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September 26, 1997
Bono In Conversation
Post-Sarajevo Popmart concert, September 26, 1997
Bono In Conversation
by Andrew Mueller, the Independent
U2 in Sarajevo: Part 1 - The Stage is Set
What politicians and diplomats have failed to do for years, rock music might well accomplish Tuesday: end the division of Bosnia, at least for a few hours.
Fans from all over the bitterly divided country flocked to Sarajevo to hear the Irish rock band U2 in concert - the biggest spectacle the city has seen since the 1984 Winter Olympics.
The concert in the Kosevo Olympic stadium - rebuilt last year after suffering heavy damage during the 3 1/2-year war - has, in its own way, accomplished miracles.
About 45,000 people were expected to pack the stadium for Tuesday night's concert, which fulfills a pledge made by U2's lead singer Bono when he spent the first postwar New Year's Eve with Sarajevans in December 1995, weeks after the war ended.
For the first time since the start of the war in 1992, people more accustomed to seeing each other through the sights of a rifle were converging on the capital to listen to music together. It was a reminder of prewar Sarajevo, home to some of old Yugoslavia's best rock bands.
About 500 fans even came from the Bosnian Serb republic, and trains ran between the north and south of the country for the first time since the war-shattered railway network was repaired last year.
In Serb territory, tickets were available through international civilian organizations working to bring peace. In some places, U2 concert posters were pasted over pictures of Radovan Karadzic, the indicted wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs.
Even the NATO-led peace force lent a hand to Tuesday's concert, helping to check the stadium for bombs.
Concert revenues - $18 a ticket on average - were being donated to a hospital reconstruction fund in Sarajevo.
During the war, U2 dedicated a song, Miss Sarajevo, to the city's suffering. On his ZOO TV tour in 1993-94, Bono established a direct link with Sarajevo - bringing a glimmer of the outside world to a city that endured 3 1/2 years of siege, shelling and sniping by the Serbs.
Bosnians never forgot it. "Welcome U2," the main daily Oslobodjenje proclaimed on its front page Tuesday.
"I felt excluded from the world for so long," said Azra Smailkadic, 18, who arrived Tuesday from Travnik in central Bosnia dressed in layers of sweaters and jackets. "It's not only about U2. It's the feeling of being part of the world again."
"The city is full of young people with backpacks," said her best friend, Amela Leko. "Everybody is here expecting something nice to happen for a change."
Although the railway from Sarajevo to the south and to the north was fixed by foreign donors last year, trains never ran until Tuesday, because Muslim and Croat politicians could not agree who would operate the railway within the Federation they share.
But U2's concert made them overcome the dispute for a day. Special trains from Maglaj to the north and Mostar to the south brought in fans Tuesday and were to take them back Wednesday morning. After that, the trains will be idle again.
The Muslim member of the Bosnian presidency, Alija Izetbegovic, is expected to be among the many political notables in the audience.
And at U2's request, the warm-up act was distinctly Sarajevan - the chorus of the city's Gazi-Husruf Beg Islamic high school singing two Islamic spiritual songs, Ilahije and Kaside.
U2 in Sarajevo: Part 2 - The Rattle and Hum
The hills around Sarajevo that once echoed to the rumble of artillery reverberated on Tuesday to the joyful singing of tens of thousands of people at a concert staged by Irish rock group U2.
It was the city's first major pop concert, and the first sign of normality, since the end of the Bosnian war in 1995.
The atmosphere was already electric after local support bands had played, but when U2 lead singer Bono lost his voice early in the concert the crowd went wild, helping him along with their joy, he told Reuters in an interview.
``So far I'm so bewildered that they didn't throw rocks at me when I couldn't sing for them. I just want to carry these people's luggage for the rest of my life,'' he said.
``It was one of the toughest and one of the sweetest nights of my life, that's for sure.''
Bono told the packed Kosevo stadium that "To play in Sarajevo is a gift from you to us"
``Forget the past, live the future, viva Sarajevo!'' he shouted to applause and cheers.
Memories of the war were not far away though. Film footage on a giant 100-fott high screen behind the band showed a beauty contest in the city in 1993 when contestants held a banner which read, ``Do not let them kill us.''
U2 treated the crowd to their first live performance of ``Miss Sarajevo,'' a song recorded with Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti to help a children's charity.
``My voice is gone but your voices are strong and I ask you to carry me like you carried each other in those weeks, months and years,'' Bono told the crowd, who waved, whistled and cried.
U2 were the first major rock group to play in Bosnia since the war ended, and the first real sign Sarajevo could return to normal. ``To the city of the future,'' Bono said.
Ticket prices were kept low for the 50,000 people who filled the stadium, including two stands of NATO peacekeping soldiers in uniform.
``We thought we'd play just a small scratch gig as a benefit concert but they didn't want a benefit concert...they wanted the 40-foot lemon, they wanted the drive-in movie screen, they wanted the whole shebang,'' Bono said.
``I think they wanted, more than anything, a return to normalcy. That's what these peple want, it's what they deserve. They don't need any kind of patronising from people like me.''
Thousands of young people flocked to the concert from all over Bosnia and other former Yugoslav republics. The first trains to arrive in Sarajevo since the war came from Mostar and Maglaj. Slovenian visas were not required for the day.
Special buses brought fans from Zagreb, Ljubljana and even Bosnia's Serb Republic -- a rare journey across the ethnic boundary line into the Moslem-Croat Federation.
``We worked quite hard to make sure tickets were available in Croatia and even from Republika Srpska we had about 1,000 people came down today which is great,'' Bono said.
``We tried our best to make it as multi-ethnic as Sarajevo was, and will be again.
``There was a lot of joy in the house and joy is the hardest thing. Our music is tough and it's raw in places but I think it has joy also and it had more joy tonight than ever before.''
As he croaked through the interview with a voice about to give up, the thrill of finally being in Sarajevo after years of planning was obvious. ``Tonight wasn't ordinary, it depended on magic...I will always remember this night for lots of reasons.''
The Setlist:
Pop Muzik Intro
Mofo
I will follow
Gone
Even Better than the Real
Thing Last Night On Earth
Until the End of the World
New Year's Day
Pride(In the Name of Love)
Still Haven't Found.. / Stand By Me
All I want is You
Staring At the Sun
Sunday Bloody Sunday (Acoustic, Edge Vocals)
Bullet the Blue Sky
Please
Where the Streets Have No Name
Encore 1:
Lemon Intro
Discotheque
If You Wear that Velvet Dress
With Or Without You
Miss Sarajevo
Encore 2:
HMTMKMKM
Mysterious Ways
One
Everlasting Love
U2 in Sarajevo: Part Three - The Morning After
"It wasn't quote what I'd planned," relflects Bono, when I meet him in his hotel suite the following morning.
"I'd planned to be in fine voice. I have been in fine voice, of late, though I'd probably have been a terrible pain in the arse if I had actually pulled it off!"
"But maybe," he continues, "that allowed room for Sarajevo to take the gig away from us. Tey could see that things could go horribly wrong, they'd gone to a lot of trouble to come here, and they were just going to make it happen. And they did. The original idea was that we'd flash bastard it into town and play a rock n'roll show. You know, don't patronise these people, just do it. I was gonna give them the full whack. I jst wasn't able to. But it dwarfed PopMart. That's what I thought was interesting. Something else went on, something that I, as an outsider in the city, probably couldn't understand."
Bono is no less famous in Bosnia than anywhere else, but even he must have ben bewildered by his reception yesterday. After U2 touched down at Sarajevo's battered airport, they were whisked under police escort to a meeting with Bosnia's president, Alija Izetbegovic. Bono gave him a W B Yeats first edition.
"We talked," says Bono, "about Sarajevo as an interface between east and west, between Islam and Christianity. I think that's why Sarajevo is a city of the future, because that axis is important. I also think Sarajevo is imortant as a symbol of tolerance."
A few weeks ago, U2 played Belfast for the first time in years.
"There was a similar feeling, yeah," he says, "And I think as far as Belfast is concerned, the leaders of the various parties there might enjoy a visit to this country, to see what results if they can't resolve their problems peacefully. This is what happens. Here it is."
Copyright © 1997 The Independent. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:42 AM | Comments (0)
September 23, 1997
Smiles Over Sarajevo
Sarajevo Popmart concert, September 23, 1997
Smiles Over Sarajevo
From The Independent (Britain)
(U2 held their historic gig in the Bosnian capital and although Bono's voice gave out, Andrew Meuller witnessed a set which lit up the city).
There probably hasn't been as strange a cast of characters at a backstage party since the reign of Caligula. It is not often, as you elbow your way to the free drinks after a concert, that you find yourself standing next to the Irish Minister for Defence or tripping over cables trailing behind a CNN crew, or sharing a couch with the Bosnian ambassador to the United Nations.
By this point of the night, however, any previous conceptions of what constituted weirdness have been well and truly run through the shredder. We live in an age in which rock n'roll gigs are routinely described as history in the making. These stakes on posterity are at best silly and at worst mendacious, as if a few thousand people standing in a paddock, or a group of middle-aged bores deciding to speak to each other again are events comparable to moon landings. Tonight, its happened for real.
As Faris, the drummer with the local support act, Sikter put it: "It's one of the most important things that's ever happened here. The railway has opened today, after four years, just for this. It's like when the Winter Olympics were held here, in 1984. But it's bigger than that, even. Look, my father made me some new shoes, just for tonight."
Faris smiles. There's been a lot of that this evening, a night which has been four years in the planning. In 1993, U2 were on the road in Europe when their Zoo TV tour. At a concert in Italy, a film crew from Sarajevo presented themselves. After being granted the interview they'd come for, the crew explained to the band something of what was then being done to their city by the Bosnian Serb Army. U2's response was to suggest that they go and play there. The band were persuaded that, as things stood, that wasn't practical - aside from the fact that such a trip would have induced spectacular apoplexy in U2's insurers, the crowd such a show would have attracted would doubtless have been all too tempting a target for snipers and gunners who had already demonstrated that they considered marketplaces, water queues and funerals to be fair game. The idea was shelved.
The compromise arrived at was the satellite link with Sarajevo, which saw part of each night's Zoo TV multi-media overload being devoted to the beseiged city. A young American aid worker called Bill carter, then working in Sarajevo for London-based organisation, The Serious Road Trip, operated a hook-up, enabling various citizens to speak, live, to whichever audience U2 were playing to at the time. Memorably, during a show at Wembley Stadium, one young woman scoffed via satellite that "Nobody cares. You're going to let us die. Why not let them get it over with?"
Back in Sarajevo, Bill Carter had been aiming his camera away from the headlines. His acclaimed documentary, `Miss Sarajevo,' recording a beauty contest heald during the war, inspired a song of the same name by Passengers, a group consisting of U2, long-time producer and mentor Brian Eno and, for that one song, Luciano Pavarotti. Bono finally made it to Sarajevo at the end of 1995, three months after NATO's bombers had put an overdue stop to the city's misery. He sang at impromptu sessions in a few bars, put in several hours being deafened by local groups in snad-bagged rehearsal spaces, said he'd be back, and that next time, he'd bring the band.
And that he did as part of the current world tour, PopMart. He brought with him the most complicated and expensive live rock show ever assembled. PopMart employs 250 people, costs around #160,000 a day to run, and requires 55 trucks and a Boeing 727 to carry it. When I heard, earlier this year, that U2 were definitely going to play Sarajevo, I assumed they'd be taking the bare minimum equipment. When I heard they intended to take the whole show, I assumed they'd been out in the sun without hats on.
In July 1996, I covered the first post-war visit to Sarajevo by a British band. Newcastle punk trio, China Drum travelled a good deal lighter than U2. All their gear, crew and me, just about fit into one van. They did two shows at one small club. The trip was a logistical and administrative nightmare.
We were turned over by Croatian customs, run off the road by a deranged woman who then abused us for trying to hurt her baby, pestered by a rogue Bosnian Serb Army checkpoint, menaced with a pistol by a clearly insane Bosnian policeman, refused entry to Slovenia, and if it hadn't been for thebottomless kindness of the Queen's Lancashires British Army regiment, we would probably still be camped in our broken-down truck, somewhere near Vitez, drawing lots to see which of use we ate next. It could be said that Bosnia doesn't really have an infrastructure for dealing with touring rock groups, especially if you were trying to win some sort of award for understatement.
"We thought it was going to be difficult," agrees Paul McGuinness, U2's long-sewrving manager, speaking after the show. "But it's been quite straightforward. People have just wanted to help. We've blagged a lot of equipment, forklifts and son on, from the military, and the local crew have been incredibly enthusiastic. There was talk of just doing a scratch show, but we felt it was important that we treat this as another city on the tour, to pay them that respect. To come here and not do the whole show would have been rude."
McGuinness cheerfully confirms that U2 will lose a tidy fortune on the gig recognising Sarajevo's post-war poverty, tickets were sold cheaply - by McGuiness's estimation, the last time it cost that little to see U2 was around 1983 - and whatever surplus wa realised from sales of the concert to radio stations around the world wa earmarked for the coffers of the War Child charity. Crucially, tickets were also sold in the Serbian and Croatian areas of Bosnia-Hercegovina, as well as in Ljubljana, Zagreb and Belgrade. Sarajevan friends had been telling me all day of their happiness that the night before the show, Sarajevo's bars had been full of people from all over what was once Yugoslavia and there'd been no trouble - although, the next day in town, I see one local knock on a window of a car with Belgrade license plates and scream uncomfortable obscenities at the occupant.
Inside the 45,000-capacity Kosevo Stadium, as showtime nears, no such bad vibes are evident. Even the stands containing the khaki ranks of troops serving with the multi-national stabilisation force (SFOR) are getting in on the act - the Spanish contingent have tied their national flag in bandannas around their heads and are crowd surfing among themselves. They also try to institute a Mexican wave among the foreign troops but, in a neat metaphor for the western military presence during Bosnia's war, this collapses amid confused signalling and lack of communication.
The first two acts on stage are a local choir and local rock group, Protest, one of the better acts to have emerged from Sarajevo's startingly vibrant wartime rock n'roll scene. Sikter, who follow them, start by tearing up the Bosnian national anthem i the style of Hendrix's `Star Spangled Banner,' - an astute populist touch that properly kickstarts the evening.
U2's show is perhaps not everything it could have been, as Bono's voice gives out on him about six songs in and he struggles with high notes after that. It doesn't really matter, of course. What's important tonight is that one of the biggest bands in the world is here, that their set lit up when it was plugged in, and that, with the exception of a few entirely forgiveable yelps of "Viva Sarajevo!," there's no hint of self-congratulation up on the stage. The only moments tailored to the evening are Edge's lovely solo rendering of `Sunday Bloody Sunday,' and the first tentative live performance of `Miss Sarajevo,' for which the band are joined onstage by Brian Eno and on tape by Pavarotti. "We wrote that song for you," laughs Bono, as it closes, "and we can't fucking play it!" This, like everything else, gets a huge and heartfelt roar.
There's anothing touching moment as the lights come up. Led by the Spanish, the SFOR troops rise and applaud the crowd, the people of Sarajevo, as they file out of the stadium. The people stop, turn around, and clap back. The Spaniards, who appear to enjoy their work, respond with spirited renditions of `Y'Viva Espana' and `The Macarena.'
Copyright © 1997 The Independent. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:41 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 1997
Paul McGuinness on MSN
Paul McGuinness Chat from MSN on 9.22.97
Transcript by Adam
have you ever been on a U2 album
unhappy experience with the piano when I was about 12 years
old.
was some hand clapping on one track on the War album.
enough to be asked again.
able to spot their potential so early in their career?
Project Arts Centre in Dublin. They wer elooking for a manager
and I was looking for a band to manage and we were introduced
by a Dublin music journalist named Bill Graham, who was
afriend of mine.
he had told them that I should be their manager so I suppose
we owe it all to him.
that I have no technique for that anymore now than I did then.
a technique. I just thought they were very, very good and I
suppose they were doing more or less as they are doing now,
except that then they were doing it quite badly and now
they're doing it rather well.
turning out? And, are you concerned about the gig in Israel?
sold prettyclose to the capacity and we're flying in there
tomorrow omrning. As you know, we're doing a webcast of the
entire concert.
ocncert. I've seen a story today on CNN and European
newspapers are paying a lot of attention to it.
still devastated by the war. On account of that we're charging
a very low ticket price.
Eyuropean city, a center of cultrure.
wanted us to do the whole show. They weren't interested in us
turning up doing a scratch concer or a benefit.
cities, the people of Sarajevo wouldn't be able to afford the
concert. So we've reduced the price to about $12.
turning out? And, are you concerned about the gig in Israel?
(Ed. note: Tonster never said the correct Q. here. Make it up
:P)
in history I suppose I would have to say Brian Epstein. He
really did a brilliant job. He was the first person on mys ide
of the quation who understood how big pop music could be.
Beatles did together.
client. They had so much talent and they really invented the
musical world we all live in now.
show is going on?
manager of U2 and not have the pleasure of seeing the concert.
forward to the show every night and if I possibly can watch it
from start to finish.
tour so far?
short notice as people will probably have heard, we had legal
difficulty playing Dublin.
objected to the shows going ahead. We had acontingency plan to
move those shows to Belfast where the authorities were frankly
much more cooperative than in Dublin.
the people in belfast said why not come here and play as
well./
authorities were incredibly cooperative and we had a spare
date and we were able to fit it in.
hadn't played there since 1987. The exdcitement of playing to
40,000 in Belfast made it the most exciting show to play to
date.
have said some negative things about U2 (i.e. George
Harrison). What are your feelings about their statements?
of touch. If he wanted to come see a U2 show he'd be most
welcome. I'm not sure he's in contact with the modern world at
this stage. Nonetheless he's got a fine bodyof work behind him
even if some of it turned out in court to be borrowed from
other authors.
since he did that interview. I think in recent times George
has been more concerned about his taxes and perhaps his
garden.
not open in Oslo?
it was not me inside. I was standing there as it opened. It
did open about a foot and I could see the 8 feet of my clients
but not the rest of them.
again and it was well and truly jammed. It then made a retreat
to its starting position and they had to climb out the back
and out to the B stage. I really felt for them. It was, of
course, the ultimate Spinal Tap moment.
on the net?
us on producing a site but we felt that in order to do a truly
great site we would have to be with some people from "that
culture" rather than make it up for ourselves.
and said for the first time rather than make money on this,
let's get sponsors and we can alll make a fortune, the
approach from Microsoft was particularly attractive because it
was creatively led.
groundbreaking and state of the art. It was a creative
decision, if you like, and I'm very happy we made the
arrangement.
popmart tour, what would it be?
released the album earlier. I think the timing at the
beginning of the campaign was out of whack and we've been
catching up ever since.
more of less coincided and I regret that because it made the
campaign less organic. The early part of the campaign was a
bit too compressed.
our own delays. But we're adults and we take the
responsnibility.
opinion about the happenings in the karaoke?
misjudgement on our part. That song, the Macarena, is very
much identified with Spanish-speaking Spain. In Barcelona,
they really thought it was utterly gauche and I think we just
didn't do our research properly.
the time we come back there.
for a future U2 album?
way. We're actually meeting him tomorrow in Sarajevo.
with! Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois are all very much
friends of ours and people whose oopinions we take very
seriously.
counterfeits. Counterfeits I take avery dim view of because
they're taking money from my clients' pockets.
honestly. I think everyone knows the difference between an
authorized recording we'd put out.
they've made at our concerts I'm actually very relaxed about
even though the industry is formally opposed to it.
Europe, particularly in Italy -- you can find a whole range of
things that look like official U2 recordings in full color
packaging -- they are extremely poor quality with a very high
price tag and I think there should be more legal protection
against things like that.
dosen't in a setlist?
our rituals is that we have a post-mortem after every single
concert and discuss what worked, what didn't work.
it's Howie B as well. He's much more musical than I am.
self-criticism. Because a day later you can't really remember
much of the show. I will certainly make suggestions about what
should and shouldn't be in the setlist.
Found nor Pride were in the set and I really thought that
would be very bad. I still meet a lot of people who want
Sunday Bloody Sunday and Bad. Who knows, maybe they will turn
up in the set list before the end of the tour.
venues/concerts after Popmart. Any truth to that?
out. I get asked whether we'd like to play clubs and the
answer to that is no. We were pretty crap band in clubs. It
was really only when we got into the bigger places that the
scale seemed right.
people at least. There's an obvious loss of contact and
intimacy even with a show like PopMart with that size -- but
it's still a very big crowd.
I was amazed that people were still singing along.
things about having developed the expertise of playing very
large shows is that you want to extend it and see how far the
art form of the stadium rock spectacular can be taken.
take it on. The only other people in modern times who do
anything on this scale are the Rolling Stones.
it's becoming hip again to be big. I think that may lead other
rock and roll artists into performing on a large scale rather
than doing that veryboring thing of putting a stage up at the
end of a stadium.
like U2 together for 20 years?
getting the right people together in the first place.
them could play very well. The peole were more important than
the instruments. Over the 20 years we've been toegher we've
learned how to be together and how to keep out of each other's
way at times.
business relationship.
twice. But I don't think anyone would want to hear my harmony.
far? macphisto, the fly...etc...
different directions -- I don't know if you know the character
of Archie Rice in John Osborne's The Entertainer -- I think
MacPhisto derived a lot from him.
him.
an autograph and/or a picture?
the band are and I do sometimes feel they're only asking me
because they can't get an autograph from the band.
autograph.
when U2 are recording?
is definitely not a spectator's sport. I'm filled with
admiration but certainly no wish to be there!
required to spend months in a studio producing a great album.
For a non-participant it's a bit like watching paint dry.
and what do you do in your precious spare time?
tours, so I see them every couple of weeks. My son is 11, my
daughter is 12. I'm delighted that they think U2 are pretty
cool.
they're listening to and try to educate me what's cool.
from home.
job?
because they still are getting better. They're doing their
best work now. I'm sure the work they do after this will be
even better.
creative spark. I'm sure if that ever happens with U2, they'll
hang up their instruments and stop. The fact that it hasn't
happened is exciting.
never into Led Zeppelin until Adam turned me on in the early
80s. I also listened to opera, classical music. I have an
involvement in an ethnic label from Ireland called Celtic
Heartbeat.
I have very broad tastes. I'm always a little disappointed
when people express their interest in a single genre.
they don't care to address the great variety of people's
taste.
starting managing Sinead O'Connor. And we manage another
artist called Lazlo Bane. He's just made his first record.
involved in Celtic Heartbeat which is a business of mine.
which is a joint venture with PolyGram.
on who we like and who's available. We rarely choose those
bands on the basis of selling tickets.
to attract them with the opening act.
if they're unknown to them. We've had some good bands on this
tour -- Rage Against The Machine, Oasis, Fun Lovin' Criminals.
country -- in Italy we had a band called Casino Royale. In
France and Spain we had a band called Placebo. In Ireland we
had Ash. In Wembley we had Audioweb and Long Pings. We had a
band called Skunk Anansie.
have learned if youcome early the opening act will be worth
seeing.
after the tour is over - can we bid on the inflatable olive or
slices of the lemon?
get in touch with us! Adam has said it's the transport of the
future.
The other bits -- who knows. I'm not sure anyone will have
much use for the arch. I don't know. Maybe we could have an
auction.
open in Seattle?
answer is no. But if they want to, that would be fine. They
know how to get in touch.
music industry today? Bono believes music is too boring. Do
you share this thought?
music around. I think what I was referring to before, the lack
of interest by the industry and the diversity of people.
acts, or baby acts, as we call them. I'm delighted by the
phenomenon of Oasis in that candidly admit they want to be a
big band.
decidedly unhip to be in a big band which is ridiculous.
People join bands in order to get onstage and sell lots of
records. That's the rock and roll instinct. I believe that's
why people join bands.
of joy being a rock and roll band on a roll.
yourself sitting on your hands during Rattle & Hum?
involved in that! I never sat on my hands. I thought it was a
good film but a band campaign. I've said before that we
underestimated the impact of a full-blown 1400 screen movie
release.
way from record marketing in that you get hit over the head
with it all at once. It's an inappropriate way of marketing
formusic and I think our audience were turned off by that.
Underlying it was a very good film and a very good record.
of all time. It had a huge Friday night, Saturday it
tailedoff, and no one turned up on Sunday. Gave Paramount a
bit of a shock, but exciting to U2 fans.
some time. There's an enormous quantity of records made -- B
sides that have never been compiled properly, remixes . . .
boxed set signals the end of somebody's career and we're
certainly not at the end or anything like it of U2's career.
people, ticket scalping, people taking advantage of our
audience, those sort of things.
It's not so much that we're control freaks, we just want to
ensure if you buy something U2, it should be worth the money.
taste in music? bands like the spice girls are topping the
charts while bands like u2 are not doing as well?
tradition of pop-of-the-moment and I think they do what they
do rather amusingly.
pretty.
fans? How do we differ from other fans? Are they positive or
negative differences?
and the people who go online are slightly more studious.
party atmosphere generating. I don't think the people who tune
into the PopMart site on MSN are different from U2's other
fans.
shows?
VMA's had a verysignificant rating. It's a way of reaching the
audience. Showing people who might not otherwise see U2
perform live how good they are.
years FOR THIS !!!!!!!!!!
South American tour. We're very excited about going to South
America and indeed we're overdue.
Aires and Santiago will be absolutely wild.
Spain and Portugal and no doubt about it, the further south
you go, the more exciting it is.
various tasks and responsibilities in a typical day of
touring?
the record company in all the countries in the world where we
sell records.
with the production -- our command structure is quite military
adn the people who run the stage show are briefed to put up
the show physically in an identical way in each city.
environment. Watching out for trouble. I'm basically in charge
of worrying.
locked up in a vault? A lot of fans would love to see it.
that song was a hit and went straight into making a video
before the song was played on the radio.
most popular track in 1987 so clearly it wasn't the hit single
we imagined it to be.
Jordan without checking to see whether the audience liked the
song.
and embarassing. That's the reason it's been deep sixed.
the crowd during Pop Muzik?
Oscar de la Hoya -- we wanted to copy an authentic boxer's
robe and I think he suggested the traditional Las Vegas
boxer's entry.
ideas have many claimants. Success has many parents and
failure is an orphan.
cameos from you :)?
in the Simpsons episode. I do not have a role myself.
site at u2popmart@msn.com.
Posted by Jonathan at 09:43 PM | Comments (0)
September 21, 1997
Bono Says Sarajevo Concert "Belongs To The Future"
Pre-Sarajevo Popmart concert, September 21, 1997
Bono Says Sarajevo Concert "Belongs To The Future"
By Caroline Smith, Reuters
SARAJEVO, Sept 21 (Reuter) - In what is being billed as the biggest concert ever staged in Sarajevo, the rock group U2 is about to fulfil a promise lead singer Bono made to the city shortly after Bosnia's war ended in 1995.
The Irish group's concert in Kosevo stadium on Tuesday will be the first major pop spectacular in Sarajevo since the war ended and is already providing welcome relief to a people tired of politics and the memory of years under siege.
Bono used U2 concerts to attack Western powers for failing to end the war in Bosnia and celebrated New Year's Eve here with his wife Ali in 1995. He did not perform but promised to return and hold a concert in 1997.
"Don't worry, next time I'll bring the band," he said after arriving on a United Nations aid flight in December 1995, just a few weeks after the war ended.
In a telephone interview with Bosnian state television on Sunday, Bono said that if rock and roll music could be summed up in one word, it would be the word liberation.
"Music doesn't know political divides and music has a joy that ignores borders and defies borders even, this is what we've always stood for as a group."
He said he did not want to patronise Sarajevans by pretending to have a great message but said the whole U2 tour "extravaganza" would show "this is a cultural city for the future and this concert belongs to the future not the past."
Bono said the band could relate to Bosnia because of the long-running dispute in Northern Ireland between pro-British Protestants who want to be ruled by London and nationalists who want to create a united all-Ireland state.
"We come from Ireland, it's a small country and we have been divided also. We are trying to wrestle our world from the fools of the past and give it to the wise men of the future."
Kosevo stadium is being transformed by hundreds of workers, 450 of them just to build the stage and sound system.
An advance guard of 250 of U2's own technicians was due to arrive in Sarajevo on Sunday to help build the 30-metre (90 foot) high stage backed by a giant screen. Organisers said the group had invested $1 million to stage the concert.
Organisers have printed 45,000 tickets, which have been priced three to four times lower than anywhere else on U2's PopMart tour, but expect around 50,000 people to turn up, a spokeswoman said on Sunday.
Special trains will bring fans from across Bosnia and thousands are expected to arrive from other former Yugoslav republics Slovenia and Croatia -- Slovenes have been told they will not require a visa for the evening.
The inflow of visitors is likely to cause havoc around the city, reachable only on narrow, winding mountain roads which 60 U2 trucks will have to navigate to bring in equipment.
The organisational board for the concert groups most of the government of the Moslem-Croat Federation, which makes up half of present-day Bosnia, including the head of the country's collective presidency, Alija Izetbegovic.
Izetbegovic told Bosnian state television: "This concert...will not only be an event for Sarajevo but I could say without exaggeration it is an event for the entire planet."
Copyright © 1997 Reuters/Variety. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:40 AM | Comments (0)
Bosnia Hit By U2 Fever
Pre-Sarajevo Popmart concert, September 21, 1997
Bosnia Hit By U2 Fever
By Caroline Smith, Reuters
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Reuter) - In what is being billed as the biggest concert ever to be staged in Sarajevo, Irish rock group U2 is about to fulfill a promise lead singer Bono made to the city shortly after the war ended in 1995.
The band's concert in Sarajevo's Kosevo Stadium Tuesday will be the first major pop spectacular in the city since the war ended and is already providing welcome relief to a people tired of politics and the memory of years under siege.
Bono used U2 concerts to attack Western powers for failing to end the war in Bosnia and celebrated New Year's Eve here with his wife Ali in 1995. He did not perform but promised to return and hold a concert in 1997.
"Sarajevo is a part of Europe and we want to celebrate that...Don't worry next time I'll bring the band," he said after arriving on a United Nations aid flight in December 1995, just a few weeks after the war ended.
"If rock'n roll music means anything, it's some kind of liberation...It is about freedom in the end," he said.
Kosevo Stadium is being transformed by hundreds of workers, 450 of them just to build the stage and sound system.
An advance guard of 250 of U2's own technicians was due to arrive in the city Sunday to help construct the 90 foot high stage backed by a giant screen. Organizers said the group had invested $1 million to stage the concert.
Organizers have printed 45,000 tickets but expect around 50,000 people to turn up, a spokeswoman said Sunday.
Special trains will bring fans from across Bosnia and thousands are expected to arrive from other former Yugoslav republics Slovenia and Croatia -- Slovenes have been told they will not require a visa for the evening.
The inflow of visitors is likely to cause havoc around the city, reachable only on narrow, winding mountain roads which 60 U2 trucks will have to navigate to bring in equipment.
Copyright © 1997 Reuters/Variety. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:39 AM | Comments (0)
September 03, 1997
"Tagging Along"
Hot Press magazine/Matt McGee, September 3, 1997
Tagging Along
By Matt McGee
It was big and yellow and it was in Bono's mouth.
No, yer man hasn't swallowed the POP Mart arch. Not yet.
He has been officially inducted into an Internet subculture of U2 fans known as "Wire." (Edge has, too, and he has the Tag to prove it.)
That big yellow thing? A "Wire Tag." Bono had it in his mouth as he ran around the catwalk during U2's show in Chicago on 29 June. While you may not see it in Bono's mouth at the Lansdowne Road gig, you will surely come to know plenty about "Wire," the internet mailing list for U2 fans: The Wirelings (as they're known) and their yellow tags are planning to overtake Dublin in the days surrounding the U2 concert.
They're also bringing a traveling version of the graffiti-soaked Windmill Lane walls: A 30-foot long, black-and-white banner signed by every Wireling who's seen it so far during the band's POP Mart tour, including Bono, Edge, Larry, Adam, and Paul McGuinness.
The banner reads "World Wide Wire", and that it is. It's been to all but four shows on the first leg of the tour, and it's making its way through the European dates now, taken by an internet-worked group of fans who've volunteered to carry the 10-pound banner from gig-to-gig.
The idea is "to create a tangible testimonial to our virtual world of Wire," says 31-year-old Mike Conway of New York, who led the charge in making the banner and establishing the network of fans. "But really, we just wanted a way to bring the folks of this [mailing] list together, share our love for the band, and have something in the end which represents this love."
Bono was the first in the band to sign the banner -- "To the men and women behind the Wire," he wrote. Paul McGuinness signed it the same day. Edge put his name to it a few days later in Pittsburgh; Adam and Larry got on board in Chicago.
Conway already has volunteers set up in South America, Australia, and New Zealand to carry the banner to shows which haven't been announced yet. And when all is said and done, the Wire banner could end up in one town where POP Mart isn't stopping: Conway plans to donate the banner to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Crowning Moment
Wire Tags are the brainchild of Angie Inboden, an 18-year-old fan from Illinois. "I'm so happy I got the idea and ran with it," Angie says. "All of the stories I heard of people meeting each other made it the most worthwhile."
To get a Wire Tag, you're supposed to be a member of Wire. That's the only qualification. That, or being in the band. Angie personally delivered tags to Bono and Edge outside U2's hotel in Chicago.
"I did feel incredibly proud when I gave Bono a tag and he was happy to receive one of his own," she says. "He said, 'Now I get one too, eh?' with a smile that made me so grateful that I'd acted on the idea in the first place. He had me tie it, and he ended up wrapping it around his wrist because it wouldn't fit over his hat. I think that was kind of the crowning moment."
There have been other moments, too. The same night of the tag-in-mouth episode, Bono changed the lyrics to "Even Better Than The Real Thing", singing "Give me two more chances to ride on the Wire that you bring."
Angie is quick to point out that getting Bono to wear a tag and sing about Wire was never the idea behind the Wire Tags. It started out as a way for Internet friends to recognize each other in a crowd of U2 fans. There are about 4,000 subscribers to the Wire mailing list, and Angie estimates there are at least 1,200 wearing Wire Tags to POP Mart shows around the globe. (The actual count is impossible to guess because many fans are making their own tags.)
"It was great having the tags on and meeting other fans from Wire," says Donna Souza, who's worn her tag from Vegas to Philadelphia, Madison to Foxboro, and a lot of places in between. "They help us find friends in strange cities and places."
The tags won't get you anywhere -- at least they're not supposed to -- but they will get you noticed. They measure about 5" by 7", and they're laminated with black lettering on a bright, yellow background.
"I think I realized that the idea was really working," Angie says, "when I got email the day after the Las Vegas concert from someone telling me that he had met 50 people he otherwise wouldn't have met because he was wearing a tag identifying him as a member of Wire. And it kept happening!"
And it's still happening. Hey Dublin: tag, you're it.
Copyright © 1997 Hot Press/Matt McGee. All rights reserved.
Posted by Jonathan at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)