A U2 biopic?

U2 could follow in the footsteps of Queen and Elton John as the latest pop icons to get the big screen treatment, according to bassist Adam Clayton.

The recent box office triumphs of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman have sparked a rush in Hollywood for the next big rockstar biopic – with films about everyone from Arethra Franklin to Boy George and even Creation Records boss Alan McGee reportedly in the works.

Speaking to Chris Moyles on Radio X today, 59-year-old Clayton said Bono and the boys would be more than happy to have a movie made of their lives.

After the Irish musician announced the latest leg of U2's Joshua Tree world tour, Moyles asked him: "How long do you think it’ll be before you boys get a little movie made about you?"






Clayton replied simply: "Let's say we're open to offers".

Even if it was to become a reality, any future U2 biopic wouldn't actually be the first time the band have been depicted on the big screen.

The 2011 musical comedy Killing Bono tells the story of young Irish rocker Neil McCormick and his younger brother Ivan, who attempt to become pop stars but can only look on as their secondary school friends U2 hit the big time.

All four band mates – Bono (Martin McCann), The Edge (Mark Griffin), Adam Clayton (David Tudor) and Larry Mullen Jr (Seán Doyle) – were depicted in the film, which was based on McCormick's 2003 memoir Killing Bono: I Was Bono's Doppelgänger.

Formed in Dublin in 1976, U2 have released 14 studio albums and are one of the world's best-selling music artists in history – having sold an estimated 150–170 million records worldwide.

BY: Aidan Lonergan  for www.irishpost.com

On the road with U2’s Adam Clayton, staying fit & healthy with world’s biggest band

Adam Clayton sits down  to discuss all things health and fitness in the world’s biggest band. It’s a fascinating interview with insights you rarely hear from within U2 and it was a real pleasure to be able to interview Adam to find out about his health and fitness regime as U2 finish up the North American leg of their eXPERIENCE + iNNOCENCE Tour.

Speaking about the physical challenges performing to thousands of fans every night, Adam told me what he faces.
“It's a bit of a surprise how something that you never even used to think about, you now have to manage… Now I feel it… Holding an instrument for those 2 ½ hours, I know that my shoulder and back and neck all need work…"

"They get a bit seized up and that's just an occupational hazard to be managed. There is a point where you shouldn't really be able to do this at this level, but with modern medicine and physio techniques, you can really keep on doing it."

It might be a far cry from the rock n roll image, but health – both mental and physical - and fitness is a vital part of Adam’s lifestyle these days, especially when he is on the road with the band.

Once the current tour ends in Dublin in November, there will be time though for reflection for Adam and the band on 2019 and beyond.

“This is the end of a four-year cycle of work and we really have no plans going into next year. We have got to the point where this is a full stop at the end of this project. We're looking at next year as being a year of regrouping.”




You can also contact with any health and fitness questions on realhealth@independent.ie or on Twitter @KarlHenryPT

The Real Health podcast with Karl Henry is in association with Laya Healthcare.

U2's Guitar Tech Dallas Schoo on the Band's Songwriting Process

Dallas Schoo has been the guitar technician for U2 and The Edge for more than three decades now. Enamored as a young person not with the rock stars themselves but with those in charge of setting up and maintaining their gear, Schoo got his start while at college in Colorado.

Once he started working with bands, he steadily built his reputation as a dedicated and focused technician, and the jobs kept coming. Before meeting U2 in 1982, his resume already included work with Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Stephen Stills, and Pure Prairie League. Today, Schoo is widely recognized as one of the most talented guitar technicians in the business.


We recently had a chance sit down with Schoo to talk more about working with U2 and The Edge and his favorite parts of their collaboration. Surprisingly, though, his favorite part of working with the band isn't going along on tour—rather, Schoo loves to be a part of the band's creative process in the studio.

 "They don't write at home," Schoo tells us, clarifying that most of U2's entire creative process takes place in the studio. "For me, to be a part of that magic from the foundation up, that's [the best part]."




https://reverb.com

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

U2 Joshua Tree Exclusive In Latest MOJO

U2 HAVE OPENED UP to MOJO magazine about their reasons for suspending work on a new album to take an old one – 1987’s The Joshua Tree – out on tour.


In a detailed, revealing and exclusive cover story in the issue that hits UK stores from Tuesday, February 21, the group explore the songs and the circumstances of their 30-year-old masterpiece, an album that grappled with the myths and realities of an America they were just beginning to discover.

“The Joshua Tree seemed to in some ways mirror the changes that were happening in the world during the Thatcher/Reagan period,” reflects U2 bassist Adam Clayton. “It seems like we’ve kind of come full circle and we’re back there with a different cast of characters.”

In 1987, that cast included Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, whose refusal to acknowledge the Martin Luther King Day holiday U2 vocally deplored, prompting death threats against Bono in Tempe, AZ. “The FBI came down,” the singer tells MOJO’s Tom Doyle, “and we were all spoken to: ‘Do you wanna go ahead with the show?’ And we did.”

 

In 2017, the elephant in the room is President Donald Trump, whom Bono criticised directly during the election campaign. It was an unusually forthright stance from the singer – noted (and often slated) for his eagerness to find common ground with those in power, even the most recent Bush administration, in order to advance causes including the ONE anti-poverty campaign.

“It was a matter of conscience for me,” explains Bono. “[Trump’s] threatening of protesters with violence had me on guard, as I’m naturally one of those protesters.”

Bono claims he has already received advances from the new administration, but is still weighing his response.

“I had a messenger from a long-time associate of President Trump come to me and say, ‘Look, we’re not thinking about the past, we’re thinking about the future, and please be ready to work together.’”
30 years ago, U2 were not yet so prized for their political juice, although they were prominent at Live Aid and on Amnesty International’s Conspiracy Of Hope tour, and Bono’s related visits to Africa and Central America were reflected in the songs The Joshua Tree would comprise.

“The trips to Salvador and Nicaragua were really eye-opening,” Bono tells MOJO. “I went with this sort of leftist Christian group who were smuggling people out. But we also went into rebel-backed territory and got a fright when we witnessed, I guess from a distance, the firebombing of rebel territory.”

Corralling the voices of co-producers Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite plus U2’s then-manager Paul McGuinness, to augment the recollections of the band, MOJO brings the making of The Joshua Tree to life, exploring the creation of U2 favourites including With Or Without You, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and the tortuous genesis of Where The Streets Have No Name.

“It was a ridiculous saga, that song,” laments Eno. “God, it was terrible. I estimate that 40 per cent of the time was spent on that one song. It became a kind of weird obsession.”

After the recording came the original Joshua Tree tour, where U2’s mounting fame sparked self-destructive jags and tequila madness. With upward-spiralling album and ticket sales came unprecedented attention – both welcome (from Frank Sinatra) and less so (from Michael Jackson). It wasn’t without its dangers. “You become a bit of an asshole,” Clayton confides to MOJO.
If nothing else, re-engaging with The Joshua Tree will remind U2 of a time when, as regards their relationships with the global political, financial and cultural establishments, they were still outside the tent, pissing in.


 http://www.mojo4music.com

Eagles of Death Metal Talk Sharing Stage With U2

A little over a month has passed since an Eagles of Death Metal concert in Paris was the target of a deadly terrorist attack. Since then, frontman Jesse Hughes has been in awe of the outpourings of support his fellow musicians have shown him. "If I get emotional, I apologize," he says, as tears well in his eyes and his voice deepens with emotion. "It's not in a bad way. I really am very touched by the true sense of community that I've experienced in rock & roll."

The day after the November 13th assault, in which ISIS terrorists took the lives of 89 concertgoers and one of the band's crew members at Bataclan, help from fellow rockers came immediately. "Bono called me to check in on me and was praying with me on the phone," Hughes says. And then, three days later, Duran Duran spoke up. Eagles of Death Metal had covered the New Wave group's haunting and now prescient 1982 single "Save a Prayer" on this year's Zipper Down. Now Duran Duran singer Simon LeBon was telling the world they'd donate all earnings from the cover to charity. "[We are] considering options that are useful, peaceful and uniting," LeBon tweeted. When Hughes and Eagles cofounder Josh Homme heard this, they were moved by the band's selflessness and decided to create their own charitable campaign, Play It Forward, for which they asked other bands to cover their catchy, feel-good Zipper Down track "I Love You All the Time."

On December 18th, Eagles of Death Metal launched their Play It Forward website, which features 13 cover versions of "I Love You All the Time" by bands as diverse as Imagine Dragons and Savages, as well as Florence and the Machine and My Morning Jacket. For each song, the band provided links to iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and its own Play It Forward store in an effort to make it as easy as possible for fans to listen to the songs and, by proxy, send the band's royalties to the Sweet Stuff Foundation, an organization that regularly assists musicians in need and is currently allocating all donations to give to victims of the Paris attack. Pearl Jam also recorded a version of Eagles of Death Metal's "I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)" live in Rio de Janeiro, which they put out as a single benefiting Play It Forward. What has astounded Hughes and Homme is the breadth of artists who submitted songs.



The Play It Forward campaign and the support of Eagles of Death Metal's peers and inspirations have not just created a way for the group to raise money for those affected by the attacks, Hughes says they've been "critical" in inspiring him to perform live again. The group that perhaps has been most encouraging in that regard has been U2, who were in Paris at the time of the attack and, even before that, had been longtime friends of the band and shown what Hughes describes as a "mutual love."

"Bono knows that I'm a Christian, and he also knows I'm a mama's boy," the singer says, holding back his emotion. "The very next day [after the attack], a courier came with a phone that had a note that said, 'This is from Bono. Make sure you call your mom.' I thought that was awesome. It was the first time that I really got to talk to my mom without being in a police station, and that meant the whole world to me at that moment.

"Then Bono called because I needed advice," Hughes continues. "I felt like the best person to ask for advice on how to deal with this is someone who's rubbed elbows with world leaders. And he just prayed with me on the phone. He kept my head off of things, and then U2 visited the memorial site and delivered lyrics of ours that he thought were appropriate. And that particularly was important to me because I really wanted to be out there. I didn't want to be in some safe house. I take personal pride in being really close to my fans. I knew a lot of the people personally that didn't make it, and that little detail, just on a personal note, is something that nobody else would ever know that it mattered, but it mattered to me. I didn't know how I was ever going to get back onstage again."

Eagles of Death Metal's next live appearance took place in Paris less than a month after the attack — at a U2 concert. "They were robbed of their stage, so we would like to offer them ours," Bono told 10s of thousands of fans at the AccorHotels Arena on December 7th. Each of the Eagles, sans Homme, then came out and stood next to their instrumental counterparts in U2 and performed Patti Smith's "People Have the Power." Hughes dressed head-to-toe in white.

When the tune ended, U2 left the stage and Eagles of Death Metal took the opportunity to play an ebullient rendition of "I Love You All the Time" as the final song of the night. As it wound down, Hughes walked to center stage with his right arm in the air, like a preacher reborn. "We love you so good," he told the crowd. "We hope you know this. Thank you, Paris. We will never give up rocking & rolling." Then, the five members joined arms and bowed.


He didn't show it that night, but Hughes admits now that he was afraid to go back. When it was done, he was glad he did. "U2 were trying to make sure we didn't have something in us killed," he says through tears. "They would have accomplished their goal if they had just performed the song with us. They didn't have to give us the stage for the last song. And they did. They took care of us completely. They were genuine and sincere, and they were very proud of our accomplishments after the fact. That was such a beautiful way to put training wheels on for performing."

Homme agrees. "I think for those boys that were in Paris to go back and play right away was really important," he says. "If you're going to let something build, it should be that confidence to go right back up there. I know that must have been difficult to do, and I was proud to watch those guys do that. It was really … " He stops. "Sometimes there's not words made yet to describe how you feel about something, and watching them, I wish I knew what letters to put together to explain how I felt. Can you imagine how tough that was?"

That show on U2's stage, Hughes says, instilled a sense of responsibility in him. "I know this sounds corny, but I feel bound to France forever now," he says. "The reaction of the country in general was wonderful to me, and so U2 gave me the opportunity to come back and go through my mourning process a little more naturally instead of feeling like I left my heart there."

It also gave the group the motivation it needed to tour again. On February 13th, they will kick off what they've dubbed their Nos Amis tour in Stockholm. Three days later, they will once again play Paris, this time at the Olympia, and they will continue to tour Europe through the first week of March. They've even planned a return trek to the continent in August. They will play the U.S. and, as Homme says, tour for the life of the record over the next couple of years.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/

The iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour 2015 has kicked off!!! Vancouver, 14/05/15

U2 had played a dozen songs in the opening show of its world tour Thursday in Vancouver B.C.’s Rogers Arena, before Bono uttered the words that could have started the concert.

“It’s good to be alive,” he said, then thanked the doctor who “pieced” him together after a disastrous bicycle accident last November. “I feel strong. I feel alive.”

And though the injuries prevented him from playing guitar, he dashed around the giant stage all night.

Vancouver was the first of 68 dates on a tour that — so far — is skipping Seattle. Though the stage structure was smaller than the one the band used at CenturyLink Field in 2011, it stretched the length of the arena floor, and so did a semitranslucent LED video screen.

The band would appear suddenly in a catwalk, inside the LED, interacting with animation.

“Technology can be fun,” Bono said before “Sweetest Thing,” when a fan’s phone was used for the video projection.

“Sunday Bloody Sunday” had the screen displaying faces of victims of Irish violence. “Justice for the forgotten,” a slide said.

If there was a Grammy for special effects, this show would win it. Still, Bono observed at one point, “We don’t need all this stuff.”

They didn’t. The most memorable moment of the 24-song set, other than guitarist the Edge falling off the stage during encores (he was OK), was “Every Breaking Wave.” It featured just Bono, the Edge’s piano and no other trickery. The song demonstrated that voice and melody remain central to U2’s gift.

The band played four songs from its latest album, “Songs of Innocence,” including “Iris,” a song Bono wrote about his mother.

That album caused a huge backlash last year when it was automatically downloaded to iTunes accounts.

The group played four songs from “The Joshua Tree,” as well. And though anthems like “With or Without You” couldn’t escape their hugeness, the catwalk allowed the band to be so close to the audience it felt like an intimate show.

It was one of the most visually stunning rock spectacles ever, but also a show that took you inside Bono’s childhood bedroom, through animation, on “Cedarwood Road.”

Bono escaped that room because of ambition and Thursday’s grand production suggested that U2 can never escape Bono’s overreaching drive.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he said of the audience at one point.

He could have been talking about himself.

Charles R. Cross: therocketmagazinelives@gmail.com

U2 Plays Surprise Show On NYC Subway Platform

Travelers through New York City's Grand Central Station were treated to a surprise performance by U2 on Monday as the band recorded a segment for "The Tonight Show."

Members of the band at first wore disguises, including wigs, with drummer Larry Mullen Jr. even beating on upside down buckets instead of drums to complete the effect:

Eventually, the disguises came off and the band led the crowd in a sing-along of their 1988 hit "Angel of Harlem," from the "Rattle and Hum" album (although it should be noted that Grand Central is 65 blocks from Harlem itself):

Earlier this week, Fallon and Bono were spotted apparently recreating the November 2014 bicycle accident that left the singer so severely injured that he had to postponewhat was supposed to be a weeklong residency for the band on "The Tonight Show." Bono reportedly has trouble playing the guitar even five months after the crash.

iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour

This is the new promotional video of the upcoming tour (Europe and North America leg):

Live On The BBC

Live On The BBC

The band were guests of Jo Whiley on her BBC Radio 2 show tonight, introducing live debuts for 'Cedarwood Road' and 'Song For Someone'. 

The four band members were joined by a string quintet in the legendary setting of the BBC's Maida Vale recording studio.  'The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)' and 'Every Breaking Wave' were the other tracks from the new album, and as well as an extended conversation with Jo, the band finished up with 'Stuck In A Moment'.

Catch the stream of the show

Bono and Edge were also with Lauren Laverne at BBC Radio 6 Music.

http://www.u2.com/

Bono and Edge at Le Grand Journal, France

U2 - "Every breaking wave" - Le live du 14/10

Bono reveals U2 will play smaller venues like the O2 for their next tour

U2 yesterday revealed they aren’t planning to rock Croke Park on their next tour but want to play a series of smaller gigs.
Frontman Bono said the band would prefer to perform at venues such as the O2 when they go out on the road.
But it would mean they would have to put on 17 nights in the much-smaller venue in Dublin if they want to play to as many people as their usual three nights at Croker.
Yesterday, the 53-year-old said: “We’d like to play indoors. Those big outdoor shows, grand operas – some of the best nights of our lives have been there playing those. No roof over your head.
“But for these tunes, we’re certainly going to start indoors. We’d like to play the O2, those kind of places.
“They’re nice little clubs. It’s nice to play intimate things like that.”

The Beautiful Day singer revealed the change came after they played a ballroom at a charity gig for Sean Penn.
But Bono revealed their new album Invisible is yet to be finished and the band are getting sick of not having enough women around them.
He added: “It’s not done, and we’re here in some dank basement. There were mice spotted earlier.
“We call it the oil rig. Why is it that we always end up hanging out with men in overalls?
“You start a band when you’re 17 and then you get a crew if you’re lucky and they’re all in overalls.
“And then you go to the studio and there’s more people in overalls. Not enough girls. Please, girls out there, start twiddling those knobs.
“We’ll finish in a couple of months. People are feeling very upbeat about things. But that can change. It’s finished when it’s finished.”
And the Dubliner revealed U2 nearly didn’t go back in the studio as they thought for a while there was no need for another album.
He said: “We were trying to figure out why would anyone want another U2 album? And then we said, ‘Well, why would we want one?’ And there was some unfinished business.
“We went back to why we wanted to be in a band in the first place.
“We listened to all this extraordinary music in the late 70s which formed our musical tastes, because we’ve been around a while.
“Punk rock and electronic music was when it started for us. We were listening to the Ramones and Kraftwerk and you can hear both of those things on Invisible.
“And we started to think about those times and the things that made us who we were. It opened up a whole valve for me writing. It was a dam burst of sorts.”
Now Bono finds “the question of whether we are relevant” keeps coming up for them and reckons it’s healthy that other bands try and beat U2 at their own game.
He added: “We felt like we were on the verge of irrelevance a lot in our lives and that’s how you get through.
“First of all you have to make stuff that’s relevant to you and you have to make an honest note or account of what you’re going through. I poured what I’m going through now back through the eye of the experience I had when I first started being in a band and that’s what opened me up.
“And if that is relevant to other people, then great. But we don’t know. And Invisible is out there, it’s a sneak preview of our album.
“I don’t know how accessible it is but
I think it’s a great song. And that’s it, so we’ll find out if we’re irrelevant.
“I’m prepared for people to try and blow us off the stage. It’s the right instinct. We’re just not going to make it easy.”
But Bono warned that while the album is expected to be out in April, The Edge is still working on getting everything finished. He said: “Until it’s on the radio or online, it’s not real. With U2, our album isn’t finished until it’s in the stores. The Edge is mixing it now.
“It’s tricky getting us across the line. But we are very thrilled with Invisible. It feels good. I’m just delighted that there are still people that are interested”
On Super Bowl Sunday, U2 released their new track Invisible for free with $1 – 73c – going to help fight Aids.
Yesterday it emerged the band raised more than €2.5million, after signing a deal with Bank of America to stump up the cash to Red – an organisation which fights HIV and Aids in third-world countries.
But speaking to BBC Radio 1, Bono revealed Invisible came from his experience of leaving Ireland for London.
He said: “I was writing about leaving home with just enough rage to see it through and this feeling of arriving in London, sleeping in the station and coming out into the punk rock explosion. There were really wild, extraordinary people in the late 70s and then you feel deeply not extraordinary.
“You’re screaming to be seen and you feel invisible – and you’ve got your band and this is your whole life.
“We played the clubs there and it’s that feeling of getting out of town.”
The singer said it felt great there was huge interest in getting hold of the song – especially with a fear no one would download it. He added: “That was a nice feeling. We’re at nearly two-and-a-half million downloads and there were one million downloads in one hour on Sunday.
“You never really know. And of course, with all singers, insecurity is your best security. That’s why we’re such loud people and why we walk all funny.
“You think, ‘Are people interested?’
“But I think our band has something and they know that we don’t just put albums out. We do think about it.”


source : http://www.irishmirror.ie/

Bono's and Edge's Radio Interviews

Both Bono and Edge had interviews on the radio talking about  the launch of "Invisible" and the new upcoming album.
Bono was interviewed by  Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1, and Edge did an interview  on BBC Radio 2 with Jo Whiley.
Thanks to U2Community, we can listen to both interviews:











https://soundcloud.com/u2community

Billboard's 2014 Industry Icon: Paul McGuinness on 35 Years Guiding 'The Biggest Band in the World'

The following extended Q&A with U2's long-time manager Paul McGuinness is from the new issue of Billboard.

Few managers are so closely associated with one act as Paul McGuinness has been with U2, a group he took from a fledgling band of dubious musicianship playing Dublin bars to where it is widely considered the biggest group in the world.

News broke late last year that McGuinness would step back from day-to-day duties for U2 after more than 35 years, handing the reins to Madonna manager Guy Oseary, as the band’s management shifts from McGuinness’ Principle Management to the management division of Live Nation, with whom U2 signed a 12-year touring/merchandising/e-commerce pact in 2008.

In a statement, U2 said, in part, “Paul has saved us from ourselves many times over and we would not be U2 without him,” describing his ongoing role as “mentor in chief.”

The move represents a monumental change for McGuinness, who has devoted more than half of his life to guiding U2. While he has directed countless significant career moves along the way, perhaps the most visionary was realizing the potential of a band he recalls “weren’t very good at all” when he was first introduced to the group by influential Irish music writer Bill Graham -- though McGuinness adds that his own lack of musical sophistication didn’t make the band’s lack of chops an issue.

But McGuinness did have the vision to recognize U2’s onstage alchemy -- an intense connection between band and audience -- and unlimited potential. The fiery ambition and creativity of both band and manager led to a career unlike any in pop history.

In recognition of his lifelong achievements and vision in moving the music industry forward, McGuinness will be the recipient of the 2014 Billboard Industry Icon Award. The honor will be presented at MIDEM in Cannes on Feb. 2. The inaugural Industry Icon Award was presented in 2012 to Sire Records founder/CEO Seymour Stein and in 2013 the honor went to Beggars Group founder/chairman Martin Mills.

Born in post-war Germany in 1951, McGuinness’ father was an officer in the Royal Air Force from Liverpool and his mother a schoolteacher from County Kerry in Ireland. The global perspective of U2’s development came naturally to McGuinness, who grew up on RAF bases around the world in such places as Malta, Yemen and various parts of England, first coming to Ireland for boarding school in 1961.

Raised in a non-musical household, McGuinness still was drawn to a career in the arts. He directed plays and tried his hand at journalism at Dublin’s Trinity College. After a brief career in film production (including a notable stint in the cult classic “Zardoz” with Sean Connery), McGuinness shifted his focus to music, working with such obscure Irish bands as Spud before that fateful introduction to U2 in 1978.

In a revealing, wide-ranging interview, Billboard picks up the story there, at the beginning of a relationship that forever changed the history of music.

Billboard: What was your first impression of U2?

Paul McGuinness: They were pretty smart -- that was the first thing that was very clear. They were ambitious, they were interested in what was going on with other bands, and were very committed to performance. Bono particularly was down the front of the stage, looking for eye contact with the audience. Even at a young age, he was a very charismatic frontman.

What were some of your early wins in managing U2?

It was very hard to get a record deal. I thought they were so good, and it was so obvious that they would develop, that it surprised me greatly that pretty well every record company in London passed on them. We had some success getting A&R men to see them, but we had either bad luck, the shows weren’t very good or the A&R guys just didn’t see it. It took a surprisingly long time to get a deal, and in the end the deal we got from Island was the only one on offer.

We were actually very lucky to get signed by Island, because their culture suited us perfectly. There seemed to be a policy of letting the artist be in charge. I’m sure it wasn’t as simple as that, but there was respect for the artist. What I did not realize at the time was that it was very important to have [Island founder] Chris Blackwell’s involvement. He wasn’t very involved in the signing of the band. He became a big supporter later, but the people who really signed the band at Island Records were [Island A&R man] Nick Stewart, press officer Rob Partridge and [talent scout] Annie Rosebury.

Were such superlatives as “biggest band in the world” even in your head at that point?

The only reason I wanted to manage a band at all was because I wanted to manage a very big band. I certainly wasn’t doing it philanthropically.

U2’s first three albums were critically acclaimed but less than blockbusters, and during that time the band really developed its performance chops. Did you always consider the live thing as a critical part of a band’s career?

We always realized that there were two parallel careers: one live and one on record. We felt instinctively in the early days that it was important to be a great live band so that we were not dependent upon the success of the records. The first album ["Boy," 1980] was, as you say, critically well-received, but didn’t have any hits. The hits off that album came much later. The second album ["October," 1981] was recorded in a bit of a hurry and, looking back on it, quite weak. The third album ["War," 1983] was a No. 1 album in the U.K., and ’round about that time the live album we did at Red Rocks [in Colorado, "Under a Blood Red Sky"] and the accompanying film [“Live at Red Rocks”] really did a lot to break the band in all countries. "Unforgettable Fire" in 1985 went to No. 1 in most European countries and did respectably in the U.S.

It was then that we started to play in arenas in the U.S. We had built up a very strong live base in America. I believed that was very important, and in the early ’80s we would spend three months of every year in the U.S.

One of the most important connections we ever made was with [agents] Frank Barsalona and Barbara Skydel at Premier Talent, [who] really believed in the band. They could see that it was a great live act. I learned an awful lot just from talking with Frank. I used to sit in his office until late at night when everyone else had gone home, and Barbara was our responsible agent. They were both major forces in the success of the band.

In Europe and other territories outside North America we had an equally brilliant agent in Ian Flooks and his company Wasted Talent -- the hot agency in Europe when we started out. They picked up on U2 right at the beginning, and we did every date we ever did in Europe for either them or an agent in Ireland called Dave Kavanagh. And we worked with promoters like Leon Ramakers and Thomas Johanssen in Europe since day one, as well as Michael Coppel in Australia.

Working with agents was fundamental to the early success of U2. The band wanted to be good live, and they were prepared to put a lot of time and effort into touring, and so was I. We were not prepared to be the kind of routine visiting English punk band. I attended pretty well every show they ever did.

Which shows stand out?

Many of our great shows have been at Madison Square Garden. It’s a very special place for us, and New York was always a very important market for us because it was such a great live market. We used to play multiple nights at the Ritz [now Webster Hall], and the money we made off those dates would subsidize the rest of the tour.

New York had very weak radio in the early ’80s. There were [rock stations] WNEW and WPLJ, and neither of those stations played U2. We were supported by a station in Long Island called WLIR. Really, we broke New York through performance.