June 2009 Archives

U2's unearthly new tour set-up, consisting of The Claw and its revolving stage, makes its debut tonight at Barcelona's Camp Nou stadium - it promises to be a whole new live experience

Brian Boyd, Irish Times

IT LOOKS like a gigantic prop from a sci-fi film, costs about €100 million, is affectionately known as The Claw and all things going well will change the way we experience the live concert tour. When U2 begin their "360-degree" world tour tonight in the Barcelona's Camp Nou, they will be taking not just a huge financial risk with their radical stage set-up but perhaps setting in train a new idea for stage configuration that will have many imitators in the future.

Speaking about the tour, Bono says The Claw was his idea - an engineering challenge he had been working on for the past seven years. "The Claw is all to do with how you can play outdoors without using a proscenium stage with a big bank of speakers on the left and right. Every outdoor stage show you've ever seen uses that configuration. This idea we're now working on will mean more people can fit into the shows, there will be better sight lines and everyone will be closer to the action," he says.

With one day before the opening show, a rather official-looking video from Mark Haefeli Productions has been released on Youtube. It features stage construction, soundbites from band manager Paul McGuinness and tour producer Arthur Fogel.

At Camp Nou in Barcelona, U2 manager Paul McGuinness and head architect Mark Fischer talk for a few seconds about the impending U2 360° Tour.

Webmaster's Note: If you are looking for the latest setlists from the U2 360° Tour, please go here: http://www.u2station.com/tours/u2-360-tour

Even though the U2 tour doesn't come my way until October, my friends and I are already eagerly anticipating it and making our plans. I'm already planning a trip to the stadium to take a look at parking and a decent place to eat before the show. Like everyone else, we are just die-ing to know the set list. Let's face it,the rumors may or may not be true, but it is just so much fun to wonder what they may perform. A U2 tour does not happen very often, us fans have to milk it for every bit of excitement we can get.
What would I change about the set list? I agree that the stage set up just screams Pop and lets' not forget Zooropa. Lemon is one of my all time favorite songs and they hardly ever perform it live. What about Zoo Station or Even Better Than the Real Thing? I absolutely love City of Blinding Lights, Beautiful Day and Elevation. I never get tired of these, no matter how many times I hear them. A snippet of a Desmond Tutu speech might work really well as an intro to Where the Streets Have No Name (remember the MLK speech in Pride during the Zoo TV tour?). But I don't get it as an opener for Ultraviolet. Don't get me wrong I LOVE Moment of Surrender and Unknown Caller, but I really don't think they will work live. I picture everyone taking a bathroom break during these songs.
Well, at least we won't have to wait long to find out what they actually do play during those first shows. Let's not forget that the show may change a bit during the earliest days of the tour.

Manel Fuentes of Spanish TV Station Catalan TV3 talks with Bono at Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona, Spain.

By Steve Appleford, LA Times

Davis Guggenheim filmed Jimmy Page, the Edge and Jack White geeking out about the electric guitar.

Davis Guggenheim calls himself a "Behind the Music" junkie, watching every episode of the VH1 show chronicling famous rock stars' rise and fall and rise again amid triumph and self-destruction. He loves it, he says, but the Academy Award-winning director of "An Inconvenient Truth" had other ideas for his own documentary on the electric guitar.

In "It Might Get Loud," he focused on three masters of the instrument from different generations, each with a different style -- Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, U2's the Edge and the White Stripes' Jack White -- and there would be no talk of girlfriends or rehab or black magic, none of the sordid subjects that have fueled rock documentaries for decades.

Time is winding down for the opening night of U2's highly anticipated world tour, "U2 360". In less than two weeks, the Irish rockers will be embarking on their first global trek since its massively successful "Vertigo" tour.

U2.com has been providing updates on the stage production and the band's preparation for the June 30th performance in Barcelona. And with the way things look in Spain so far, fans are going to be getting their money's worth.

When it comes to the talked-about "Claw" stage design, Production Director Jake Berry said, "Seeing it here is something else. I think jaws are going to drop when people come through those doors on opening night."

Irish Central,

The family men that make up U2 will call their summer houses in the South of France their home base during the European leg of their U2360 Tour this summer.

Ireland's Herald reports Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton are all planning to grab their families and head to their vacation homes on the Cote D'Azur before their tour kicks off in Barcelona on June 30.

From there, the Irish mega band will have a private jet stationed at Nice Airport to transport them to gigs in countries from Spain to the Netherlands, and back to Ireland.

Bono and The Edge have neighboring villas in Eze Sur Mer, while Larry and Adam own homes in nearby neighborhoods.

I have been away for a few weeks. After 7 years in remission a routine oncology screening found a small spot of the big C (cancer). Since my last blog, I have gone through surgery and radiation. In short, life has been CRAP!.

I was having an especially bad day the other day. I had radiation, which makes me weak and hungry. But, before I could eat or go home, I had to go to city hall and pay my overdue gas bill. The last thing I wanted to do was fight for parking and stand in line. But, there i was standing in line when I noticed that the guy walking up to stand behind me had on a U2 t-shirt. I couldn't help myself--I had to smile!!!

A few day later and I was in a restaurant devouring my food when u2's "Beautiful Day" came over the sound system. I listened to the words and let the energy of the music wash over me. Then, I remembered: Yes, it really is a beautiful day.

Shot on June 5, 2009, U2's forthcoming 360° Tour arrives in Barcelona's Camp Nou stadium with preliminary testing of the "Claw".

Paul Martin, The Mirror

Rockers U2 have hired a security team to guard their dressing rooms during their new tour -- because fans kept nicking mementoes from their backstage compound.

They were so fed-up with items going missing during their last tour they have put beefed-up security measures in place for their first gig in Barcelona later this month.

The measures include drafting in 50 guards, installing CCTV and watch towers to keep an eye on band members' private rooms.

On Pat Kenny's final show as the host of the Late Late Show on RTE, U2 perform Magnificent in spectacular fashion. Watch the performance and the interview right here.