" ~~~ U2 ~~~ "

Gig may end later, as U2 reconsider curfew
July 26, 2009

Bono and the rest of U2 spent some hours yesterday considering whether
they should risk breaking the law -- in the interest of their fans'
enjoyment.

It cost millions to create and the effect is spectacular. But the Claw
-- the massive stage creation which U2 are currently using on their
worldwide 360 Degree tour -- is seen to its best effect in the dark.
So in every other one of the 44 cities in the world where the band
have or will be performing, it's a late date: In Barcelona the concert
finished at 1.30 am.

In Dublin it is different. In deference to the complaints of some
residents of the area around Croke Park, the planning permission
includes an 11pm curfew. The band go on stage at 8.45pm and it gets
dark around 10 pm. The result is that the majority of the show takes
place in daylight and the audience gets only a fraction of the €40m
effect that the inventive staging is intended to create.

On Friday night the band obeyed the curfew and finished on time. But
it rankled with them. So much so that throughout yesterday there was a
serious debate about how this obstacle to entertainment might be
gotten over for the remaining shows last night and tomorrow.

There were two possible solutions: try to have the curfew lifted, or
simply break the law and take the consequences -- a heavy fine.

U2 BURNED BY BYRNE
July 29, 2009
Posted by: Tassoula

In a recent blog entry by David Byrne of the Talking Heads, he sarcastically thanks U2 for 'subsidizing' one of their small shows in Europe, then takes a jab at the U2360 tour production costs.

Perhaps the real reason for his sour grapes comes to light in his final sentences: he confesses his band was bumped from being on Late Night With David Letterman back in March, when U2 performed for five consecutive days.

U2 go a stage further for the city spectacular
Published Date: 13 August 2009
By Peter Kay

ONCE the Eagles have flown from Don Valley next Thursday night, the
rock music team will move in.
Setting up the stage for U2's Sheffield concert is a mammoth
operation, taking seven days to ensure that everything is just right
for Bono and the boys.

If you thought the Stones pulled out all the stops with their
production that dominated one end of Don Valley Stadium in 1996, U2
are effectively taking it a stage further.

It's called the 360º tour and the stage design reflects that. The work
of show designer Willie Williams and architect Mark Fisher, it sees
the band on a circular stage in the middle of the audience, part of a
colossal spaceship-like structure. Speakers are incorporated in four
legs that rise 164 feet to support a cylindrical video screen.

And that takes some assembling.

The Stones' show involved more than 90 trucks rolling into the east
end of Sheffield. For U2 it is likely to be more than 120.

A specialist crew of up to 450 will get to work so that 50,000 fans
can enjoy the performance next Thursday. On the night Sheffield
International Venues, which runs the stadium, will have about 200
staff working, everybody from cleaners to bar workers and maintenance
workers. Then there are the 500 stewards.

Don Valley general manager Pat Smith takes its all in his stride.
After all, the stadium has been hosting concerts since 1993 when Def
Leppard played to their biggest home crowd.

"It's kind of normal business," says Pat. "We are working with
professionals. But it's exciting and it's going to be a tremendous
show."

At the same time there is no disguising his pride in Sheffield, his
home city, securing one of only two English dates (the other is
Wembley) for the latest tour by arguably the biggest rock group in the
world.

In U2's eyes at least Sheffield is on a par with the likes of
Barcelona, Paris, Berlin and Milan as they tour Europe with their
latest album, No Line On The Horizon.

And it's not by accident, says Pat. It's recognition that the city as
a whole has improved its profile and demonstrated its enthusiasm for
the big music names.

"The city has shown that it wants to help with events like this. It's
not just Don Valley. As a city we have shown that we are welcoming.
Sheffield is the right place to come."

Ultimately, he points out, it's the artists who decide where to go, so
the U2 date is a tremendous boost for Sheffield's reputation as well
as offering a sharp economic boost through the spending in hotels,
restaurants, bars and shops.

Securing such events is a hugely competitive business and Don Valley
has had to wait three years for the next one to come along.

After the Stones Pat didn't think things could get bigger. But they did.

___________________
@U2

U2 Live Under A Slate Grey Claw: Chris Roberts Reports From Wembley
Chris Roberts , August 17th, 2009 05:31

Giant contraption fails to divert attention away from the fact that
Irish megastars aren't quite as good as they used to be.

So this is what the biggest audience for a Wembley Stadium gig ever —
88,000 people — looks like. It's not staggering, or breathtaking, or
anything like that. There's one good moment during 'Mysterious Ways'
where they all appear to be waving side to side in perfect time like a
field of corn in a breeze, a host of singing-along daffodils, but
generally there's a curious lack of atmosphere. I'm not here to jump
on any U2-are-dead bandwagon; that'd be cheap. But the mega-expensive
stage set, lights, films etc don't compensate for the absence of
euphoric moments. It's entertaining in phases, and some of those
surging old intros still scrape away your scepticism, but considering
the scale, everything seems a tad subdued. The sound's lousy, thin,
tinny.

I suppose it's all about The Claw. This Claw thing is over sixty feet
high and recalls nothing so precisely as David Bowie's ill-fated Glass
Spider Tour. The Glass Spider commonly comes top of those Worst Rock
Follies lists, and whenever I try to stick up for its glorious
preposterousness I get shooed away because that wouldn't fit with the
carved-in-stone conservative rock canon. Yet The Claw, and the 360
degrees theme here, is like the received wisdom about The Glass Spider
rather than the bonkers, constantly shifting, genuinely surreal whirl
of Brownian Motion that it was. Basically, The Claw just stands there,
straddling the ant-like musicians. While it's still daylight, it looks
rubbish. A pale-green arc of tarpaulin with orange splodges along it,
it's best described by my companion as "an alien lizard nipple train".
It's barely that interesting. And the idea of the circular stage "in
the round", with bridges and walkways, is just confusing,
disorientating. We always feel like we're side-on, like the view is
never quite right. With the four blokes from U2 wandering around it at
random intervals, often detached from each other by some distance, it
detracts from the focus rather than fuelling it. You need, like,
thirty eight dancers and a juggler or two if you're trying to fill
that kind of sprawling area. There seems at times to be no centre of
gravity to the show. It's not "intimate", because nothing at Wembley
could be. It's one big design flaw, dreamed up by someone who once saw
Gaudi's Sagrada Familia but then drank too much sangria before
committing it to memory.

It comes into its own, to an extent, as darkness falls. Then, its
flood of changing colours and lights and close-ups and footage and
slogans does begin to gain traction. At one point, steam is coming off
it and ascending to the heavens. And yet its layout, its shape, means
this production is never as exhilarating as earlier U2 grandstanding
blow-outs. The witty, wiry, Zooropa/Pop era said much more about over-
stimulation, multi-media exhaustion, trash and glitz, and how they are
soul-destroying yet shine a light on any soul that survives. So it's
not without irony that the best parts of tonight come only when we're
all acclimatised to The Claw and begin to pretty much ignore it. It's
no coincidence that by then U2 have eased up on tracks from the new
album and swung into 'Pride (In The Name Of Love)', 'Where The Streets
Have No Name', 'Vertigo' et al. 'One' is a lovely, trembling encore,
despite its over-familiarity, though it's a pity that one by-product
of its fame is that U2 don't play the better, darker, less optimistic
Achtung Baby tracks ('So Cruel', 'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild
Horses?'). And in fairness No Line On The Horizon boasts two home runs
in the nervy, Bowie-like 'Unknown Caller' and the testily great and
cleverly pre-emptive 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight'.

Of course, there was a bit of impeccable politics (Burma), a bit of
irrational posturing (Bono quoting Clash lyrics) and no shortage of
rushes-and-chills guitar lines. And I'm not saying we weren't gabbling
on excitedly about the whole sense-wrangling experience for most of
the journey home. But even Bono seemed a bit reticent (by his
standards) tonight. I dunno, maybe he had a poorly tummy or something.
But from a band which prides itself on engaging and involving the
crowd, it was lukewarm. One wonders if these are the last days of U2's
relevance as giants. If U2 was a blockbuster Hollywood movie, this
felt like the sixth or seventh sequel (with the cast and director
losing interest). Diminishing returns, and that. To come back in a
different form may liberate them.

This all sounds too negative. It was pretty good. But far from
spectacular. Elbow are rarely spectacular, but now easily Britain's
strongest band. The Seldom Seen Kid may have been the tipping point,
but all their albums were that tender and affecting and muscular.
Somehow Guy Garvey connects with the crowd more via average-bloke
chumminess and a conventional stage set-up than anyone could via a
squillion dollars worth of The Claw. Of course Elbow climax with 'One
Day Like This'. They may well be headlining here within a year or two,
but let's hope they don't then feel a need for exploding space rockets
and catherine wheels the size of Luxembourg. Then again...