September 2015 Archives

By Kerry Flynn, International Business Times

The world is not wired -- at least, not yet. Governments and businesses must take more responsibility and better address Internet access in areas of poverty, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and U2 singer Bono urged Saturday as the businessman and the entertainer announced their "Connectivity Declaration."

The campaign, a part of Bono's antipoverty ONE Foundation, emphasizes that Internet access is necessary for alleviating poverty and spurring development worldwide. The mission, laid out in a New York Times editorial, urges governments to follow initiatives that prioritize energy investments and Internet access, as well as calls for the tech industry to do more to act on global issues like education, health care and the refugee crisis.

"Where governments lay the foundation, the private sector can build," Zuckerberg and Bono wrote in the editorial. "Silicon Valley should look beyond itself ... We challenge the tech industry to do far more for those most marginalized, those trapped in poverty and those beyond or on the edge of the network."

by John Meagher, Independent.ie

U2 are mid-way through a four-night stand at Berlin today. They played the Mercedes-Benz Arena - in the shadow of one of the few preserved stretches of the Berlin Wall - on Thursday and Friday and conclude their visit to the German capital in the same venue on Monday and Tuesday.

Berlin is somewhere very close to U2's hearts, because it was here a quarter-century ago that they came to, in Bono's oft-quoted words, "dream it all up again". Decamping to a Berlin that was just emerging from the Cold War led to one of rock's great career reinventions and kick-started a creative burst that would result in Achtung Baby.

They got one of the last flights into the city before Germany was officially re-unified on October 3, 1990, and spent much of that harsh winter holed up at Hansa Studios, a couple of hundred metres away from the wall that had divided the city for 29 years.

I visited Hansa a couple of weeks ago in the company of Thilo Schmied, the founder of Berlin Music Tours, and got to stand in the spacious old ballroom where several of the songs that appeared on Achtung Baby, including 'One', first came to life.

By Ashley Iasimone, Billboard

U2 has canceled Sunday night's concert in Stockholm, Sweden, following a security breach at the show's venue, The Globe. The Sept. 20 show is rescheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 22.

In a statement issued on the band's official website, U2 wrote that "audience safety is paramount" and that there was "no option but to postpone tonight's show."

Specific details about the security breach have not been confirmed by the band.

However, the Irish Mirror (citing Swedish media outlet Expressen) reports that police were searching for a man who was allegedly armed with a gun and threatening another person in the audience. Billboard reached out to U2's representatives, who stated that all the information they have at this time is on the band's website.

Read the full note from U2 below:

"Due to a security breach, Stockholm's The Globen evacuated the audience from the building this evening.

As the breach has not been resolved quickly and as audience safety is paramount, the police have advised The Globen and Live Nation that they have no option but to postpone tonight's show, to a rescheduled date of Tuesday 22nd September.

All tickets from Sunday 20th September are valid for Tuesday 22nd September.

Bono says that U2 will release Songs of Experience, the companion album to last year's Songs of Innocence, in 2016.

by RTÉ.ie

Speaking to the Irish Times, Bono said: "We're going to get this album out next year; unusually for us, a lot of the songs are done already."

The singer also revealed that the concept behind the band's current iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE tour began on the opening night of the 360° tour in Barcelona in 2009.

"360 was a communal experience at its best," he said. "But to be a proper communal experience you have to have the song lines, you have to have the folk songs. If the audience are the centrepiece - and that was the idea behind 360 - then you have to have tunes to sing. The thing is: we had made quite an atmospheric album [No Line on the Horizon], quite a complex piece of work so it was slightly at odds with that."

Management unable to confirm end-of-year dates or venue as European leg of tour begins

Brian Boyd in Turin, Irish Times

It's definitely maybe for U2 shows in Dublin before the end of the year. Although just before taking to the stage in Turin on Friday night the band and their management were unable to confirm exact dates or a venue.

U2 were kicking off the European leg of their tour to a packed house in Turin's Pala Alpitour venue. They play 34 shows in total on this leg of the tour, finishing up in Paris on November 15th. Press reports have it that the band have block-booked rooms in Dublin's Gibson Hotel, which is adjacent to the 3Arena, from November 25th to November 29th. The 3Arena is free on these nights, as it is over the Christmas-New Year period.