October 2009 Archives

Rolling Stone

As the second night of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary came to its climax, after nearly four hours of jaw-dropping musical collaborations, almost anything seemed possible. By this point Metallica had played with Ozzy Osbourne, Ray Davies and Lou Reed; Jeff Beck had jammed with Sting and Billy Gibbons; and U2 brought out Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen and the Black Eyed Peas for their closing set. Yet, few people were prepared for what happened when U2 began playing the intro to "Gimme Shelter" with Will.i.am at the keyboard and Fergie recreating Merry Clayton's apocalyptic vocal intro. Without a word of introduction by Bono, surprise guest Mick Jagger sprinted onstage as the capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden let out one of the loudest cheers I've ever heard.

Relive the Rock Hall's second giant night in live photos.

The show began, as it did on night one, with Jerry Lee Lewis alone at the piano. This time he did "Great Balls of Fire" -- concluding with the 74-year-old legend violently kicking over his piano stool. A short film about gospel and soul music preceded Aretha Franklin's entrance, who looked radiant in a bright red dress. Backed by a huge band that featured her son Teddy on guitar and a horn section, Franklin's set featured a cover of "New York, New York" and her 1970 hit "Don't Play That Song (You Lied)," which she dedicated to the song's co-writer, Ahmet Ertegun. Annie Lennox, who bowed down to Franklin as she took the stage, dueted on "Chain of Fools" and Lenny Kravitz joined the Queen of Soul for "Think." An encore of "Respect" had the entire crowd singing "R-E-S-P-E-C-T."

By David Bauder, Associated Press Writer

U2 brought three generations of chart-toppers -- Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen and the Black Eyed Peas -- with them onstage Friday at another night of mix and match magic at Madison Square Garden.

Metallica brought the thunder to Lou Reed and Ray Davies. It was the second of two concerts to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and they will be edited into an HBO special to be seen on Thanksgiving weekend.

During U2's set, Bono was waxing poetic about the spiritual, physical and political power of rock 'n' roll until finally the Boss had had enough.

"Let's have some fun with it," Springsteen said. They performed U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," with Bono and Springsteen trading call-and-response vocals during the final verse.

Los Angeles Times

For a band that has its own 3-D film and is performing under a giant spaceship-like contraption on its current tour, an Internet stream may not seem all that fancy. Yet it certainly proved to be a powerful promotional device.

U2's live broadcast Sunday night of the Pasadena stop on its 360 Tour generated 10 million streams across seven continents, according to a YouTube spokesman. What's more, since being archived on YouTube on Monday, the concert has tallied more than 1 million streams.

Information, however, on the average length of time viewers watched the nearly 2 1/2-hour concert was not readily available. YouTube has also not yet broken the numbers out into individual users.

Now Pop & Hiss is being purely speculative here, but it's probably a safe bet that the latter number was a few million fewer than 10 million, considering the U2 channel on YouTube has generated about 8.4 million views, as of Wednesday evening.

By Graeme McRanor, Vancouver Sun

Reportedly, U2's 360 tour requires anywhere from 120 to 189 trucks and busses to haul its giantclaw-like stage and the 500-strong crew needed for the production around North America.

Add to that the bands private jet and its 70,000 miles logged over the course of the two-year, worldwide tour and, well, thats a pretty substantial carbon footprint.

However, if we're to believe the spin from a certain American music rag, the timing for such a colossal greenhouse fart couldn't be better.

After all, with the world mired in its various crises, they argue, what better time to tour with such an audacious, irresponsible rock spectacular?

BERLIN -- Lucky U2 fans have found what they were looking for.

The 10,000 tickets for the Irish rockers' free Nov. 5 show in front of Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate were snapped up in just three hours.

Hopeful concert-goers went online at 9 a.m. (0800 GMT) to get tickets for the four-song show, at one point crashing the Web site operated by German ticket company Eventim. All the tickets were gone by noon.

The concert is a tribute to the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago on Nov. 9, 1989.

U2 are to perform a free concert at the Brandenburg Gate to mark 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The 5 November gig will form part of the MTV Europe Music Awards in the German capital and precede events to mark the anniversary.

The quartet moved to Berlin in 1990 to reinvent their sound for hit album Achtung Baby, which was recorded at the city's Hansa Studios.

Tickets will be available at the U2 and MTV websites.

'Exciting spot'

The band's performance will be beamed into the MTV Awards, which are taking place at Berlin's O2 World arena.

U2 manager Paul McGuinness said: "It'll be an exciting spot to be in, 20 years almost to the day since the wall came down. Should be fun."

There are many reviews of each U2 show, maybe even in the hundreds across the world. I figure most of the fans have already read them. They state what was played and how it sounded. Where U2 has come from and how this concert depicts where they will be in the future. I'm positive they all mention how this particular concert was live on you tube, which I believe is a first for any concert (U2 always breaking the mold). If you want to see the concert through my eyes keep on reading. If you want to know exactly what they played and how it sounded.... click on continue reading and scroll down to the bottom of the page!

Rock superstars will return to North America next summer.

By Gil Kaufman, MTV

You don't build the most high-tech, enormous stage in the history of rock and then just put the thing in mothballs. And that's exactly why U2 will be bringing their massive 360 Tour back to North America next summer for another string of dates in a handful of the cities they missed the first time around and a few they clearly just can't leave behind.

The return engagements will find the Irish superstars hitting up Chicago and Toronto again, along with new dates in Oakland, California; Edmonton, Alberta; Anaheim, California; Denver; Seattle; East Lansing, Michigan; Miami; Philadelphia; and Montreal. The first gig on the 2010 12-city trek is a June 6 stop at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California and the swing is slated to take the group through a July 19 show at the new Meadowland Stadium in East Rutherford. A string of European dates will follow in August and run through early October.

By Amy Eisinger, NY Daily News Staff Writer

Millions of people from around the globe caught Sunday's U2 concert - right from their home computers.

The legendary rock group set yet another career record Sunday night as the first band to broadcast a concert live on the popular video sharing Web site YouTube. The band performed at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. in front of a crowd of 100,000 while simultaneously, Internet users from 16 countries around the world were able to tune in to the concert from the comfort of their own homes.

Thousands of fans left messages for the band thanking them for the free concert, says Spinner.com.

October 20th, 2009
Location: Phoenix, Arizona USA
Opening Act: Black Eyed Peas.

U2 makes an invasion in Phoenix, Az on the night of October 20th, 2009, with a bang, and it couldn't have came at a better time.

Los Angeles Times

The U2 show at the Rose Bowl may have been billed as the concert of the century but this is also the "decade of the fanboy" and I couldn't help but notice some overlap between the massive music event and the universe we cover here at the Hero Complex.

I was only inside the venue for 10 minutes when I saw a familiar face in the churning crowd of the stadium's outer ring. I called out to J.J. Abrams and he smiled, waved and paused but really there was no way to stop and talk amid the crowd current. "See you inside," he said.

My son, Ben, who is 8, was attending his very first concert and he recognized Abrams but not as the creative brand behind "Lost," "Star Trek" and "Fringe": "Hey, he's the guy who played keyboards in that video 'Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions,' right?" Um, wow, yeah, son, that is him.

We were lucky enough to get bracelets for the pre-show party at the Round Room, a swanky (but sweltering) VIP tent, and one of the first people we saw when we walked in was Ewan MacGregor, who was posing for pictures with some people. Ben was properly awed by the presence of Obi-Wan Kenobi and he was searching faces in the rest of the room in hopes, I suspect, that Chewbacca might be in some corner debating the merits of "Joshua Tree" with General Grievous.

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - When U2 producer Danny Lanois and the band made "The Unforgettable Fire" in 1984, they recorded it at an Irish castle because they wanted a place with history, which Lanois said suited him just fine.

The album, which will be re-released on Tuesday in a remastered 25th anniversary edition, marked the first time U2 worked with Brian Eno and Lanois, two producers who would collaborate with the band several times more, and not always in a conventional studio setting.

Before arriving at Ireland's Slane Castle, an 18th Century structure overlooking the River Boyne, the Canadian-born Lanois had recorded in unusual places and he was ready to lend that expertise to U2 and its singer Bono.

"Bono was looking for a different kind of location, a building that had ghosts in the walls and some kind of a sense of history," Lanois told Reuters. "So that we weren't just in an empty modern warehouse, that we were actually feeling the presence of goings-on from the past," he said.

Los Angeles Times

"Enough of the folk mass!" declared Bono during U2's historic Rose Bowl performance Sunday, leading his band and the nearly 100,000 fans in the stadium out of a singalong and into a dance party. The 49-year-old singer/activist/life of the party has been making such quick metaphorical turns for much of his life, fronting a band known for transcendence but hardly immune to sensual pleasure.

Usually, Bono and his band mates travel from prayers to come-ons on the force of charisma and a sound that's ascendant and sleekly funky, structured around the Edge's stretchy guitar parts and Bono's dirty-faced choirboy cries. But for this tour, U2 has adopted another mode of transport: the four-legged circular stage rig known as the Claw, or the Space Station. This contraption is an extravagance with a big carbon footprint and an even bigger price tag. But in Pasadena, it proved worth every Euro, allowing this most ambitious rock band to genuinely reconfigure live pop performance.

Plenty of artists have played in the round, built multi-tiered sets and spent time roaming through the crowd on ramps or trapezes. But the Space Station (Bono's preferred term these days) changes the architecture of the live concert. It not only puts the stadium audience closer to the band, it cuts holes in the fourth wall between star and fan, creating a feeling of immersion and communal connection that's startling in such a huge venue, and that translated differently in person than it could have on YouTube, where the concert was streamed live.

By Randall Roberts in Last Night, LA Weekly

It was cool. It was a big Happening with flashing lights, lots of color, inspiration, 100,000 people screaming along in unison, moved by the pure ... spectacle of it. If we were in North Korea, these songs would have been about the Supreme Leader and we would have all been flashing colored placards in unison rather than putting on masks of Aung San Suu Kyi or waving our cell phones in the air. The comparison fails for any number of reasons, but it is true that when you stick this many people with a shared enthusiasm into the same space, the power of it is overwhelming -- and can be a little scary.

But we're in America at the gosh dang Rose Bowl, so the big-ticket mass happening is not trippy North Korean dancers but an Irish rock band with a charismatic lead singer, beautifully enormous love songs, a BlackBerry sponsorship and a lot of money to put on a high-tech power sucking extravaganza that delivers a noble and honest message of peace. Songs from the heart, to the People, for the People. To heal them. To inspire them. Everything is going to be all right.

"If stadium rock is the final frontier, U2 has boldly gone where no rock band has gone before." -- The Globe & Mail, Toronto.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- When it wraps up this week, the U2 360 Tour will have played to over 3 million fans in just 44 cities. With record shattering sales including the largest attendance at the Rose Bowl this evening as well as setting the all time record at New York's Giant Stadium where the audience surpassed that of the Pope - the largest rock and roll touring production ever has just confirmed the return to North America beginning June 6th at Anaheim's Angel Stadium. The tour is once again produced by Live Nation Global Touring and sponsored by BlackBerry®.

Having performed in a limited number of North American cities in 2009, U2 360 is set to touch down in a new set of stadiums next summer including stops in Anaheim; Denver; Oakland; Seattle; Edmonton; East Lansing; Miami; Philadelphia and Montreal. Due to overwhelming demand, U2 360 will also return for one night only in Toronto and Chicago before finishing the North American leg in New York at the New Meadowlands Stadium.

MG Siegler, Washington Post / TechCrunch.com

It's kind of crazy to think that the band U2 has been popular for about 30 years now. Over that three decade span, the group has had music that has ranged from brilliant (War, The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby) to self-indulgent (Pop) to a bit odd (Zooropa). But there has been one constant: They've always been a great live act. And tonight, a lot of the world will be able to see that from their computer screens.

U2 is streaming their concert tonight from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California live to YouTube. As the site announced earlier this week, some 16 countries will be able to view the show live: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, U.K., U.S. (other countries were presumably excluded due to streaming rights). The show will start at 8:30 PM PT tonight, and you can find it here.

During the show, YouTube will also feature a Twitter widget below the video player that will be displaying tweets from people who use the #U2webcast hashtag.

By Nekesa Mumbi Moody, AP

Even while maintaining its status as one of the few musical acts that can still fill stadiums, U2 is struck by how quickly its world is changing -- musically and politically.

Charismatic front man Bono, in a reflective mood as U2 closes the North American leg of its "360" tour, notes the different, more polarized atmosphere in the United States since the band performed its anthem, "City of Blinding Lights," at President Obama's inauguration in January.

"I didn't think it could come to this so quickly, after the joyous occasion of that election," Bono says in an interview on board the band's plane, as they jet to another stop on the tour. "I thought America was looking good. ... Things are getting a little rough now."

Bono says he's been in touch with Obama and is confident the president will deliver on promises made during the campaign, including the singer's favorite issue: funding to fight AIDS in Africa. "The Obama administration is just getting going. (He) has promised to double aid over the next years, because even though (President George W.) Bush tripled it, ... the United States is still about half as what European countries give as a percentage, and I think he knows that's not right."

By Jason Bracelin, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Sixteen songs in, he spelled out the theme of the evening -- and maybe even that of an entire career -- over a mean-spirited beat hard enough to make Play-Doh out of spinal columns.

"The right to be ridiculous is something I hold dear," U2 frontman Bono boomed as if his innards had been replaced with dynamite. GRADE: A

U2's Popmart Stage at Sam Boyd Stadium,
Las Vegas in 1997

By John Katsilometes, Las Vegas Sun

Not many bands possess the artistic confidence to dial up a "do over" in the midst of a performance in front of 40,000 fans, but U2 owns such chutzpah.

A quadrumvirate that has long ignored boundaries both physical and artistic, U2 began its haughty PopMart tour at Sam Boyd Stadium in April 1997. Among the stage effects build on the stadium surface were a 56-by-170-foot LED screen, a 100-foot tall golden arch that reminded some concert-goers of McDonald's if McDonald's were to open a franchise on planet Makus III, and a 40-foot-high mirrored lemon.

Yes: A lemon of 40 feet, covered in mirrors. And we thought the Disco Armadillo at Texas Station's South Padre nightclub was a gaudy showpiece.

With all these moving parts, and the fact that this was the first show of the tour, a mishap seemed destined. It occurred as the band took to the auxiliary stage for a first take on the then-new single, "Staring at the Sun." The start of the song was such a mishmash that the band stopped playing, pausing to regroup as Bono announced, "We're just having a family row." Similar to Emeril as he hurls paprika on a needy slice of meat, the band kicked it up a notch and the crowd went nuts.

By Janette Williams, Pasadena Star-News Staff Writer

PASADENA - With major construction underway on transforming the Rose Bowl's interior for Sunday's U2 concert - the largest in the Irish rockers' and stadium history - the buzz is building, General Manager Darryl Dunn said Wednesday.

"This is the only event I remember getting this kind of hype," Dunn said. "I knew U2 was a popular band, but I didn't know it was like this. Once in a while, not often, you know something's going to be big, but this is in the stratosphere."

You'd have to go back to the 1994 World Cup final or the classic 2006 Bowl Championship Series game between USC and Texas to get the same sense of building excitement, Dunn said.

And, he said, an almost unprecedented amount of planning has gone into Sunday's sold-out event, which will bring 96,000 fans to the Rose Bowl, starting when parking opens at 8 a.m.

It sounds impossible, but that's what designer Willie Williams had in mind for the structure.

By Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times

The man who designed the stage set for U2's current 360° Tour, which stops Sunday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, knows that the size of his creation is cause for attention.

"How many miles of cable, how many trucks -- it's all very easy to pick up on," said Willie Williams, who has been working with the Irish rock band since 1982.

Still, Williams insists that the scale of it is "absolutely the least interesting thing about it," he said. "Even though it's very tall and very wide, the magic trick is that when you stand onstage the whole thing disappears. The reason it's so big is to make it invisible."

by Larry Rodgers, The Arizona Republic

Irish supergroup U2 used the biggest stage in rock to try to connect with tens of thousands of fans at University of Phoenix Stadium during the band's stop in Glendale, no matter which zip code they were sitting in.

"We built this spaceship to get closer to you," singer-activist Bono told the enthusiastic crowd Tuesday, Oct. 20. "We were looking for intimacy on a grand scale."

The impressive scale of U2's 360 Degree tour was accomplished with a four-legged stage dominating most of the south end of the stadium. The structure's 150-foot pinnacle nearly touched the edge of the stadium's open roof.

A cylindrical video screen that opened to 14,000 square feet made images of Bono, guitarist the Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. was visible in all corners of the stadium. A massive sound system blasted the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band's music into stadium hallways and restrooms.

Call it the Space Station. Call it the Space Ship. Call it the Claw. Call it whatever you want. The LA Times created a flash graphic of the in's and out's of this marvel of humanity and stuck it on their website in preparation for the 100,000 people seeing U2 at the Rose Bowl this coming Sunday. Study the largest production set ever built below.

Los Angeles Times

Not one of the 95,000 or so people descending upon Pasadena this Sunday for U2's 360 gig at the Rose Bowl? The band has thought of you too. Or, perhaps more accurately, you will benefit from the filming of the concert for an upcoming DVD release.

In an e-mail blast sent out to fans today, U2 announced that it will stream Sunday night's concert on YouTube. The show begins at 8:30 p.m., Pacific time.

UPDATED 1:25 P.M.: Chris Maxcy, director of YouTube partner development, said the Google-owned video streaming site is still determining whether there will be ads during the live stream and if so, what type.

He did confirm that the concert will be archived and available to view after it streams live. There will be overlay ads on the archived version.

I will be at this concert so If you see me wave.

Live on YouTube. This Sunday19 October 2009
California, US U2 have confirmed via video blog that their sold-out concert at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in California, this Sunday, 25th October, will be streamed free, in full and live on YouTube. It's the first time a show of this size will be streamed live.

The Rose Bowl show is the penultimate U2 show this year - with more to come in 2010 - and already is set to host the venue's biggest ever audience of over 96,000 fans. The 360° Tour, which has been critically acclaimed and 're-invents rock'n'roll' (Rolling Stone Magazine), will now boast unique access for fans worldwide - as fans in territories yet to be visited by the tour, or not at all, will be able to enjoy the whole show online.

by Malcolm Abram, Ohio.com

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced the unveiling of the new state-of-the-art Foster Theater and to celebrate the new addition they will be screening the film U2 3D from Tuesday, October 27 through Saturday, January 2, 2010.

As you can probably guess from the title, U2 3D is the venerated Rock Hall inducted band U2 in the first ever live-action 3-D Film. The concert was shot in South America during the final leg of the band's Vertigo tour and from most accounts I've heard and read, it is indeed quite an impressive experience. The band certainly was in fine from during their 2005 stop in Cleveland.

I have talked about albums, concerts and the band as a whole...but I haven't singled out any members. As a respectable fan, it is often looked down upon to have a "favorite". Or to find a member of the band "hot" puts you in a category that I'm not comfortable in.

That quote comes from Production Director Jake Berry. If you'd like to hear this and more, watch this behind the scenes video of members of U2's crew setting up and producing the U2 360° Tour courtesy of the NewsOK website.

by Larry Rodgers, The Arizona Republic

When Ireland's U2 won four Grammy Awards in 2001, singer Bono remarked that the group had earned the job title of "best band in the world."

Critics sniped at his lack of modesty (a trait Bono acknowledges), but it was hard to argue that U2 was not the best and biggest band in the world after it won nods for record of the year and best rock album two decades after its founding.

Since then, U2 has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, piled on eight more Grammys (for a total of 22) and sold millions of albums and concert tickets.

But as U2's 360° Tour prepares to land in Glendale on Tuesday, has the time come for the 30-year-old quartet to pass the "best and biggest band" torch to a younger act such as Green Day, Coldplay or Radiohead?

By Ray Waddell, ABC News

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Madonna, U2 and AC/DC are among the finalists for the 2009 Billboard Touring Awards, which are based on global box-office numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore from October 1, 2008, through September 30, 2009.

The awards will be presented at a November 5 reception in New York.

The finalists for the Top Tour and Top Draw awards, which acknowledge the top-grossing and top-ticket-selling tours, respectively, are the same three global treks: U2's 360 tour, Madonna's Sticky & Sweet tour, and AC/DC's Black Ice tour.

The Top Package award goes to the top-grossing tour with three or more artists on the bill. Finalists include five-time winner Kenny Chesney for his Sun City Carnival tour with Miranda Lambert, Lady Antebellum, Sugarland and Montgomery Gentry on the bill; the Jonas Brothers World Tour 2009 with Jordin Sparks, Honor Society and Wonder Girls; and Nickelback for their Dark Horse tour, with Hinder, Papa Roach, and Saving Abel on board.

By Chris Gray in Live Shots, Houston Press

A day or two before U2 (and love) came to town, a friend emailed us a joke. At least we think it's a joke. It really doesn't have anything to do with U2, except that it has everything to do with U2.

"I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, terrorism attacks, World War III, global warming, my retirement savings, Social Security, my job, national health care and my credit card debt that I called Lifeline.

"Got a freakin' call center somewhere in Pakistan. I told them I was suicidal. They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck."

In a concert that stretched from the International Space Station to the strife-torn streets of Tehran to a would-be martyr under house arrest in Myanmar, but never left Houston for a second, U2 owned the 60K-strong crowd at Reliant Stadium Wednesday night before (we'd wager) 80 to 90 percent of them even knew exactly what they were hearing.

Bono and The Edge sit in the seats usually reserved
for Spacecraft Communicators (CAPCOM's) during
their visit to NASA's Mission Control Center

By Clara Moskowitz, Space.com Staff Writer

As if being an astronaut wasn't already a dream job, add personal calls from the band U2 to the list of perks in space.

U2 members Bono and The Edge, along with Bono's sons Eli and John, stopped by NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston Tuesday to call up to the spaceflyers on the International Space Station.

"We've had our breath taken away this morning to be led in here into this place," Bono told the astronauts. "It is an amazing church of possibilities. We're here to pay homage."

Musicians, clowns and astronauts

The group made the stop while in town for their planned concert Wednesday at Houston's Reliant Stadium. They spoke to station commander Frank De Winne of Belgium, NASA astronauts Nicole Stott and Jeff Williams, and Russian cosmonauts Maxim Suraev and Roman Romanenko.

Check out a charming picture we've found (courtesy of NASA.gov) of U2's The Edge and Paul McGuinness, sitting in the cockpit of the NASA Space Shuttle during their visit to the Johnson Space Center. The two "flew" via their brief session in the motion-based version of the Shuttle Mission Simulator at the Jake Garn Mission Simulation and Training Facility in Houston, Texas earlier on Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning, U2's Bono and The Edge paid a visit to NASA in Houston, Texas where they made a call up to the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit around Earth. Below is nearly 18 minutes of video of what happened.

By John McAlley, NPR

What happens when the biggest stage show in rock and roll history -- U2's 360-Degree Tour -- sets up in the biggest domed stadium in the world -- the new $1.2 billion Cowboy Stadium?

The answer is obvious: big problems.

Although they've scorched crowds with some of the most incendiary concerts of the past decade, the Irish rock band has not attempted a run of stadium shows since 1997's much lambasted and remote-feeling PopMart tour. The 360-Degree outing, with its massive in-the-round stage set known affectionately as "The Claw," is intended to solve the intimacy problems of playing to crowds upwards of 80,000. The thinking: if the stage is almost as big as the stadium itself, no fan will be left behind.

Did it work in Dallas? Find out after the jump.

For The Transcript

The long-anticipated U2 concert is coming Oct. 18, and fans will be descending on Norman in large numbers for the Sunday evening event at the Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

With attendance estimates in the range of 50,000 to 60,000 for the event, the concert will impact the City of Norman and its resources very much like a home football game does. Traffic issues will therefore be handled by the Norman Police Department as they are on football Saturdays. This will include turning Lindsey Street one way east prior to the concert if traffic volume requires it, and one way west following the concert.

By Mario Tarradell, Dallas Morning News Music Critic

ARLINGTON - U2 is the quintessential stadium rock band.

We don't need further proof of that. But if we did, Monday night's show at Cowboys Stadium certainly would serve as enough evidence. More than 70,000 people witnessed the North Texas stop of the Irish group's 360 Degrees Tour. The floor, which was standing-room-only and surrounded the mammoth stage, was an ocean of human beings.

Then we have that platform contraption. Let's call it a spaceship merged with a spider, its four claw-like structures flanking a circular riser and an outer ring. The two were connected by movable bridges. Above the band was a spectacular rotating video screen that extemded into a funnel-like cloud constantly lit for maximum effect.

By Janette Williams, Pasadena Star-News Staff Writer

PASADENA - With just two weeks and a day to go before 96,000 fans of the legendary Irish rockers U2 descend on the Rose Bowl, preparations have intensified for the biggest music event in city history, General Manager Darryl Dunn said.

"We're heavy, heavy, heavy into U2," he said. "I've never seen such an intense effort on parking and traffic related to a special event...It's all being really hyped up. This particular date is a very important one on the tour and a really important show for the Rose Bowl, and everyone associated with it is trying to put their best foot forward."

The size and scope of the Oct. 26 concert - the largest on U2's world "360 Tour" - will be a test for the Rose Bowl.

"It will take a full six days of building before the stage is ready for the artists to come in and load their stuff," said Brian Murphy, a senior vice president with LA Music, local promoter of the event. "The top portion will be higher than the rim (of the Rose Bowl) and you'll be able to see it driving on the 134" Ventura Freeway.

FROM WIRE REPORTS Christopher Quinn, Cox Newspapers

ATLANTA - American religion has adopted the rock band U2. Its lyrics can be heard coming from pulpits. Its music ringing out in sanctuaries. Its videos show up in Sunday school classes.

Rabbi Steve Lebow of Kol Emeth in Marietta, Ga., said: "I taught a class on rock 'n' roll and spirituality. When you do a search of which band has the most biblical allusions and spiritual themes, U2 comes up as No. 1."

Jake Hill started teaching a class at Atlanta's Saint James United Methodist Church in September called the Theology of U2. It attracts about 15 people on Wednesday nights.

"Most of their songs have a message of unity, we are all in this together to make this work," Hill said.

Circus entrepreneur and "first clown in space" Guy Laliberte has hosted a global artistic performance from the International Space Station (ISS).

BBC

Mr Laliberte introduced artists and speakers from 14 countries in a two-hour show aimed at drawing attention to global water shortages.

Al Gore, Bono and Salma Hayek were among those involved.

Mr Laliberte, founder of the Cirque du Soleil theatre company, is near the end of a 10-day tourist visit to the ISS.

The show, called Moving Stars and Earth for Water, was described by its organisers as a Poetic Social Mission.

It began at midnight GMT, with a welcome from Mr Laliberte onboard the ISS.

"It's not a hill it's a mountain

As you start out the climb

Do you believe me or are you doubtin?

We're gonna make it all the way to the light

But I know I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight."

Orlando Sentinel

When Desmond Tutu and a guy literally in outer space only qualify as extras, it's an understatement to call U2's 360º Tour a big production.

Everything about Friday's two-hour show at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa was out-of-this-world in stature. It started with the attendance, a record crowd of more than 72,000 that exceeded this year's Super Bowl turnout.

And the numbers are equally astounding for the smoke-belching, "spaceship" stage that occupied about half the field. The 170-ton contraption came equipped with giant runways, rotating walkways, massive claw-like arms to support more than 200 speakers, a giant circular video screen and a spire that poked toward heaven.

It's called the "spaceship," but that nickname became more than just figurative when Bono introduced a video segment with Cirque du Soleil founder and current space tourist Guy Laliberte.

St. Petersburg Times

TAMPA -- On an otherworldly stage that looked as if it could snack on the Death Star, and in front of more than 70,000 screaming, singing, stinking fans, four middle-aged dudes from Dublin once again gave us ample reason to unload hosannas and hyperbole.

Life-affirming. Transcendent. Just when we needed "em most.

Was U2's record-setting show at Raymond James Stadium on Friday perfect? Nope. Was it the best local show of the year? Maybe, maybe not.

But therein lies the magic of Bono & Co. They don't do concerts. Oh no, my brethren: They host revivals, rallies. They excel at rock and redemption, pop and proselytizing. Merchants of possibility, they gave out great gobs of hits and hope at a time when paying the electric bill is a contact sport.

Patrick Barkham, Guardian.co.uk

More than 30 years a rock star, Nobel peace prize nominee and honorary knight - but what does Bono have to do to become a Twitter trending topic?

The band's frontman became a villain on the web today moments after he turned up as a support act at the Tory conference. While the Tories hoped Bono's surprise address - via a giant videoscreen - would provide a shot of welcome celebrity pizzazz, the singer could hardly have imagined his appearance would have such a swift impact on his profile.

Many of the responses on Twitter were hostile as the tag #BonoToryScum quickly spread over the social networking site. "Look for U2's new song called Where the Streets Have No Low-Income Housing," tweeted Deadeye_Dick.

By Beth Anderson, Republican Journal Guest Columnist

(Oct 8): Most would call it an obsession. There are, however, a few who would describe my apparent lunacy as well within the norm.

Regardless of the label, if you have the same goal as I, you will need to plan months in advance to get yourself a ticket, travel great distances, and spend at least 12 -- and in some cases upwards of 24 -- hours in line. You will need to go to such lengths if you want to see the Irish rock legends U2 close enough so that the only things between you and the band are a rail, a security guard and the stage itself.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule: those with inside connections, contest winners and, unfortunately, line cheaters, but almost all of the people I spent the third weekend in September with were just like me. Fans from all over the world who converged on Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., to catch Sunday or Monday's performance and in many cases, both shows.

The first leg of U2 360 tour opened this summer in Barcelona and rocked the rest of Europe with a spectacular stage design that was paired with the band's latest album, "No Line on the Horizon."

Jenny Booth, Times Online

Bono, the rock singer and anti-poverty campaigner, made a surprise appearance at the Conservative conference today in a video message played before David Cameron's address.

The video gave a celebrity boost to Mr Cameron's biggest speech of the year, and cemented the impression that power and influence are draining away from Labour in favour of the Conservatives.

"Hello there, if you can swallow an Irish man saying what's great about Great Britain, indulge me for a minute. Because what's happened over the last few years in Britain's relationship with the developing world has been so inspiring to me," he said in the short, pre-recorded message.

The U2 singer and aid campaigner encouraged the Tories not to cut spending on international development despite large budget cuts in other areas, but to keep to the target of spending 7 per cent of GDP on aid.

By Kristen Schweizer, Bloomberg

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Irish rockers U2 will step on stage tomorrow in Tampa, Florida, helped by BlackBerry's sponsorship of their world tour in a deal no record company could offer.

Research In Motion Ltd.'s "BlackBerry Loves U2" advertising campaign is part of a trend where brands are stepping into the breach as plummeting sales shrink music labels' marketing budgets. Once reluctant to be seen as selling out to corporate sponsors, artists are keen to sign up.

"BlackBerry made the TV commercial with our music and then spent many millions of dollars on media and TV worldwide," U2 manager Paul McGuinness said by phone from the Toronto leg of the group's multi-city tour. "They provided a budget that no record company could have possibly matched."

by Brenda Clemons, U2Station.com Staff Writer

U2 in Charlottesville was a fantastic experience. The stage is probably the best in rock n' roll history. The band performed a powerful show. Bono, as usual, was the ultimate PR person, bringing in local facts when he addressed the audience.

I could of been inside of the inner ring but I opted out for an outside wall because I heard you can view more of the screen and stage from that angle. I wasn't disappointed by the visual affect and several times U2 came out near where I was standing. The Edge and Bono performed most of one song directly in front of me and I got smiles from both of them (perhaps it was my Guinness hoodie).

I absolutely loved Ultraviolet and I would of liked to have seen the laser jacket used for another song. This was also a big hit with the audience including those that were not hard core U2 fans.

Spinner.com

Twenty-five years into their career, U2 exist as both an Idea and a Band. The problem is, it's near-impossible to separate the two. U2 the Idea is that of all things big, flashy and still somehow passionate in rock 'n' roll, but U2 the Band is still the same group of guys who introduced the world to some of the best rock songs of all time. Everyone remembers 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' and 'One,' but with U2 the Idea so omnipresent it can be hard to remember that the group wasn't always overshadowed by Bono's political work.

The band's current tour of the country's biggest venues, then, attempts to reconcile the Band with the Idea by making each bigger than a fan ever thought possible. Just as the stage setup is breathtakingly gigantic and elaborate, so too does U2 attempt to recreate each song in an emotional space that is both individual for each fan, but shared throughout the whole crowd.

And they almost pull it off, too.

Kombo.com

If The Beatles can get their own version of MTV and Harmonix' Rock Band, then why not you, too?

Oh, sorry. I mean, "why not U2?"

That seems to be the recurring mindset among Bono, Edge, Larry Adam, and Adam Clayton, who bowed out earlier this year from talks with the developers to have their likenesses and songs featured in a special-themed version of the musical video game. But it seems that The Beatles' blast from the past may be just what is needed in order to change their minds.

Hello! Hello! ( Hola!) A newbie on board here. Warning: This will be long as I have a bad habit of jabbering on and on. Any who!

I thought I would come in and introduce myself to all you lovely people and give a little bet of info about me.

Now so you all know I'm new to this whole writing online thing, so bare with me, as I learn all this as I go. I'm no professional at this thing, but hey what the heck, I'm trying right?, It's better to try, than not do it all. Now before I start jabbering on and on, which is one of my bad habits. Let me introduce myself a bet.

We have collected some video from "An Evening With Gavin Friday and Friends" at New York City's Carnegie Hall on October 4, 2009. Amongst the guests were all four members of U2, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Antony, Elizabeth Ashley, Andrea Corr, Flo & Eddie, Joel Grey, Bill Frisell, Guggi, Scarlett Johansson, Courtney Love, Lydia Lunch, Patrick McCabe, Maria Mckee, Shane MacGowan, Eric Mingus, JG Thirlwell, Martha Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright, Chloe Webb, and other special guests.

Also check out some pictures we've found from the show.

David Fricke, Rolling Stone

"We had all kinds of grand ideas," Bono said onstage at Carnegie Hall, early in an October 4th concert honoring Irish singer-songwriter-provocateur Gavin Friday. Bono was recalling his teenage years in Dublin, running through the streets with Friday and the future members of their bands, U2 and Friday's tribal punk surrealists the Virgin Prunes. "We invented these great events in our imagination," Bono went on, noting that Friday, at one point actually had the temerity to say, "Why don't we all play Carnegie Hall?"

They had to wait awhile, until Friday's 50th birthday (officially on October 8th), but it was worth it. Dubbed "An Evening With Gavin Friday and Friends" and curated with eclectic bravura by Hal Willner, the show -- presented by the charitable foundation (RED), with proceeds going to fight AIDS in Africa -- was a riotous three-hour party, with a to-hell-with-genre rollcall of the many friends Friday has made in his art-rock pop-art film-score and noir-theater travels.

Photo by Charles Rex Arbogast, AP

By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY

CHICAGO -- You don't need a calculator to figure out that U2 x 360 = XXL. Massive describes almost every aspect of U2's revolutionary 360° Tour, a futuristic juggernaut that defies the recession as it crushes attendance records, rewrites the stadium concert playbook and launches the Irish quartet into even higher orbit.

The imposing centerpiece, a four-pronged UFO anchored by a glowing 164-foot pylon and cylindrical LED screen, looms over a sprawling stage with footbridges that glide around ringed catwalks. U2's soaring anthems prove equally immense pounding through a state-of-the-art sound system suspended high enough to allow clear sight lines for all.

"It's a bit of a shock to go to work and find 80,000 people on the shop floor," singer Bono, 49, says as he's whisked by a police escort to his hotel after the first of two recent sellouts at Soldier Field. "The magic act is that the spaceship disappears. The people get bigger, and the place gets smaller. There's not one grand overarching theme, but there is a sense of location, where you're a tiny speck in the cosmos. It's intimate, by the way. The show takes you through all these different worlds and mood swings. Catharsis is the posh word, I think."

INTERACTIVE: Panoramic look at U2's show
PHOTOS: Glimpses of the 360 Tour

By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY

U2's 360° Tour is selling out globally, but no lines formed for No Line on the Horizon, an album that has sold 1 million copies in seven months -- shy of the tally that 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb racked up in two weeks.

"We didn't have a hit," Bono says. Get On Your Boots "is going over better and better live, but that spongy funky sound didn't connect with rock radio. If your first single doesn't go off, it can knock the momentum. We believe in the songs and we want people to have them in their hearts and their iPods."

Missing 2008's fourth quarter hurt sales, which in an era of rampant piracy no longer reflect the music's reach.

"You don't know how far the music travels," says bassist Adam Clayton. "The new songs get a great reaction live. Nobody's yawning or groaning. Releasing it outside that last quarter made it more uphill. Other factors skew the numbers. The record business is collapsing, and radio and the media."

L.A. Times Music Blog

The Bruins got nothing on Bono.

When U2 hits the Southland with an Oct. 25 date at the Rose Bowl, it will be the venue's largest ever attendance for a concert, with 96,000 fans expected to descend upon Pasadena. It will be the band's second-to-last North American date on the 2009 leg of its 360 Tour, a trek that Billboard projects will bring in $112 million.

The aforementioned is probably old news for those with tickets, as the Rose Bowl is aggressively encouraging concertgoers to secure parking arrangements in advance. While the venue is typically able to accommodate more than 20,000 spaces (22,380, to be exact), parking -- available at $25 per car, plus a $5 online service fee -- will sell out.

The Rose Bowl suggests fans arrive early and partake in its "Picnic in the Park" festivities, which will include live entertainment and all of the day's NFL action on various televisions, or to seek out shuttle information. U2 will bring in slightly more fans than January's annual Rose Bowl game, in which attendance tops off at a little more than 95,000 people.

By Claire Murphy, Herald.ie

U2's gruelling worldwide tour appears to be taking its toll on Bono -- as pictures from the Edge's Twitter page reveal.

The rock band are currently touring America and Canada as part of their 360 tour.

The Edge has been capturing life on the road with his digital camera and posting them online . The latest photos feature the bands travels through the US, including an appearance on US entertainment show Saturday Night Live at the Rockefeller Center.

The Irish rockers broke the attendance record at New Jersey's Giants Stadium before appearing in front of a television audience of millions on the popular TV programme.

By David Menconi, Raleigh News & Observer Staff Writer

U2 played its first-ever Raleigh show Saturday night, and it was a pretty spectacular affair. Here's the review; and be sure to check out this excellent photo gallery, shot by ace N&O photographer Travis Long.

By David Menconi Staff writer

RALEIGH -- A few songs into U2's Saturday night show at Carter-Finley Stadium, Bono paused to survey his domain. And he addressed the packed house with the egomaniacal charm we've all come to know and love.

"We've got old songs, we've got new songs, we've got songs we can barely play," he cracked. "And we've got a spaceship!"

Yes, it was hard not to notice that. At a time when pretty much everything seems to be in contraction mode, U2 has rolled the dice with what has to be the most elaborately ginormous stage setup in rock history -- a huge claw-shaped beast that looked like a vertigo-inducing theme-park ride.

WRAL.com

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Triangle businesses could drum up at least $4 million from Saturday night's U2 concert in Raleigh, according to the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"This is an internationally known band, so the fact that they picked Raleigh over any other spot in North Carolina and made it one of their stops on the east coast, that's pretty phenomenal," said Loren Gold, executive vice president of the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The Irish rock band performed at Carter-Finley Stadium on the latest stop of the band's 360° tour, which featured an enormous stage towering 90 feet in the air.

By Keith Upchurch, The Herald-Sun

DURHAM -- Natalie Baker flew 36 hours from her home in Melbourne, Australia, to Durham to indulge her two loves: the music of Irish rock band U2 and being with her U2 fan community.

She was one of dozens of ultra-devoted fans at this weekend's conference at N.C. Central University to explore the music, work and influence of U2.

"Their music inspires me to make a difference,'' she said Saturday morning with an enthusiasm that showed no hint of the exhausting plane trip from the previous day. "It inspires me to make a difference, even a small difference, and encourages me to look at the world in a different way.''

Baker said she's attended a dozen U2 concerts all over the world in the past 20 years, and planned to be at Saturday night's U2 concert at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh.

AMERICA: The Obama generation now lords it over the Reagan generation and Bono is their bard, writes LARA MARLOWE

MENTION THE Lisbon Treaty referendum here and your American interlocutor's eyes glaze over. But tell them you have tickets for a U2 concert and they exclaim, moan and beg to go with you.

On Tuesday, a White House correspondent asked in all seriousness at the daily briefing whether Bono, The Edge or Larry Mullen would attend President Barack Obama's policy meeting on Sudan and Darfur.

That evening, a friend offered me a lift to Maryland, in exchange for one of my precious tickets. The Mapquest print-out said it would take 26 minutes, but the massive tailback started just after we crossed the District of Columbia line.

By Brian McNeill, Charlottesville Daily Progress

Performing before 55,000 fans at the University of Virginia's Scott Stadium, U2 delivered a rock show on a scale never before seen in Charlottesville.

Touring in support the band's 12th studio album "No Line on the Horizon," the Irish rockers played on a massive round stage beneath a colossal contraption called "the Claw."

The stage, designed to offer the crowd a view from any angle, looked a bit like one of those pincers that grabs stuffed animals inside vending machines at Big Lots. U2's version, of course, was much, much bigger.

"We're making a space jump," Bono told the crowd, with a nod to the band's vaguely alien-looking stage. "We built this thing and been to all kinds of interesting places. We built it to be closer to you."

U2 rocks Scott Stadium to its moment of surrender

By Cathy Harding, C-Ville Weekly

"My body's now a begging bowl," Bono sang at the end of U2's two-and-a-half hour show last night, "that's begging to get back, begging to get back to my heart, to the rhythm of my soul." It's the classic U2 lyric, merging social issues (poverty) and world culture (Third World) with intimacy and personal yearning. And in closing the band's blow-out show at Scott Stadium, "Moment of Surrender" summed up as well as anything the beauty and contradictions of the world's biggest rock band.

David Bowie's "Space Oddity" signaled the start of the concert as the much-reported-on, tentacular set billowed smoke, and with all that it became clear that U2 positions itself now as the Band that Fell to Earth. Prophets from above and within, they project their vision of what ails humanity--and what can redeem it--from a vast sphere of TV screens.

The band on "Songs of Ascent," Spider-Man music and U2 haters

Brian Hiatt, Rolling Stone

On Future Plans

The Edge: We're sort of spoiled for choice right now, because there's a bunch of amazing pieces that we didn't finish from the work we did in Fez, and there's the songs we started with Rick Rubin, some of which are amazing songs that I'd love to get back to at some point. Bono and I also have this Spider-Man [musical] project, which we're very happy about. So there are a lot of things on the stove, and they're all very exciting.

Now that this tour is kind of up and running, I'm really looking forward to getting into those projects, doing some listening back, seeing where they're all at, seeing which one is probably set to go first. The one thing is we'd love to follow this album up sooner rather than later -- I don't think we'll have over three years or whatever it was between the last two records. It's hard to say [about a U2 Spider-Man album]. There will be a Spider-Man album, but whether it's us or the cast, that's the sort of thing we're not sure about. There are some amazing tunes.