Miami, Florida, 29th June 2011

The North American debut of the new track, North Star ( which appears in the movie  'Transformers: Dark of the Moon') is  ' a love song to the universe' as Bono called it,  was one of the stand-out moments on a hot and sticky evening where the rain stayed away and the 360 space ship took off again.

'We love Miami,' explained Bono. 'That's well known. The balmy summer heat, the palm trees, the dolphins, the Marlins... by the way we love the Marlins.' (That went down well - the Marlins had to move several games from this, their home stadium, to accomodate the 360 show this week.)

'Miami is a sort of crossroads between South America and North America, the Caribbean and Ireland. Irish people are like Latin Americans...  who don't know how to dance.'

An opening quartet of tracks from Achtung Baby set the scene tonight before we went back to 1979 ('I Will Follow') and forward to 2009 ('Boots') and when we arrived in the 1980's, 'Still Haven't Found' paid  tribute to Clarence Clemons with a tip of the hat to Jungleland.  

'Unos, dos, tres...' 

'Are you ready to take the roof off... if we had a roof?'  By Vertigo everyone was ready and the roof we didn't have was duly removed. 'Crazy' became ' a love song to Cuba - one day Cuba will be free' and as Walk On arrived, Bono invited everyone to remember Cuban human rights activist Dr Oscar Elias Biscet. Dr Biscet endured many years in prison in Cuba for opposing the government and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George Bush in 2007. 'Let everyone in Cuba know he is special to us and we are watching... we are watching.'

A barnstorming Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me gave way to a transcendent With Or Without You before Moment of Surrender paid tribute to the late and great Clarence Clemons, whose brother Bill was here tonight.

'There's one brighter star in the firmament, his name is Clarence Clemons, his family and friends are here tonight... good night Clarence Clemons, good night Miami.'

Setlist

Even Better Than The Real Thing
The Fly
Mysterious Ways
Until The End Of The World
I Will Follow
Get On Your Boots
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / The Promised Land
North Star
Beautiful Day / Space Oddity
Elevation
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Miss Sarajevo
Zooropa
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo / La Bamba
Crazy Tonight
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Scarlet
Walk On
One
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow / Where The Streets Have No Name
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
With Or Without You
Moment of Surrender

Picture gallery. 
www.u2.com

More on U2 in Glastonbury

U2`s performance in Glastonbury has not passed unnoticed. Here are a couple of articles on the moment.

NME published:

Bono: 'I was scared sick playing Glastonbury'

Bono has said he was "sick with nerves" prior to the band's headline performance at Glastonbury on Friday night (June 24).

The Irish four-piece made their debut at the three-day event after pulling out in 2010due to Bono suffering a back injury. He admitted feeling the pressure in the build-up to their performance on the Pyramid Stage.

"I wanted to throw up," he told the BBC. "Whenever you see me giving up a lot of attitude that means I'm terrified. I felt like I was going to retch at the side of the stage."


www.nme.com




And The Guardian: 

Glastonbury 2011: when Bono put me in the frame

What happened when the U2 singer borrowed the Guardian photographer's camera? by David Levene 

The photographers in the pit had to leave to allow others to take their place but I’d arranged to stay. I think that’s why Bono noticed me. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

At the end of U2's third song, Bono knelt down in front of me and stretched his hand towards the camera. At first, I thought he was just doing a rocker pose. But then he got closer and closer, and I thought: He wants my camera. So I just gave it to him.

I didn’t think he’d actually taken any photos. This was taken by a friend who was in the pit at the same time. Photograph: Pete Mariner

I was initially worried he wasn't going to be able to use it. You can't generally take a photo with the camera unless the auto-focus is engaged – and that's quite a faff to figure out. So it was only when I had a look later that I saw he'd fired off four or five frames.

I was taking pictures of him with another camera as he was taking pictures of me. One of them might have to go up on my wall at home. Photograph: Bono/U2

They were a bit underexposed, but I was just very impressed he'd managed to take any photos at all.

www.guardian.co.uk

"The Claw" will live on!!

U2's 360 Tour "Claw" (photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com)

U2's 360 Tour will come to an end July 30 in  Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. But "The Claw" -- the alien-like, four-legged structure over the stage -- will live on.

After the record-setting two-year-plus 360 trek, U2's management plans to sell off three of the full, four-legged, 29,000-square-foot steel structures as venues unto themselves.

"It's certainly our intention to see these things recycled  into permanent and usable ventures," U2 tour director Craig Evans told Billboard.biz earlier this month. "It represents too great an engineering feat to just use for [the tour] and put away in a warehouse somewhere."

Evans added that the U2 camp is "now in discussions to send them into different places around the world and have them installed as permanent venues. Some major events have shown interest in these, from four different continents -- and we haven't even really put the word out yet."

Evans declined to mention specific potential buyers for the structures but said that most of the ideas are "for  turning them into full interior pavilions and amphitheaters. They're something you can put up on a waterfront and become an instant skyline icon. We know that the inquiries will keep coming in."

And, Evans added, it hardly hurts that the 360 Tour is the biggest in history, on track to play to some seven million fans and gross $700 million by the time it finishes.

"Having been part of the biggest tour of all time, they're pretty well tried and tested," he said. "They can carry weights no other structure can consider, and since they're already developed and designed you  can probably complete [a venue] in a one-month period instead of a two-year build period."

By Gary Graff, Detroit

www.billboard.biz

East Lansing, Michigan, 26th June 2011

"C'mon East Lansing -  go green… go white… go orange… where you going to take the Irish tonight?'

We had our own festival at  Michigan State University's Spartan Stadium  with an exuberant audience singing along at every note, the joint rocking from 'Real Thing' to Moment of Surrender'.

Let's shrink this place down to a little club,  Bono told a 65,000-strong crowd, before adding, ' or a pub like Dooleys'. 

'I Will Follow' went down just as well tonight as it did when they played it in that very pub Dooleys, in East Lansing, nearly thirty years ago in December 1981. 'Where is Mr. Dooley?' Bono asked. 'I believe he's still around.'

According to The Detroit News, if it wasn't quite that small pub tonight, it was certainly as cosy as a stadium can become. 'A smaller band would have buckled under the sheer enormity of it. But U2 stepped up to the plate with an ease and confidence that matches its ambitions, and somehow made the stadium setting feel intimate.'

'We're very glad to be here in MSU right now, ' said Bono. 'What makes this country so beautiful is not just landscape, your country is a beautiful idea...'

Special mention for people here and across the state who've worked for the ONE campaign, and for 'another great American idea - the Peace Corps.'  This is not a band that made it to university - Edge managed six weeks, Bono two - but they were always learning.

'U2 became our university, Rolling Stone our textbook...
'We're still students, wouldn't you agree ?
'I still haven't found what I'm looking for...'

After 'Still', Bono was in reflective mood again, recalling an album which marks its twentieth birthday this year - and the long journey they took to find it. In Berlin, a wall coming down and one going up in the studio, the risks they took and the ones they'll continue to take. Jann Wenner  of Rolling Stone  gets special mention, along with all 'the people cheering us on when we were making some of our most experimental music... And we appreciate that.'

The night races past, carried on a wave of noise from a rockin' audience, and soon it's a Moment to Surrender, dedicated again to Clarence Clemons.

'Not just a man, more a force of nature - music just spilling out of him.
But you could hold anyone in your heart or mind right now...'

SET LIST

Even Better Than The Real Thing

The Fly

Mysterious Ways

Until The End Of The World

I Will Follow

Get On Your Boots

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Stay (Faraway, So Close!)

Beautiful Day

Elevation

Pride (In The Name Of Love)

Miss Sarajevo

Zooropa

City Of Blinding Lights

Vertigo

I'll Go Crazy / Discotheque

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Scarlet

Walk On

ENCORE

One

Where The Streets Have No Name

ENCORE 2

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me

With Or Without You

Moment Of Surrender

www.u2.com

U2 tour director offers glimpse into band, stage's origins

Workers build the massive U2 360 Tour stage on the field at MSU's Spartan Stadium in East Lansing Wednesday June 22, 2011. (photo by Lansing State Journal staff photographer Rod Sanford)

The massive stage design Bono dreamed up has overtaken Spartan Stadium, and tonight, the show will go on.Attention, U2 fans: It's almost time.
The numbers are astonishing: 16 miles of production cable; a video screen with more than 1 million pieces; about 130 touring crew members and 35 members of management; and 1,500 roadies hired in each city.
The steel structure - which Bono envisioned with a set of forks over dinner - is 90 feet tall with the center pylon reaching 150 feet. It can support up to 180 tons.Planning for this level of event, MSU spokesman Kent Cassella said, is intense.
"As you can image, there is a lot of planning on our part for such a large show, especially getting people from all over campus involved to ensure a fantastic experience for our concertgoers," he said. "We've got a great venue in Spartan Stadium, and it will be great to show it and the rest of the MSU campus off to our visitors here for the concert."
Perhaps nobody understands the ins and outs of U2 better than tour director Craig Evans. After all, he's led the band's caravans for more than a decade.
Amidst setting up for a sold-out gig in Anaheim, Calif., Evans spoke with the LSJ about the mechanics of the 360° Tour and why the members of U2, above all, are family men.
• When the show was first visualized, what was the principal goal?
• We wanted U2 to be able to play anywhere. Wherever they played, we wanted them to connect and be in the middle of the crowd. When we went to Willie Williams for the design of the stage, we wanted the stage to be so big that it would feel bigger than the stadium and, in turn, create a sense of intimacy, where every seat in every stadium would have a terrific view. That's what makes this a unique event - that sense of intimacy.
• How does U2 feel about coming to MSU?
• It's really exciting. MSU is the fifth university community this tour has visited, and it's different to bring a production this size to a smaller, university community. But it's very important to the band because they feel a sense that people are fortunate to have this type of show to come into their city, and there's a sense of value and thankfulness. The band is excited to be there and share the experience with different types of communities.

Written by

Anne Erickson

www.lansingstatejournal.com

U2 speaks to BBC after Glastonbury

www.bbc.co.uk

Glastonbury: Videos

www.youtube.com/user/ganjafarmeri