August 2011 Archives

(Reuters) - U2 lead singer Bono on Sunday denied reports he had been taken to hospital after complaining of chest pains while on holiday in the south of France.

The 51-year-old did attend the Princess Grace hospital in Monaco, but a spokeswoman said it was for a routine checkup.

"Despite press stories to the contrary, Bono has not suffered a recent health scare," the spokeswoman said in a statement given to Reuters.

"Reports of his being rushed to hospital for emergency treatment are untrue. Bono is in good health and enjoying a family holiday in the south of France."

By Finbarr Flynn, Bloomberg.com

U2, the rock band that headlined Glastonbury's music festival this year, is investing its own money to fund music schooling for Irish children as the state cuts spending on education.

The band, which started out in Dublin, is funding musical equipment and the hiring of teachers to tutor thousands of children across the country, supporting a series of projects.

While lead singer Bono is well known for his activist work in raising awareness of issues in Africa, the property market crash in Ireland has left the one-time Celtic Tiger with problems of its own. In a country renowned for its musical heritage and for producing contemporary acts such as Westlife and the Corrs, only about 1 percent of secondary pupils receive music tuition.

by Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times

U2 guitarist the Edge, whose real name is David Evans, and three other Malibu property owners filed separate lawsuits Friday seeking to set aside the California Coastal Commission's denial of their applications to build ridge-top homes above Malibu.

The plaintiffs, who own four adjacent parcels of land zoned for residential development in the unincorporated Sweetwater Mesa area, allege that the coastal panel's June 16 denial represented an unconstitutional taking of property without just compensation. (Another owner withdrew an application for a fifth home at the site just before the panel's vote and did not file suit.)

Toronto Sun/WENN.com

U2 rocker The Edge has plenty of reason to celebrate - he turns the big 5-0 today.

The Irish band recently wrapped up its mammoth 360 Tour and marked the end of the 25-month trek with an all night boozing session at New York hotspot The Spotted Pig last weekend.

But the party doesn't stop there for the guitar great - The Edge will no doubt be raising a toast once more as he rocks into his 50th year.

And to mark the milestone, WENN has dug deep to find 10 fascinating facts about the man born David Howell Evans.

Elaborate box set will include unreleased music and footage

By Matthew Perpetua, Rolling Stone

U2 have released details of their forthcoming 20th anniversary reissue of Achtung Baby, due out later this year. The set will come in multiple formats, aimed at different types of U2 fans. "If you pile a lot of extra material and packaging and design work into a super-duper box set, there are people who will pay quite a lot for it, so you can budget it at a very high level and pump up the value," band manager Paul McGuinness told Rolling Stone earlier this year.

Iconic €20m stages up for auction as tour finally ends

By Grainne Cunningham, Irish Independent

THE Claw, the iconic centrepiece from U2's 360° tour, is up for sale to the highest bidder after the band's record-breaking tour ended in Canada at the weekend.

The massive stage structure was tested at more than 110 concerts in 78 cities in 30 countries, including two at Croke Park in Dublin.

It will be re-engineered to become a multi-use entertainment venue and is being sold by the Vancouver-based construction and real estate firm Panther Management for a fee of up to €20m.

Three 'Claws' were constructed, based on designs Bono had a hand in.

From left to right: Premier David Alward, promoter
Donald Tarlton, Mayor George LeBlanc and the
City of Moncton's economic development, tourism
and culture general manager Ian Fowler

Heavy rains turned concert site into quagmire and forced production delays

By Alan Cochrane, Times & Transcript staff

With 75,000 fans at the gate, the pressure of hosting the last show of the world's biggest rock tour and heavy rains that wouldn't seem to let up, Saturday's U2 concert was the most challenging ever.

"We were very thankful when it stopped raining, because the fans were able to enjoy a wonderful show in reasonable conditions," Ian Fowler, the City of Moncton's economic development, tourism and culture general manager, said as he flopped into a chair in the media tent after the show was over.

Heavy rains over two days had left the grassy field sopping wet and spongy. Heavy equipment rolling over it tore up the grass and threw a wrench into the tight schedules of setting up the production, the food vendors, sound checks and other aspects of the show. Saturday morning brought with it a steady downpour that continued through the afternoon. It was only at 6 p.m., just as the first band went onstage, that the rain stopped and the clouds began to clear. At times, there were spots of blue sky and sunshine, and by the middle of the U2 show, around 10:30 p.m., there were actually stars visible through holes in the clouds.

By Jeffrey Jolson, Hollywood Today

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 8/1/11 -- U2′s worldwide 360 Tour is now the biggest tour ever with ticket grosses of $736 million in ticket grosses alone. That is not including the band's famously lucrative merchandising income (at least another $750 million in this case), tour-related back catalogue sales, airplay royalties and multiple videos/long-play CDs the tour has and will generate.

The band reportedly earns a $1.1 billion dollar annual salary, a figure generated by money magazines even before the 360 Tour was all tallied. In the minutes you spend reading this article they will have earned about $20,000 dollars and they are probably not even awake.

By Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY

U2 360° - the group's amazingly successful tour, came to an end in Moncton, N.B., Canada on Saturday night.

The tour opened in Barcelona on June 30, 2009, and, in 26 months, the group played 110 concerts for 7.1 million fans in 30 countries across five continents. The tour's biggest single audience was 108, 800 at Stadium Azteca in Mexico City on May 14.

"With tonight's final show, U2's 360° tour will go down as the biggest tour ever reported both in terms of box office gross and attendance," says Ray Waddell from Billboard in a release about the tour's end.