavistic fervor of Trump's verbiage reminded us that we were dreaming if we thought evolution applied to consciousness. Democracy is a blip in history and it requires a lot of focus and concentration to keep it intact.
"The Blackout," which started off its life about a more personal apocalypse, some events in my life that more than reminded me of my mortality but then segued into the political dystopia that we're heading towards now. "Dinosaur, wonders why it still walks the earth. A meteor promises it's not going to hurt" would have been a funny line about an aging rock star. It's a little less funny if we're talking about democracy and old certainties – like truth. The second verse "Statues fall, democracy is flat on its back, Jack. We had it all and what we had is not coming back, Zac. A big mouth says the people they don't want to be free for free. The blackout, is this an extinction event we see?" goes straight to the bigger picture of what's at stake in the world right now.
There's a song called "Get Out of Your Own Way" where I've tried to use some biting irony to reflect the anger out on the streets "Fight back, don't take it lying down you've got to bite back. The face of liberty is starting to crack, she had a plan until she got a smack in the mouth and it all went south like freedom. The slaves are looking for someone to lead 'em, the master's looking for someone to need him. The promised land is there for those who need it most and Lincoln's ghost says get out of your own way."

Many of your albums were made with either a single producer or the team of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Why have you moved towards working with so many different producers on single albums?

Since The Joshua Tree, I don't think we've done an album with less than four producers. Though Flood is not credited as a producer on The Joshua Tree, his input was extraordinary. Achtung Baby, he was credited as a producer along with Eno, Lanois and [Steve] Lillywhite. Four producers seems to be the way for us, one for each member of the band. By the way, that's a joke. I think actually there's five on this one.

When we spoke a few months ago, you were critical of the production on 'Songs of Innocence,' saying it lacked "coherence," "should have been more raw" and that some of the songs worked better live. What did you do this time to make sure that didn't happen again?

Thomas Friedman in his book Thank You For Being Late speaks of how machines when they're put on pause cease productivity, but humans when they're put on pause begin a different kind of productivity. The pause on our album gave us a chance to play our songs live in the studio, strip them down to their bare essentials without any studio trickery to see what we really had. That was a great gift to the album even though in some cases we didn't want to run with the live feel, we learnt so much about the songs and that helped with cohesiveness.

On The Tonight Show you added lyrics to "Bullet the Blue Sky" that were unambiguously about Trump. Is that a sign you're going to become (even more) vocal about the dangers he poses to the world?

It is a little bit of a departure as I've always believed in working across the aisle as an anti-poverty activist but this isn't a matter of right or left. There's a bully on the bully pulpit and silence is not an option.

You've talked about how you want U2 to create joy in these insane times. Can you elaborate on that?

Unlike happiness, joy is one of the hardest human emotions to contrive for an artist but it is the mark of my favorite artists whether that be the Beatles, Prince, Beethoven, Oasis. It is life force itself. And I think something to do with the spilling over of gratitude for just being alive. Indeed as I think of it, Beethoven has his "Ode to Joy." The Supremes singing "Stop in the Name of Love" to me is one of the great anti-war songs. Although think it's about a lover's betrayal, the highness of the melody, the simplicity of the statement could be Ramones, could be Coldplay but I don't think there's anything more defiant than joy in difficult times. And the essence of romance is defiance. This is where rock & roll came in, this is what makes us useful. We must resist surrendering to melancholy for only the most special moments. That's a long way to say check our new single out, "You're the Best Thing About Me," it's kind of like punk Supremes.

What are the common themes that tie the songs on Songs of Experience together?

I try not to talk about William Blake too much because it sounds pretentious quoting such a literary giant but it was his great idea I pinched to compare the person we become through experience to the person who set out on the journey. If you're talking about innocence, you've probably already lost it but I do believe at the far end of experience, it's possible to recover it with wisdom. I'm not saying I have much of that but what little I have, I wanted to cram into these songs. I know U2 go into every album like it's their last one but even more this time I wanted the people around me that I loved to know exactly how I felt. So a lot of the songs are kind of letters, letters to Ali, letters to my sons and daughters, actually our sons and daughters.

There's a song called "The Showman" which is a letter to our audience, it's kind of about performers and how you shouldn't trust them too much. It's about me, haha. There's a funny line, well, I think it's funny anyway, "I lie for a living, I love to let on but you make it true when you sing along.?

It's like a Fifties Beatles-in-Hamburg type tune. There's a letter to America called "American Soul," Kendrick Lamar used a bit of this for "XXX" on his new album. And one that I didn't realize until too late that I was writing to myself, "It's the Little Things Give You Away." In all of these advice type songs, you are of course preaching what you need to hear. In that sense, they're all written to the singer. One other piece on Blake, I don't know if I'm explaining too much here but the best songs for me are often arguments with yourself or arguments with some other version of yourself. Even singing our song "One," which was half fiction, I've had this ongoing fight. In "Little Things," innocence challenges experience: "I saw you on the stairs, you didn't notice I was there, that's cause you were busy talking at me, not to me. You were high above the storm, a hurricane being born but this freedom just might cost you your liberty."

At the end of the song, experience breaks down and admits his deepest fears, having been called out on it by his younger, braver, bolder self. That same conversation also opens the album with a song called" Love Is All We Have Left." My favorite opening line to a U2 album: "There's nothing to stop this being the best day ever." In the second verse, innocence admonishes experience: "Now you're at the other end of the telescope, seven billion stars in her eyes, so many stars so many ways of seeing, hey, this is no time not to be alive." It's a chilling moment – in the chorus I was pretending to be Frank Sinatra singing on the moon, a sci-fi torch song "love, love is all we have left, a baby cries on the doorstep, love is all we have left." 

http://www.rollingstone.com

The Edge on U2's 'Songs of Experience,' Bono's 'Brush With Mortality'

U2 guitarist the Edge explains how a major scare in Bono's life caused big changes to the band's new LP 'Songs of Experience.' Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

By Andy Green

The past three years have tested U2 in different ways, from the fierce backlash they received for gifting 2014's Songs of Innocence to every iTunes user to Bono's devastating bicycle accident, which left him with several fractured bones and a shattered left arm. But those setbacks didn't compare to another crisis Bono faced last year. "He had a brush with mortality," says the Edge, choosing his words carefully (the band won't go into detail on the matter). "He definitely had a serious moment, which caused him to reflect on a lot of things."

The episode caused the band to rethink Songs of Experience, a companion to Songs of Innocence that they had already been working on for more than two years. The resulting LP features less of the slick production that defined Innocence, in favor of a more classic formula: propulsive guitar rockers and ballads that look inward. "I wanted the people around me that I loved to know exactly how I felt," says Bono. "So a lot of the songs are kind of letters – letters to [my wife] Ali, letters to my sons and daughters."

The day after U2 played a show at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Edge called up Rolling Stone to talk about the long road to Songs of Experience and look ahead to next year's arena tour in support of the album. (We also conducted an extensive email interview with Bono that will be going up shortly.)

I see you guys debuted "You're the Best Thing About Me" last night. How did that go?

I wouldn't say it was the best we'll ever play it, but it was good. We hadn't played there recently and the crowd was really into it. I think it was one of the better shows.

You started Songs of Experience in 2014, and some of the shows go back even before that. The world has changed so much since then. How did those external factors change the focus and scope of the album?Mostly what we wanted to do was sit back and see how we felt about it coming out into a world that had taken a big lurch in a different direction. We weren't assuming we'd have to start again and, in fact, we didn't need to. The changes that occurred were predominantly lyrical, and in some cases they were quite subtle. A couple of songs subtly shifted to just sort of emphasize one aspect or better express what we were feeling and the ideas we wanted to put into it. But from a musical point of view, what happened with this delay, which was kind of amazing and great, is that we had all of the songs figured out and most of them recorded to the extent that they were releasable towards September of last year. But a year ago we were kind of feeling that we wanted to explore other production approaches and other ways the songs could be arranged and performed. We felt the band chemistry wasn't as represented as we thought it maybe ought to be.

So in the fall of last year we went back into a room as a band, initially without Bono and then he joined us for a couple of days at the end of the period, and we just played the songs. We played them with half an eye and ear to how they might be performed in a live concert setting. Part of the reason for doing that is that we always went through this kind of routine where we'd record own album, put it out and and then we'd start rearranging the songs live. Then our producers would show up halfway through the tour and they'd be like, "Oh, shit, man, that tune is sounding so cool now. I really wish we'd had that arrangement on the album." Steve Lillywhite used to say, "You guys should finish the album, go on tour with it, learn it, understand the songs fully, and then go back in the studio and re-record it in a week."

We didn't quite do that. We didn't get to perform in front of an audience, but by going back to the rehearsal space and then actually going back to the studio to re-record some of the songs we were able to find a synthesis of the raw band performances and some of the stuff we had created before. We'd sort of import keyboard performances and little ideas we liked from pervious versions and find a way to put them in. It became kind of the best of the band chemistry mixed in with the best of the 21st-century production technology. It's given it a more interesting aesthetic.

I spoke to Bono a couple of months ago and he said he felt thatSongs of Innocence lacked a coherence to the production and should have been more raw.There's this dichotomy to production standards these days where the music listener is used to really precise and simple, stripped-down arrangements so the inaccuracies of a band playing in a room where everything bleeds into everything else is not what's happening. It sounds, dare I say it, old-fashioned. We love when that works for us and we love that feel of people playing in a room, when it sounds fresh. But I think we're also wary of the fact that that sound is associated with 20, 30 years ago. We need to make sure, as we always have done, that we are part of a current conversation that's going in music culture in terms of production, songwriting, melodic structure, all the things that keep the culture moving forward.

What we don't want to be is caught in what I describe as a cultural oxbow lake where others are moving forward and you're still faithfully doing what you've always done, but now you're anachronistic and part of a historical form rather than what's actually pushing the boundaries forward, the flow of where it's going. We'll usually try to have our cake and eat it. We want it both: the hallmarks of the classic band, which is becoming more and more rare, but we also don't want to be perceived, and we don't want to be, a veteran act out of touch with the culture. It's a dance. It's a balance. If we allowed the album to be one extreme or another it would be wrong. It's finding that balance between what we do as a band naturally and then what we can still do in the studio. And the studio is still a songwriting tool for us and the production process is still a songwriting process as well as a production process.

I guess that balance is why you brought in so many different producers for this album.Yeah. I mean, they don't necessarily all work on every song. We ending up bringing in Steve Lillywhite, who we just had this wonderful relationship with in terms of getting in the room and working out arrangements and the minutiae of drum parts and guitar parts. Steve is just a wonderful facilitator for all of us go kind of get into ideas and refine our thing. We've also got Jacknife Lee, who we have worked with for many years. He's got this fascination with hip-hop production and he also works with guitar bands, so he has a foot in a couple of different camps.

Then you have Andy Barlow. He's a full on electronica and synthesizer producer that's not really used to bands or guitars, but he's amazing in other ways. Ryan Tedder is an amazing collaborator and his melodic sense is just so strong. When we're around Ryan these songs get better and better. The choruses get better. The hooks get better. The arrangements get more lean and more focused. And then Jolyon Thomas is a great state-of-the-art rock & roll producer in that he gets and loves bands. He gets and loves guitars, but at the same time what is the right guitar sound so you don't come across like you aren't right up to the minute. There are subtle things sometimes, just the difference between a White Stripes guitar sound and a Led Zeppelin guitar sound. In some ways it's a subtle thing, but in other ways they are worlds apart.

Is Steve your closer? Do you bring him in at the end to see it all out?Hmmm ... Yes and no. I think in this instance, it was more for the organic side of the record. He came in to work on that. At times, we had almost rival versions. We'd have a song like "The Blackout" where we almost had two versions of it. There would be a more organic version and then in a studio upstairs we had another version that was slightly more 21st century, slight more stripped down. We put the album together on a case-by-case basis. "Well, this one can be a little more organic because that one is a bit more processed and disciplined sonically." You probably noticed that the version of "You're the Best Thing About Me" that we released is quite different than the one we are playing live, and the final mix is like six weeks away.

How do you guys pick between songs? What is the process?The process is that we slowly sort of start to put the cornerstone songs in place and then we fill in around them and get clues about the overall identity of the record. For me, one of the breakthrough tune was "The Lights in Front of Me," which is now called "The Lights of Home." We had very rock & roll verses in it that sounded really great, but it was a little retro. We kind of knew it was in the running because we just loved it so much, and then Jacknife did a more stripped-down arrangement. The drums were sort of an open question, so Larry went in and played drums, so it had the discipline of a very contemporary production, but then with this amazing, very beautifully played human drum part on top of it. I think because it was recorded on its own it can kind of occupy the sound spectrum that it does. It still sounds really modern, but it almost sounds like it has a hip-hop influence or rather an R&B influence than a rock one. Anyway, those small little clues sometimes make you go, "OK, wow, that's the synthesis we're trying to achieve here."

In the case of "You're the Best Thing About Me," we were really excited about the mix we had six weeks ago. Then we started talking about how we were going to play it live and I went back to some early demos and found this one that had done at a point when we were experimenting with different arrangement ideas. It was an experiment we hadn't pursued and I thought, "This would be a good approach if we play it live," which we did on the Jimmy Fallon show. It's a fleshed-out approach with some new guitars.

Then Bono came into the studio to listen to it and was like, "OK, something is happening here. It's a better song now. I can't explain why, but I'm feeling something off this." So we kind of went off in a panic with us working furiously with two days to go before we had to turn the single in and get it to everybody for their consideration. We ended up agreeing that the simplicity, the rawness of it offers a counterbalance to the lyric and melody, which is very classic. It's a love song and it kind of takes it in a more convincing way. Somehow the song seems better - and it was totally last minute

Ways to handle stardom: U2

What would Bono do? Lessons in leadership and activism from the world's most successful band.
By Michael J. Fanuele

U2 wraps up each show of its current world tour with stunning portraits of the most consequential women in history, or as Bono defiantly says, “herstory.” Flashing in 7.6k resolution on the largest high-def screen the world has ever seen are the faces of Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks and Hillary Clinton. These are some of the nearly hundred women to whom Bono pays tribute, calling them “women who stood up or sat down for their rights, who insisted and persisted, who light the way.”

This is classic fare for U2, a band that has always brought some church revival to its rock ’n’ roll, preaching while playing. AIDS, poverty, political violence — these are the scourges against which U2 rallies its fans. And if you’ve been to this service, you know how rousing it can be.

When I first saw U2 perform a decade ago, Bono asked us each to work for justice from the “bridges of Selma to the peaks of Kilimanjaro” as every African nation’s flag unfurled in the arena and The Edge plucked the first bars of the band’s next anthem. At that moment, I enlisted — though I had no idea what I would actually do. I could write a check to Amnesty International. I could embrace the nearest stranger. I felt compelled to do something, anything. I was moved. At that moment, with those people, I believed we could make the world a better place.

U2 isn’t only a circus of soft feelings, however. Its members have actually accomplished a great deal of good, raising awareness and money (by some estimates half a billion dollars) for myriad charitable organizations. They’ve used their celebrity to lobby governments, to direct the world’s attention to Africa, ravaged by disease, war and poverty. Bono is the only rock star ever nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, a nomination he received three times. Even President George W. Bush couldn’t resist Bono’s entreaties. The two worked together to bring record levels of foreign aid to Africa. “Bono floored me,” Bush said, “with his knowledge, his energy and his faith.” That’s Bono: flooring world leaders and mobilizing their people.

So how does Bono do it? What is the magic of this supernatural shaman? What spirit does he wield that possesses populations and politicians, not only helping hearts blossom, but changing the very behavior of communities and governments?

Well, it’s inspiration — and no band does it better than U2. In fact, U2 provides lessons in inspiration for all who aspire to move a crowd, from political leaders and corporate executives to teachers and coaches and parents. How do they do it? How does U2 move masses? In addition to the raw power of some irresistible tunes, U2 employs three “notes of inspiration” that sway audiences:

• First, U2 sets grand ambitions. Its members didn’t want to be a rock band. They wanted to be the greatest rock band in the world, and when they achieved that status, they wanted to be something even bigger: to be an instrument for social justice. They want to end the transmission of HIV from mothers to babies. They want to eliminate malaria. They want to eradicate racism and stamp out gender inequality. These are not modest goals; in fact, they’re slightly preposterous. But perhaps it’s the very audacity of these ambitions that inspires conviction. It’s hard to generate an emotional response when talking to the sensible parts of a person. Al Gore had a plan to reduce carbon emissions. He lost. Barack Obama promised to lower the very tides of the oceans. He won. People are moved to do big things, and so as leaders, don’t fear the grand and the audacious and the slightly ridiculous. These are the goals that stretch our imaginations.

• Next, U2 is obsessed with action. Pray. Dance. Sing. Donate. Buy. Write. Protest. U2 is a band of verbs. Like Nike, its first priority is what it wants people to do, not what it wants people to believe. It’s a lesson behavioral psychologists have been practicing for decades: change behavior and beliefs follow; the reverse is too difficult. Religions have known this even longer, encouraging fasting and tithing and missionary work. As Bono himself said, “God doesn’t want prayers; he wants alms.” Leaders should learn from this: Don’t waste your time trying to get your team to buy into your agenda or understand your vision; instead, be dead-clear about what you want them to do. According to Daniel McGinn in his book “Psyched Up: How the Science of Mental Preparation Can Help You Succeed,” this “direction giving” language is every bit as motivating as the grander, gauzier stuff.

• Finally, U2 inspires because it is authentic. A leader can’t hope to move an audience if that audience sniffs a phony. As a band that grew up through the Troubles, hearing bombs explode on Dublin streets and losing friends to sectarian violence, U2 has the moral permission to preach, as it did in Paris as the first performers after the terrorist attack at the Bataclan. “We’re a life cult,” Bono said that week, making it clear the band was coming back to the city as the anti-ISIS. It was coming to do the hard work of healing a community, turning fear and hate into courage and love.

Bono is a creation, of course, a rock ’n’ roll avatar constructed by a teenage Paul Hewson. And yet, “he” is so comfortable in his Bono skin, self-possessed and certain, sunglasses always on. Leaders can learn from that confident expression of character. Know yourself, for sure, but express yourself as a one-of-a-kind entity, a character with passions and quirks all your own. In that display of particular personality comes the authenticity necessary for inspiration.

Ambition. Action. Authenticity. These are the critical elements of inspiration that U2 manifests so powerfully. They’re on glorious display when Bono enters an arena, but they can be displayed by each of us, every day, in the conference rooms and classrooms where the hard work of building a better world gets done. As Bono remarked, “You put on the leather pants and the pants start telling you what to do.”

Michael J. Fanuele is a marketing consultant who most recently served as chief creative officer at General Mills. He’s writing a book about inspiration.

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An interview with Adam Clayton

Bono and Adam Clayton of U2 perform on stage on June 26, 2017, in New York City. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

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OVERWHELMING DEMAND: New tour dates and places

"Thirty years can't dull searing music, hopeful lyrics or the captivating Irish band behind them”
—USA TODAY

It’s been called ‘the tour of the year’ and the band are set to take The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 to Mexico and South America this year, as well as returning to more cities in the US.

New dates announced today include a run of September US shows which open in Detroit - the city where the band first played a headline stadium show back on April 30th, 1987 at the Silverdome - followed by stops in Buffalo, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis and San Diego.

In October the tour will head to Mexico City followed by concerts in Bogota, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Sao Paulo.

For Rolling Stone the show reveals "a live act simply without peer… It really felt like they were reapplying for the job of the best band in the world by showing how they earned the title in the first place.”

The band "not only unpack a masterpiece but provide moments to hold on to forever”. (Consequence of Sound)

Ticket prices start at $35.00 with general admission floor tickets at $70.00. There will be an exclusive priority presale for U2.com subscribers starting Thursday, June 8th (10am) through Saturday, June 10th (5pm) local times for subscribers who may have missed out on the previous presale opportunity along with new subscribers. There will be a 4 ticket limit for subscriber purchases and a 6 ticket limit commencing with public sales. In North America, all floor tickets will be paperless unless otherwise noted. Special guest for the North America concert dates to be announced.

In Mexico and South America, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have been confirmed as special guest for all dates. Tickets will go on sale Wed. June 14th in Mexico City, June 15th in Bogota, Buenos Aires and Santiago and Friday June 16th in Sao Paulo. There will be an exclusive priority presale for U2 Subscribers at U2.com starting Thursday, June 8th (10am) through Saturday, June 10th (5pm) local times for U2.com. All times local. (Subscribers will be emailed more information ahead of the presales). Details on the Tour page.

Not a U2.com subscriber but interested in taking part in the presales? Subscription details here.

NEW #U2TheJoshuaTree2017 DATES

Sun Sep 3 - Detroit, MI Ford Field
Tue Sep 5 - Buffalo, NY New Era Field
Fri Sep 8 - Minneapolis, MN US Bank Stadium
Sun Sep 10 - Indianapolis, IN Lucas Oil Stadium
Tue Sep 12 - Kansas City, MO Arrowhead Stadium
Sat Sep 16 - St. Louis, MO The Dome At America’s Center
Fri Sep 22 - San Diego, CA Qualcomm Stadium

Tue Oct 3 - Mexico City, Mexico Foro Sol
Sat Oct 7 - Bogota, Colombia, Estadio El Campin
Tue Oct 10 - Buenos Aires, Argentina La Plata
Sat Oct 14 - Santiago, Chile Estadio Nacional
Thur Oct 19 - Sao Paulo, Brazil Morumbi Stadium

Bono Talks 'Joshua Tree' Tour, Trump, Status of U2's Next Album

Until U2 kicked off their Joshua Tree 2017 Tour at Vancouver's BC Place stadium on May 12th, they honestly weren't sure they had a concept that would work. Here was a show built around an album that came out during the final years of the Ronald Reagan administration by a band that had spent their whole career refusing to cash in on their past. "It's so not us to throw ourselves a birthday party," says Bono. "We didn't know if we could pull off a tour that honors The Joshua Tree without it being nostalgic. That's an oxymoron."

But by the time Bono called into Rolling Stone three shows into the tour he had no doubt the group had a winning formula, one that took The Joshua Tree out of 1987 and firmly planted in in 2017. We spoke to the U2 frontman about how the band got to that place, and where he hopes they go from here.

Where are you calling from?I'm in sunny Los Angeles, which for an Irish fellow is always a bit of a thrill.

How were the first three shows for you?Oh, my goodness. ... I would say that we didn't know until Vancouver that the concept, or the script, would connect. That was a relief. Personally, I had some technical difficulties with my in-ear monitors. I was finding it hard to pitch. I've listened back and I did a pretty good job in pitch terms, but it was hard for me to enjoy the show since I had to concentrate so hard. So I was really relieved when I walked out and the rest of the band and everyone else was like, "Wow, that was great."

So I really enjoyed Seattle. I knew it wasn't just a concept. There was some connection with the audience, that's the difference. I just felt I had to give myself to this. It's all very well going back to where you started in terms of not using IMAG [screens]. That's the way we became the band that wrote The Joshua Tree. It's great to play like that, but it's hard for some people since they're used to IMAG. I just felt, "Can't we just concentrate on the music?" People weren't taking out their phones, which was amazing. I was just listening, so I really have to make the singing be the connective tissue, from my point of view. There's no images available, so it's like Shea Stadium; you're just these four dots at the start of the show. Then, presto, just add water and you become giants.

It's nice being ants for a few songs since you've just got to focus on the music since there's nowhere else to look. So I'm really enjoying that and also getting the crowd to be this choral response. That happened in Seattle. I was very grateful for that. 

Tell me why you wanted to do this tour.At first, it was just to honor this album that meant so much to us. It wasn't any grand concept. It was, "Shouldn't we do something? What can we do that would be special?" Then we came up with some of the idea and the thing just ran away with itself and the more relevant we realized it was. I know from reading reviews and hearing from people we've done it without being nostalgic. It's like the album has just come out. Nobody is talking about it as an historical thing. People are talking about its relevance now.

When you were brainstorming the tour, what ways did you come up with to fight the nostalgia?The high-tech aspect, finding this high-def 8[K]; it's like a three-dimensional image. I can't believe the Joshua tree is not there. You can touch it. We wanted to be very, very high tech. Then we commissioned Anton [Corbijn] to do that. We felt, "Can we just, again, play the songs without [images of us on the] IMAG?" We were calling it "punk floyd" for a while. Then the punk in us felt, "No, no, we need to see the band at some point." We entered at "Bullet the Blue Sky," that was very exciting.

Then we got very excited about the third act, as we call it. The first act is songs that got us to The Joshua Tree. The third act was, "Can we go into the future and what would the future sound like and feel like?" Then somebody said, and it might have been me, the future is about women. I really believe that, so let's make it an ode to women. As you know, feminine spirit is crucial at times when the male hegemony is causing mayhem. After the Second World War, people like John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, whoever ... Marvin Gaye, say – that's a feminine spirit. The 1960s was a feminine spirit, and the 1960s was born in the rubble of the Second World War.

Great leaps forward of consciousness have a feminine spirit. Men start to look like [women], they grow their hair long. It's a funny thing, the Renaissance. ... Whenever you see the feminine spirit there's usually a jump in consciousness. In the One Campaign we're leading with, "Poverty is sexist." It's a campaign run by women. And I'm just watching, stepping back, to be the kind of town crier that I used to be. I'm still banging on drums, but I'm in the background. The singers are women. I'm amazed by it.

We had this idea as an ode to women. Then we got this idea of, "What if we got to know a woman, a girl, in a refugee camp?" The sort of women that aren't welcome, that President Trump doesn't want in America, in the country that brought us the great lines of Emma Lazarus at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. Let's meet one such immigrant who he wants to turn away from the shore. I commissioned french artist J.R. He didn't have much time to do it. Where are we going to find this girl?

He finds her in Zaatari in a camp in Jordan, which i visited with my daughter and [my wife] Ali a year ago. He finds this incredible spirit, Omaima. She talks about America as a dreamland. She closes her eyes and J.R. asks her in another segment of the film we don't broadcast, "What do you see when you think of America?" She goes, "Oh, it is a civilized country and they are a good people." It was just heartbreaking. We've put some of that in that show, just for a kick in the balls. Just when you think things are lightning up, we do the ode to women. The next thing you know this woman gives you a kick in the balls, but in the most velvet way. She says everything. Sometimes when we're playing it I have to turn away from the film. I can't sing when we're looking at it. It's very touching. She's so dignified and so authoritative. There's something of a future leader in her.

I spoke to the Edge for a second after the show. He told me the set list was changing a lot in the final days before the first show. What was moving around?Not the middle of it, since we can't move that around – the denouement at the end of it. I don't know if you think it's too long; I think in the shows you saw, it goes from "One" into "Miss Sarajevo" into "The Little Things Give You Away." Normally we wouldn't allow such a denouement. It's a long thing to do, but we felt because it's so musical that we could get away with it. That was moving around before we made the set list. I may still move it around. We're looking at that now.

You dropped "MLK" and brought in "Bad."Yeah, because "MLK" was using up some of the space that "Streets" occupies. It was nice and elegiac, and we don't need to be at that point. I still wonder if there's too many songs at the start for people on the floor that can't see us. I know it's great for people up high that can see us. [Note: The band has since cut "A Sort of Homecoming" and moved "Bad" to the third act.]

I imagine you're purposely playing the songs in the sequence they came out, right?That was intentional, yeah. We felt we've done Boy on [the 2015] Innocence and Experience [tour] and October. We did "Gloria." We did "October." Actually the theme of Innocence and Experience has a line from a song called "Rejoice" which is "I can't change the world, but I can change the world in me." I wrote that at 22. That's the spirit of Innocence. But the spirit of Experience is actually I can change the world, I can't change the world in me. That is the actual, dare I say it, dialectic of Innocence and Experience. And when we come back to that tour as the Experience and Innocence tour, that's the theme. I felt we've done that. That was just to say that October, we covered.

I'm very pleased with the opening act. There hasn't been any complaints with the lack of IMAG, which is very nice since it means people are listening.

The Joshua Tree portion of the show, did you ever think about not playing it completely in sequence?I was a bit worried about that. I thought the density could play a role in us getting bogged down in the second half, but I felt the new arrangement of "Red Hill Mining Town," which is just magic, gives it space and "Running to Stand Still" gives it space. We wouldn't have done it if it didn't work. 

Prior to this tour, did you see Roger Waters play The Wall? Did you see Springsteen play The River? Have you gone to any of these album shows?I saw Roger Waters doing The Wall, missed Bruce, and mourned the missing of Patti Smith doing Horses, which was such a formative album for us. It's not an original idea. I saw Bowie do Low.

How did it feel to play "Exit" again?I had a lot of self-harm over the years playing that song. I was very glad not to play it for many years. I broke my shoulder. I got into some very dark places on the stage. I'd rather not step back into that song, but I found a way by thinking of where it came from and going back to the books I was reading at the time. I realized the real influence was probably Flannery O'Connor, so I developed this character called the Shadow Man and I'm managing to step into the shoes of the Shadow Man without any self-harm. It's quite a character. I'm actually using some lines from [the O'Connor book] Wise Blood. I also do "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe," which we grew up with in Europe, a totally racist thing. The bit from Wise Blood is, "Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going is never there. Where you are is no good unless you can get away from it." It's Southern Gothic, which is what I guess you'd call it.

In "New Year's Day" you sang the "Gold is the reason for the wars we wage" line for the first time. There weren't a lot of snippets of cover songs. You seem to be sticking to the album versions of the songs.I put "oil" in, actually. I said, "So we're told this is the golden age/But oil is the reason for the wars we wage." By the way, part of the fun of doing these shows is I'm changing the lyrics when I want to and I'm sticking to, as you point out, the arrangements on the albums. But I was in a band early on in the 1980s where the lyrics where not really the priority, strangely. It was, "What's the song about? What's the tune? What's the beat?" And you had people like Brian Eno who was, like, sort of anti the concept of the old-school lyric. He was saying, "Just look at these beautiful sonic paintings you're doing with your voice. Why do you need words? Just sing like that."

On Unforgettable Fire we left "Elvis Presley and America" like that, but some of the other songs were not finished, so "Bad" or whatever is not finished. Even "Where the Streets Have No Name" isn't finished, but why would you touch it? As a lyric it's a sketch. And so I'm really enjoying changing the odd lyric. "I first saw her face high on a desert plane." That's a beautiful change. In "New Year's Day" I sing, "It's true, it's true, the people break through." Little tiny little things that keep me close to the songs.

During "Bullet the Blue Sky" the fans were expecting a similar speech to the one you made at the Dreamforce show last year, but you didn't really go there.I think the peace film is the way to speak about Trump. I also think it's very, very important that people who voted for Donald Trump feel welcome at our show. I think they have been hoodwinked, but I understand and I would not dismiss the reasons why some people voted for him. I think people on the left really need to put their ear closer to the ground. I do this thing where I say, "The party of Lincoln, the party of Kennedy and those in between holding on, those letting go of the American Dream are welcome." This is the most important line: "We'll find common ground by reaching for higher ground."

I think that's important that people feel that. And then, because a lot of my friends, and maybe yours, after the election and Brexit there's this grieving, this melodramatic word, but the people feel like they are grieving. I was like, "What is it that people are grieving for?" I started to think it's their innocence. There's a loss of innocence. We're activists, but ever since I was born, and you're younger than me, the world was getting better every day. When you woke up, even if you did nothing, the world got better. Those of us who worked in the One Campaign we could point to people on AIDS drugs or people getting vaccinated, infant mortality rates coming down.

There were reasons to be optimistic. When I was in my twenties the Berlin Wall came down, Mandela gets free. You just think that this world is somehow just moving in the right direction, like almost it's evolution, the human spirit is evolving. It turns out that's not true. These things have to be brought into being. There are white papers going around the White House with 47 percent cuts to aid programs that keep babies alive, vaccinations. It's shocking, but it's real.

My thing in the middle of the show is to say, "OK, the dream, maybe it's time to wake up into it." Maybe the dream is telling us to wake up and Dr. King's dream is telling us to wake up. It's OK to realize it's going to be difficult, but we can do things. We are full of ingenuity. The world can be a much better place, but don't think it will be on its own. That's the thing.

To switch gears, are you still unable to play guitar?Yeah. I can play sitting down if the neck is pointing up in the air, and I can play with three fingers standing up. Dallas Schoo, Edge's guitar tech, is encouraging me to pick up slide guitar.

Do you miss playing it during the show? The band certainly doesn't miss it. They don't have much time for my guitar playing. I can play at home, but it just looks awkward. I don't think it's a necessity.

Can you talk a bit about the choice to end the show with a brand-new song?The only way we could do this tour was to play a new song. Times were right to do this tour. It was the right album and we did it, but in the end I couldn't go all the way without playing a new song. I wanted to start playing more new songs, is what I want.

What's the status of Songs of Experience?The band will tell you not to listen to me on those kind of matters since I thought it was done last year. But I think the pause has made it better. I will give them that. But if you left it to Edge he'd still be remixing it next year. But we have these songs. The problem is we have 15 songs and to get them down to 12. We don't like long players. The actual track listing is not set yet, but we have some proper, proper fuck-off songs. "Little Things That Give You Away" is one of them.

Steve Lillywhite was brought back to finish it off?We wanted to play live to really get it to cohere. Songs of Innocence, the songs are very special, I'm very proud of the songs, but if there's one thing I would criticize it for, it's the coherence in production. A friend of mine said to me, "Songs of Innocence? It doesn't sound innocent enough. It should have been more raw." So we didn't want to go in and make that mistake again, so we went in and played the songs again. Steve is the best guy for recording us in the studio with the band playing live, so that's what happened.

You're thinking early 2018 if you had to guess?I'd like it before then, but don't listen to me.

Then the plan is to do the Songs of Experience tour with the same staging?Yeah, the Experience and Innocence tour. It'll invert a lot of things, but it's got the same basics. We've got some incredible staging ideas, but it's basically the same language as the last tour.

Do you see any chance of an Achtung Baby tour in 2021?[Laughs] I haven't thought about it, but then again if you'd asked me five years ago about a Joshua Tree one I would have laughed at you. It would have to be called Zoo.Com.

http://www.rollingstone.com

U2 Perform With Eddie Vedder, Mumford & Sons in Seattle

U2's Joshua Tree 2017 Tour continued to deliver surprises Sunday night in Seattle as Eddie Vedder and Mumford & Sons joined the band on "Mothers of the Disappeared."

Following the first verse on The Joshua Tree closing track, Bono asked the Centurylink Field crowd, "Where's Eddie Vedder? Spirit of Seattle, spirit of Chicago, spirit of America. Where's Eddie?" The Pearl Jam singer emerged to take lead vocals on "Mothers of the Disappeared." Bono brought out Mumford & Sons, U2's opening act, to provide harmony to the track's closing coda.

The Seattle show featured both new and old cuts. U2 performed their new Songs of Experience track, "The Little Things That Give You Away" as well as deeps cuts like "Trip Through Your Wires" and "Exit," for the first time in nearly 30 years. And, best of all, they performed Joshua Tree's "Red Hill Mining Town" for the first time ever onstage. The band's trek in celebration of their 1987 album continues Wednesday in Santa Clara, California.



http://www.rollingstone.com

U2 Resurrect "The Joshua Tree"

It's very easy to dismiss U2's Joshua Tree Tour 2017 as a cash grab by a band that's more comfortable these days looking into the past than into the future, especially considering the blowback that greeted their 2014 LP Songs of Innocence, a public-relations fiasco of such devastating proportions that Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update is still mocking it three years after the fact. It would also be easy to think the move means that they have officially joined the ranks of the Rolling Stones and the Who, giants of rock that long ago contented themselves with playing their old hits at stadium shows that create tremendous amounts of excitement, nostalgia and money, but little forward motion.

But U2 haves pent their entire career proving doubters wrong, fiercely resisting the easy lure of nostalgia and rising above any move that hints at cynicism. Time and time again throughout the new tour's U.S. opener at Seattle's CenturyLink Field (the band's North American run officially began in Vancouver two nights earlier), U2 proved how a 30-year-old album can speak to the issues of today – whether they be immigration, U.S. foreign policy or the dwindling power of labor unions – while reminding the audience that they are a live act simply without peer. The band has always done their best work under trying circumstances, and in the words of Bono back around the time they came back with "Beautiful Day," it really felt like they were reapplying for the job of the best band in the world by showing how they earned the title in the first place.

The show began with Larry Mullen Jr. casually walking onto the B stage (which is shaped like a tree) and kicking into the thunderous intro of "Sunday Bloody Sunday." He was totally by himself, mirroring (intentionally or not) how he founded the band back in 1976. One by one, the others joined in, though they stayed on the tiny satellite stage and left the enormous screen on the main stage dark. It stayed that way for the entire pre–Joshua Tree portion of the evening, a bold move when you're playing to about 60,000 people, most of whom can barely see you, but it worked.

"Sunday Bloody Sunday" led right into "New Year's Day," also from 1983's War. They've done this song more than 700 times, but this was the first time Bono has ever sang "And so we're told this is the golden age/And gold is the reason for the wars we age" from the final verse. It was the first sign that this show was about presenting the songs as they appeared on the albums, minus the extended codas, false endings, snippets of cover songs and mini-speeches that have seeped in over the decades. It was also the first indication that the show (at least until the encores) was going to present their music in strict chronological order.

Five things about U2's return to Vancouver for 30th anniversary 'Joshua Tree' tour

TORONTO -- Legendary rockers U2 have clearly found what they're looking for in Vancouver.

The famed Irish band is drawing plenty of local attention with a return to the city for the launch of the 30th anniversary "Joshua Tree" tour on Friday.

It's the second time they've picked Vancity as the starting mark for a tour -- it was almost exactly two years ago that they kicked off support for the album "Songs of Innocence" in the B.C. city. They also chose Vancouver as a base for rehearsals in 2005 before embarking on the "Vertigo" tour.

Unlike past shows, the band is performing its 1987 album "The Joshua Tree" in its entirety each night. That includes running through favourites like "With or Without You" and "Where the Streets Have No Name," as well as performing "Red Hill Mining Town" for the first time live.

Social media has been flooded with Vancouverites revelling in the band's arrival to the city where they've been rehearsing since earlier this month. Some fans have posted clips from outside the BC Place stadium where echoes of the songs could be heard through the walls.

After playing Vancouver, the band heads south for a batch of U.S. tour dates before hitting Toronto on June 23.

Here's five things about the tour and the band's Canadian connections:

HUGE DEMAND: While U2 packs stadiums on every tour, it's shocking to consider they originally planned to mark the highly anticipated "Joshua Tree" anniversary with a very short run of dates. Bono recently told BBC Radio 2 that he intended to perform "three, four or five" shows to honour the occasion. Instead, the tour ballooned to 33 shows covering North America and Europe.

TIMELY COMMENTARY: Rarely has U2 shied away from a political statement and this tour will be no exception. The band has licensed two poems by Canadian parliamentary poet laureate George Elliott Clarke to appear as projections before every show. "Kaddish for Leonard Cohen" was written as a tribute to the late Montreal songwriter, while "Ain't You Scared of the Sacred" addresses the Quebec City mosque shooting in January that left six people dead.

LOVE FOR CANADA: The band's return to Vancouver coincides with Canada's year-long sesquicentennial celebration. Bono famously honoured the country during a 2003 Liberal convention for incoming prime minister Paul Martin by saying, "I believe the world needs more Canada." Since then, variations of the rocker's tribute have been repeated by other famous admirers, including former U.S. president Barack Obama.

WHY VANCOUVER?: Finding reasons to extend their visits to the city are easy for Bono and his crew. In 2015, the singer told Vancouver radio station Rock 101 that Vancouver offered a welcoming vibe that helped the band overcome its pre-tour insecurities.

"We always had a thing with Canada in general, but Vancouver has been very, very welcoming of us at a time when we we're very fragile," he said.

"Because you get quite vulnerable when you are preparing to launch a tour. And I know that sounds odd, but there is a level of nausea, and sort of, you feel ill in the pit in your stomach. It's a really anxious time.... Here in this city we feel very free. And I like to get out of the city and I go wandering, I go cycling, I get lost around here, and I like getting lost in B.C."

PUBLIC SIGHTINGS: Several fans spotted Bono on his numerous outings throughout the city. He was seen taking a ferry ride on False Creek and winding down at comfy Gastown cocktail bar the Diamond. Larry Mullen, the band's drummer, was seen clearing his head with a walk down the seawall.

http://www.ctvnews.ca

More on U2's Q & A

Larry's first experience with the Foxtrot, how Adam once 'smelt Betty Dalton's perfume in a corridor' and financial advice for Edge from a country music legend: 'There's no money in rock...'

After the FaceBook Live Q&A earlier this month, the cameras kept rolling while the band took a few more questions, these ones just for U2.com subscribers.

Will The Daltons make their own 30th anniversary appearance? The song from another album that would fit on The Joshua Tree? Why the 1987 tour opened with a cover version - and what it was.

It's going to be some tour this summer. As Bono says, 'I've never sung The Joshua Tree before in sequence… it's quite a ride.'

www.u2.com

U2 and the question which won’t go away

An interview with their ex-manager Paul McGuinness is a reminder of new realities in the ticket selling business

I’d kind of forgotten about the fact that U2 were blanking me until I came across a transcript of a recent interview with Paul McGuinness. The band’s ex-manager spoke at length to former Dire Straits manager Ed Bicknell about the ins and outs of the music business at the International Live Music Conference (ILMC) in London the other week.

One of the many issues covered in what sounds like an entertaining session at the annual get-together for agents and promoters was ticket selling and touting. It was the mention of allocations for fan clubs which reminded me that I’m still waiting for the band to answer a simple question about the number of tickets sold in the fanclub presale process for their upcoming Croke Park show.

I’ve now asked U2′s Irish spokesperson for this information three times and I’ve even tweeted the band (#journorequest) and am still none the wiser as to the answer or, indeed, why the band are not answering the question. I was kind of hoping that one of those fanboy hacks that the band only talk to these days might do a solid for me, but they’re far too worried about access to dare ask a tough question.

But McGuinness was certainly happy to comment about fan club allocations and he uses the word “unfairness” to describe the situation around such allocations. “I know there’s a sense of unfairness in the air, he told Bicknell. “People go online to buy a ticket and think they have an equal chance of getting that ticket. If two minutes later they see the same tickets being scalped, it’s a miserable feeling. It has to be acknowledged that certain promoters, certain managers and certain acts connive at this. You could say it’s unfair that members of the U2 fan club get a two day jump on the rest of the public — knowing as they do that many members of U2.com are bot operators.

The fact that McGuinness acknowledges that many members of U2.com are touting their tickets is, as far as I can work out, one of the first times anyone on that side of the house has acknowledged this dirty little secret. It stands to reason that touts are making merry with fan club memberships. They can make back the cost of the sign-up fee many times over by upselling the tickets on sites like Seatwave and Get Me In. If a tout gets fan club memberships for a bunch of people, he or she suddenly has easy access to possibly hundreds of tickets for a sellout show. Profits ahoy.

The question now is just how many tickets go on sale to the public in these situations. Take U2′s Croke Park show, for example, which sold out in about six minutes when tickets went on general sale. You’ve got the fanclub allocation – while I’ve yet to hear from the band’s rep about this despite several requests as outlined above, I’ve heard figures from inside sources indicating “tens of thousands” – and you’ve got the allocation for sponsors, venue holds and the like. Add those figures up, take the total away from the venue capacity (78,000 per the band’s rep) and what are you left with? 20,000? 30,000? 14,500? All that fuss and buzz and hype and anticipation for a sale of a quarter or less of the stadium? No wonder people were fuming that they couldn’t get their hands on tickets.

All of this part of a much bigger issue, which McGuiness also acknowledged. “I don’t really know what to do about it. There’s good scalping and bad scalping. If you sell four tickets at face value to a college student at $100 each and when the gig takes place six months later the market value for that ticket is $300. Who is going to say to that college student, “You’re not entitled to sell that ticket and make a profit?” It’s very hard to address fairly. It’s a market that defies regulation. I have never seen a comprehensive proposal to deal with this fairly and where do you stop? Will it then extend to Wimbledon and football matches? Are you going to clean up the whole of the ticket economy?”

Regular readers will know that ticket touting is something covered at length on OTR – you’ll also find a great selection of recent pieces put together here by Matty Karas at MusicREDEF – and it is a complex area, especially now that various government agencies and bodies (and attention-seeking TDs) have got involved.

However, it is also an area where it would be very easy to overlook the involvement of the some key parties and that includes the artists. Remember that it’s the artist who has the final say in all of this, especially when it comes to who reps them. After all, as mentioned in that earlier U2 piece, there are issues when “the same corporate entity is promoting the U2 tour, managing the band, flogging the tickets and operating two of the biggest secondary ticketing markets“.