U2 teams with Paul Simon and performs a tribute to Lou Reed at Madison Square Garden

U2’s epic eight-night stint at Madison Square Garden continued on Thursday night, and for the penultimate show they were joined by special guest Paul Simon to perform “Mother and Child Reunion.” Bono also gave a shout out to Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed, after announcing that his widow Laurie Anderson was in the crowd. While U2 covered Reed’s “Satellite of Love,” a video of the late musician played along.

And proving that Bono isn’t just about showy performances, he gave special attention to the woman and firefighters who called 911 and came to his aid after his bike accident last year in Central Park. The singer introduced “a beautiful girl” from Denver who made the emergency call, as well as Engine 44, the firefighters that responded. After Bono invited his rescuer to recount her story, she earned laughs for correcting him with, “So I have to clarify, it’s Alyssa and I’m from D.C., not Denver.”

U2 wraps up its North American tour Friday at Madison Square Garden. The band will next tour Europe in September.

BY ANDREA TOWERS • @_ATOWERS

http://www.ew.com/

U2 Concert Tour Special, Documentary Coming to HBO

U2 and HBO are teaming up for two world premiere specials this fall — a behind-the-scenes documentary and a concert special.

The documentary, bowing on Nov. 7, will offer access to the rockers and the team behind their current iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE world tour, while also featuring interviews with the band, Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.

U2’s Nov. 14 performance from the Bercy Arena in Paris will be showcased in the concert special, which includes music from the band’s entire career, starting with the 1980 debut album “Boy” to their most recent “Songs of Innocence.”

“U2 continues to take risks, which has made them one of the most consistently exciting forces in rock ’n’ roll,” HBO president Michael Lombardo said Thursday. “The one-two combination of this documentary special, followed by the concert, will provide viewers with the ultimate look at this remarkable band behind the scenes and on the stage.”

The doc will uncover the creation of the tour with interviews with Willie Williams, who has conceptualized U2’s tours for more than 30 years; designer Es Devlin; production director Jake Berry; audio director Joe O’Herlihy; exec director Gavin Friday; set designer Ric Lipson; and more creative types who help bring the band’s music to life onstage.

Davis Guggenheim will exec produce and direct the doc along with U2’s manager Guy Oseary. Shannon Dill will serve as producer. The concert special hails from Done and Dusted with exec producers Hamish Hamilton, Simon Pizey, Guggenheim and Oseary. Hamilton, who has worked with U2 on collaborations including “Elevation: Live From Boston,” “U2 Go Home: Live From Slane Castle,” the “Beautiful Day” documentary, and “Vertigo in 2005: Live From Chicago,” will also direct the special.

U2’s iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE world tour kicked off May 14 in Vancouver and runs through November.


http://variety.com/

What nobody tells you about growing older ...

(Adapted from Deborah Lindsay Williams's article in www.thenational.ae)

U2’s latest album is called Songs of Innocence, a title borrowed from William Blake, whose radical ideas frequently got him into trouble and whose genius was not fully recognised until well after his death in 1827. U2 seem pretty convinced about their own genius and although I’m sure that music critics no longer consider U2 to be “relevant”, I do know that the band made the 20,000 seat arena seem almost intimate.
As we left for the concert, my younger son told us that rock-and-roll is “music for old people”, and indeed, there were more than a few bald heads in the audience. The songs from this album seem of a piece with my own middle-aged musings about family, growing up and what the second half of a life can hold. U2’s music is embedded in my memories of growing up, from those days when people “bought albums” instead of downloaded songs and when a concert ticket set you back $30 (Dh110) instead of $200. That’s what my generation has instead of Proustian madeleines: snippets of rock lyrics that send us spinning back to our youth.
When I saw the Rolling Stones play in Abu Dhabi, I was amazed that men old enough to be my father had the stamina necessary for a rock show. Clearly, U2 must be working out with the same personal trainers.
Bono showed no signs of the intensive surgeries he had after his recent cycling accident – he never stopped moving. His scrupulously choreographed enthusiasm was infectious: the audience stayed on its feet the entire time, clapping and singing. Perhaps U2 has taken not only a title from William Blake but also inspiration: even on his deathbed (at the ripe old age of 69), Blake continued to write and draw and paint. I don’t know how Bono recovers between shows but both Blake and U2 remind me that there should be more to midlife than Panadol and sensible shoes. There will be inevitable aches and pains – my feet were killing me after two hours of concert-induced standing – but there needs to be singing and dancing and loud music, too.


http://www.thenational.ae/

Bono & Edge join Yoko Ono for inaugural 'John Lennon Day'

Yoko Ono reveals her joy under the newly unveiled tapestry showing Manhattan as a giant yellow submarine with late Beatle at the helm, which was unveiled at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration during the city’s inaugural “John Lennon Day."

Yoko Ono,  Bono ,Edge  and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito marked the city’s inaugural “John Lennon Day” on Ellis Island Wednesday, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the day the Beatle got his green card. “They let him stay, and he is still here. Yoko, he is still here,” said Bono. Ono said that her “heart was crying” remembering her late husband, who battled to get his permanent residency and stay in New York after the U.S. government ordered him deported back to Britain over a pot possession plea.

“I remember how proud and happy he was” to be able to stay in the U.S., she said. “I’m sure John would have felt great to have a New York day.”

Ono recalled Lennon's fight against violence and hatred. She said he was a feminist before his time, taking their son Sean to Central Park every Sunday, and that now she thinks of him when she sees dads pushing strollers in the city.

Ono, Bono, Secretary General of Amnesty International Salil Shetty and The Edge celebrate the 40th anniversary of the day the late Beatle got his green card on Ellis Island Wednesday.

"I just wish John was with us," she said. "Please be kind, be peaceful, and be loving."

The event, organized by Amnesty International, also celebrated Ono's gift of the rights to record cover versions of Lennon's post-Beatles songs to the human rights group, which has raised more than $5 million in royalties.

A tapestry showing Manhattan as a giant yellow submarine with Lennon at the helm — commissioned by Amnesty as a thank you to Ono — was donated to The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation for display at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration and unveiled Wednesday.

Mark-Viverito flashed a peace sign along with Bono, Ono and U2's The Edge in front of the tapestry after declaring July 29 “John Lennon Day” in New York City.

Bono claimed John Lennon and the rest of The Beatles as Irish at a ceremony on Ellis Island off New York City to unveil a giant tapestry marking the 40th anniversary of the Liverpudlian singer getting his US green card.

Speaking in the presence of the former Beatle’s widow Yoko Ono, Bono evoked the famous image of Lennon holding up his two fingers in a peace sign on Ellis Island with the Statue of Liberty behind him.

“That’s why it is fitting to do this here, because John Lennon was an immigrant,” said Bono, before an audience that included U2 guitarist The Edge and Salil Shetty, secretary general of Amnesty International.

“He didn’t sail across the Atlantic in an ocean liner or a yellow submarine. He didn’t come in on a third-class ticket looking for a job in Hell’s Kitchen. He didn’t climb up out of steerage with all his potatoes in a single suitcase. But John Lennon was an immigrant all the same.”

Bono noted in his speech that the first immigrant through Ellis Island was Annie Moore from Cobh, Co Cork, who came through the door’s of the island’s immigration facility on New Year’s Day 1892. 

He referred to the Irish parentage of all four of the Beatles, describing Lennon as “one more Irish immigrant on an island full of Irish immigrants”.

“Let’s claim him, in fact let’s claim all the Beatles not as immigrants but as Irish,” he said to cheers from the crowd.

He paid tribute to Lennon, saying his music registered with him and The Edge growing up as teenagers in Dublin. Lennon offered words like All You Need Is Love to him and others “not as a balm but as a kind of dare”.

“Give Peace A Chance – there’s another dare. Will we?” asked Bono.

Speaking of the day Lennon discovered he had been granted a green card, Ms Ono said “I heard his heart beating fast, I remember how proud he was.” To mark the date, the speaker of the New York City Council Melissa Mark-Viverito declared July 29th as “John Lennon Day”.

The tapestry has been donated to the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation for display at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. The cost of the commission by New York-based Czech artist Peter Sis was covered by Bono, The Edge and music business impresario Jimmy Iovine.

This is the third tapestry to be commissioned by Mr Shipsey. An art piece honouring former Czech president Vaclav Havel, also by Sis, was unveiled in Prague and funded by Bono, The Edge, Peter Gabriel, Sting and Yoko Ono, while a tapestry by Sis dedicated to the late Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney hangs in Dublin Airport.

http://www.irishtimes.com/

http://www.nydailynews.com/

Amazing, Innovative “Innocence” Show

I can’t say U2 is taking it easy. Their “Innocence and Experience” show at MSG last night was about as exciting and innovative as you can get.

Of course, they could have called it “I’m Still Standing” as the entire floor of the Garden is General Admission– i.e. no seats. Three hours. If you go– and you must– wear sneakers and bring a cane!

Two nights ago, Paul and Nancy McCartney stood in one of the two VIP risers on the floor. McCartney, a great live show man, must have really soaked in how Bono et al re-designed the Garden in a way I’ve never seen for a rock show.

Last night the guests included Charlie Rose and Gayle King,actor Peter Sarsgaard, a bevy of models, designer Tory Burch, and AOL-Verizon chief Tim Armstrong.

The show, an interactive video extravaganza, turns the usual rock concert on its head. It’s at once grandly bombastic and simply intimate, with many stages running lengthwise cutting through the center of the venue. The staging reminded me a little of David Byrne’s Public Theater musical, “Here Lies Love.” Maybe that show was an influence. But it definitely relieves the rock band of the static notion of always being at one end of the stadium. Bono, Edge, Adam and Larry are able to move about freely through the giant room. And there’s no obstructed view– it’s rock in the round. Special kudos to the lighting designer.

The show also has nods– and I’m assuming pays royalties to– a variety of other composers including Patti Smith, Paul Simon, the Sex Pistols, Johnny Cash (who is literally the intermission entertainment, his animated image performing against the Berlin Wall), and Stephen Sondheim. Bono sort of knits together all of his favorite things– including the Irish troubles, Nelson Mandela, and the themes of freedom and equality.  U2’s “One” charity and “Red” products are also heavily promoted, in a good way.

The set included requisite U2 hits– “With or Without You,” “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”– as well as a bunch of cuts from the band’s latest album, “Songs of Innocence.”

The real achievement (aside from the financial– no seats and all standing means they can pack in more people) of this show is seeing how all four members of U2 function as one. Edge’s jangly guitar still sends goosebumps. Larry Mullen’s drums pound propulsively. But it was Adam Clayton’s bass that really caught my eye last night– it’s maybe key to U2’s trademark– and for some of us– brilliantly reassuring sound.

Bono remains a great show, gifted with gab and ceaseless energy, a sense of humor and that unmistakable voice. He has the heart of a crooner even when he’s belting over the sonic accompaniment of his three colleagues.

All photos c2015 Showbiz411 on a Lumix ZS20

http://www.showbiz411.com/

Bono provides glasses for underprivileged with new charity campaign

NEW YORK - Bono, who has had problems with his own vision, is partnering with a company to provide better eye care to the underprivileged.

The "Buy Vision, Give Sight" campaign with eyewear brand Revo is designed to raise $10 million for screening, eyeglasses and other assistance to the impoverished. Revo will donate $10 for each pair of eyeglasses it sells, and the U2 frontman will introduce his own line of Revo sunglasses, which he's been wearing on U2's sold-out tour, in the fall.

Bono, who was diagnosed with glaucoma two decades ago, says his eyesight is OK now. But in a Thursday statement, he said "tens of millions of people around the world with sight problems don't have access to glasses, or even a basic eye test."

http://www.revo.com/

http://www.ctvnews.ca/

Jason D Rossi  chatted with The Edge and Adam Clayton from U2 backstage before last night shows. They talk about their love of Boston, why radio is the best place for music, how they snuck their latest album on your phone, and he gives them a reason to be a New England Patriots fan. –

Click here to listen to the interview.

http://myradio929.com/