U2 Detail 'The Joshua Tree' Summer Tour

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Band will spend summer playing 1987 LP at stadiums across North America and Europe

By Andy Greene, Rolling Stone

U2 will celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree this year by performing the seminal 1987 album in its entirety at stadiums across America and Europe, including a stop at Bonnaroo. The festival slot will mark the group's first-ever headlining set at an U.S. festival. The tour - which features Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers and OneRepublic rotating as opening acts - kicks off May 12th at BC Place in Vancouver and wraps up July 1st at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland before heading over to Europe for a run of eight shows with Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.

U2: The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 will mark the group's first time playing a classic album in concert. They picked one packed with hits, including "Where The Streets Have No Name," "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." For hardcore fans, the tour is an opportunity to hear rarely played deep cuts like "Exit," "Trip Through Your Wires" and "In God's Country." It will also feature the first live performance of "Red Hill Mining Town."

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, U2 guitarist The Edge says they're still figuring out how to structure the show. "The show might not necessarily start with Track 1, Side 1 'Where The Streets Have No Name' because we feel like maybe we need to build up to that moment," he says. "So we're still in the middle of figuring out exactly how the running order will go."

To celebrate the upcoming tour, the group released a teaser video looking both back and ahead.

The idea to take The Joshua Tree on tour came last year when U2 were putting the finishing touches on their upcoming album Songs of Experience. "The election happened and suddenly the world changed," says Edge. "We just went, 'We've got to give ourselves a moment to think about this record and about how it relates to what's going on in the world.'"

The band noticed the parallels between the worldwide political situation that gave rise to The Joshua Tree in 1987 and today. As a result, taking it on tour would give them time to re-think the new album. "[The Joshua Tree] was written in the mid-1980s, during the Reagan-Thatcher era of British and U.S. politics," says the guitarist. "It was a period when there was a lot of unrest. It just felt like, 'Wow, these songs have a new meaning and a new resonance today that they didn't have three years ago, four years ago.' We needed to put the album on ice for a minute just to really think about [it] one more time before putting it out; just to make sure that it really was what we wanted to say."

Bono shared his thoughts on the tour in a statement. "Recently I listened back to The Joshua Tree for the first time in nearly 30 years," he said. "It's quite an opera. A lot of emotions which feel strangely current: love, loss, broken dreams, seeking oblivion, polarization ... all the greats ... I've sung some of these songs a lot ... but never all of them. I'm up for it, if our audience is as excited as we are ... it's gonna be a great night."

Tickets for the U.S. shows (which will have general admission seating on the field and reserved seats in the stands) will go on sale Tuesday, January 17th.

U2 Joshua Tree Tour Dates

May 12 - Vancouver, BC @ BC Place*
May 14 - Seattle, WA @ CenturyLink Field*
May 17 - Santa Clara, CA @ Levi's Stadium*
May 20 - Los Angeles, CA @ Rose Bowl**
May 24 - Houston, TX @ NRG Stadium**
May 26 - Dallas, TX @ AT&T Stadium**
June 3 - Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field**
June 7 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Heinz Field**
June 11 - Miami, Fl @ Hard Rock Stadium***
June 14 - Tampa, FL @ Raymond James Stadium***
June 18 - Philadelphia, PA @ Lincoln Financial Field**
June 20 - Washington, DC @ FedExField**
June 23 - Toronto, ONT @ Rogers Centre**
June 25 - Boston, MA @ Gillette Stadium**
June 28 - East Rutherford, NJ @ MetLife Stadium**
July 1 - Cleveland, OH @ FirstEnergy Stadium***

*With Mumford & Sons
**With The Lumineers
***With OneRepublic

© 2017 Rolling Stone

Original article: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/u2-detail-the-joshua-tree-summer-tour-w459520

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This page contains a single entry by Jonathan published on January 9, 2017 3:18 PM.

Bono and the rest of U2's Christmas video posted today was the previous entry in this blog.

The Edge Breaks Down U2's Upcoming 'Joshua Tree' Tour is the next entry in this blog.

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