U2 Announced For Australia

U2 will bring the 360 degree tour to Australia and New Zealand from November.

Tickets for the shows have also been priced for every budget starting at $39.90. General admission floor tickets start at $99.90.

‘U2 has alays been at their best when surrounded by their audience, and this extraordinary production makes that happens in stadiums,” says U2 manager Paul McGuiness. “It was important to the band that we were able to bring the whole production to Australia and New Zealand so fans could experience the latest of U2’s legendary productions.”

The U2 360° Tour kicked off again in Turin, Italy this month and will visit 17 cities, including Moscow and Istanbul, before finishing at the Olympic Stadium in Rome on 8th October. By the time it reaches New Zealand and Australia, U2 360° will have been seen by over 4 million fans.

With a cylindrical video system of interlocking LED panels, and a steel structure rising 150 feet from the floor over a massive stage with rotating bridges, the band has truly created an intimate 360º experience for concert goers. Long-time U2 Show Director Willie Williams has worked again with architect Mark Fisher (ZooTV, PopMart, Elevation and Vertigo), to create an innovative 360 design, which affords an unobstructed view for the audience.

“To have an in-the-round transportable stadium production is something that the touring industry has been trying to figure out for some time. The extra capacity U2 360° gives us means that there are a large number, several thousand in fact, of low priced tickets at every show”, said U2 tour producer/promoter Arthur Fogel, CEO of Live Nation Global Touring.

In keeping with the concept that this tour is more about a unique staging configuration with excellent sight-lines tickets in all 5 cities will be available starting at $39.90 with general admission floor tickets available at $99.90. Additional reserved seat tickets also available starting at $99.90.

Recent reports from the tours latest stop in Helsinki suggest an interesting setlist has developed.

The songs performed in Helsinki yesterday were:

1. Return Of The Stingray Guitar
2. Beautiful Day / Singing In The Rain (snippet)
3. I Will Follow
4. Get On Your Boots
5. Magnificent
6. Mysterious Ways / My Sweet Lord (snippet) / Norwegian Wood (snippet)
7. No Line On The Horizon
8. Elevation
9. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
10. Every Breaking Wave
11. Glastonbury
12. In A Little While
13. Miss Sarajevo
14. City Of Blinding Lights / Singing In The Rain (snippet)
15. Vertigo
16. Crazy Tonight
17. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
18. MLK
19. Walk On / You’ll Never Walk Alone (snippet)

Encore(s):
20. One / Rain (snippet)
21. Where The Streets Have No Name
22. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
23. With Or Without You
24. Moment of Surrender / Singing In The Rain (snippet)

Dates are:

November 25, Auckland, Mt Smart Stadium
December 1, Melbourne, Etihad Stadium
December 8, Brisbane, Suncorp Stadium
December 13, Sydney, Olympic Park
December 18, Perth, Subiaco

Glastonbury Line Up Almost Makes It Worth Going To England

The Glastonbury Music Festival is one of the biggest ever music events and each year there are literally hundreds of acts performing. Lets face it, I’ve never heard of a lot of them and readers of this website thingy are only going to be interested in a few.

But what a few they are!

The Glastonbury Festival have announced its full bill for this years event which takes place between June 25 and June 27. On various stages at various times it includes:

The full line-up is as follows:
U2
Dizzee Rascal
Vampire Weekend
Snoop Dogg
Willie Nelson
The Flaming Lips
Hot Chip
Florence and the Machine
Gaslight Anthem
The Stranglers
The Black Keys
Mumford & Sons
Tegan and Sara
DJ Fatboy Slim
Newton Faulkner
Muse
Scissor Sisters
Seasick Steve
Jackson Browne
Lightning Seeds
Pet Shop Boys
Imogen Heap
Reef
George Clinton with Parliament / Funkadelic
Christy Moore
Nick Lowe
Imelda May
Al Stewart
Laura Marling
The Lightning Seeds
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
The Avett Brothers
Stevie Wonder
Faithless
Jack Johnson
Ray Davies
Slash
Norah Jones
Orbital
MGMT
Grizzly Bear
Temper Trap
The Hold Steady
Ash
Julian Casablancas
Broken Social Scene
Gang of Four
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Toots & the Maytals
Dr John
Jackson Browne with David Lindley
Richard Thompson
Loudon Wainwright III
Empire Of The Sun
Gomez
The Saw Doctors
Imelda May
Judy Collins
Teddy Thompson

Even I could be entertained by a cross section of that lot!

U2 DVD On The Way

U2360° At The Rose Bowl will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 3, coinciding with U2’s first U.S. show in 2010. U2360° At The Rose Bowl was the penultimate gig of last year’s U2360° tour in support of their album No Line on The Horizon. The Rose Bowl performance was the band’s biggest show of 2009 and U2’s biggest ever US show, with a live audience in excess of 97,000.

The show was also streamed across seven continents via YouTube. The first ever live streaming of a full-length stadium concert, U2360° at the Rose Bowl had over 10 million views on the channel in one week.

Shot entirely in HD, the concert was filmed with 27 cameras and directed by Tom Krueger who had previously worked on U23D, the first live action 3D concert movie taken from U2’s Vertigo Tour.

U2360° At The Rose Bowl will be U2’s first concert available in Blu–ray as well as DVD. The deluxe DVD format and the Blu-ray will include a bonus documentary called Squaring the Circle: Creating U2360°, with interviews from the band, manager Paul McGuinness and the crew behind the touring production.

The songs to be found on this release are:  Get On Your Boots, Magnificent, Mysterious Ways, Beautiful Day, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of, No Line On The Horizon, Elevation, In A Little While, Unknown Caller, Until the End of the World, The Unforgettable Fire, City of Blinding Lights, Vertigo, I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight, Sunday Bloody Sunday, MLK, Walk On, One, Where The Streets Have No Name, Ultra Violet (Light My Way), With Or Without You, Moment Of Surrender.

The U2360° tour continues this year, with the US leg opening in Salt Lake City on June 3, and the European leg opening in Turin, Italy on August 6. U2 will headline Glastonbury on June 25th.

There is a high likelihood that the tour will come to Australia with the news leaking that one of the stages would be left here at the conclusion of the tour.

U2 Re-Release The Unforgettable Fire

With the re-release of U2′s fourth album, The Unforgettable Fire, the group has decided to share rarely seen before seen video footage with their fans. The video shows Bono speaking on the recording process of the breakthrough album.

The special edition release of The Unforgettable Fire marks 25 years since the album’s original release in October 1984. Recorded at Slane Castle, Ireland, The Unforgettable Fire was the first U2 album to be produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois.

The Unforgettable Fire is available now in four different formats, with deluxe editions that feature two previously unheard tracks from the Slane Castle sessions: “Yoshino Blossom”, and “Disappearing Act” as well as a limited edition Super Deluxe package which includes a DVD featuring music videos, a documentary and unreleased live footage from the Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope Tour in 1986.

U2′s The Edge, directed the remastering from the original audio tapes.

U2 New Album and Another New Album

U2’s No Line On The Horizon has barely arrived in the stores and now the band have announced that it wont be their only album of 2009.

Some cynics have suggested that the announcement was made to take some of the heat out of the controversy generated by Bono describing Coldplay’s Chris Martin as “a wanker” on English radio.

Whether or no that was the motivation the fact is that U2 fans can look forward to
a ‘companion’ to No Line On The Horizon.

Bono said  that the as-yet-untitled album, which could be in shops by November, would be a ‘more meditative and processional tone’.

Bono added: “I’m interested in commerce. The excuse for bigness is that songs demand to be heard if they’re any good. And without the kind of momentum of being in a big rock ‘n roll band, you won’t get your songs heard.”

Whatever that means!