U2 to Join Live Nation Artists

LOS ANGELES, March 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Live Nation President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Rapino announced today that the company has reached an agreement in principle to enter into a 12-year global contractual relationship with U2, who will join the company's Live Nation Artists roster.

"U2 has created some of the greatest rock music of all time and their career has been uniquely successful," said Michael Cohl, Chairman of the Board of Live Nation and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation Artists. "It has long been our intention to consolidate and extend our relationship with U2, so this is a very exciting deal for us. The band has always been forward thinking and as one of our original and most successful artists, we are delighted to be able to work with them for many years into the future."

Your photos wanted for upcoming book

Matt McGee of atu2.com is currently looking for some photos from specific events for his upcoming book "U2 - A Diary". These events include:

* The “fan displays” at the Vertigo Tour gigs.
* Photos of Bono changing his shoes during “I Will Follow” at the 7 July 2005 show in Berlin.
* Photos of the PopMart Lemon getting stuck in Oslo on 6 August 1997.
* Photos of U2 fans in line at the Point Depot for tickets, November 1989.

If you think you can help check this site for more details.

A Year Later: One Tree Hill, ''Thank you, Sydney!'', and other Vertigo memories

U2's second of two Vertigo Tour concerts in New Zealand took place a year ago today. Although the tour still had four shows to go, three in Japan and one in Hawaii, it was my tenth and last concert of the tour; eleventh if you count the Brisbane rehearsal. As the quiet in the U2 world this year has been only briefly punctuated, such as by the band's studio sessions in Morocco and the surprise mini-concert two days ago, this has been a year to reflect on the past. For many fans, especially those in the Northern Hemisphere, it has been two years since U2 toured near them. For those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, it is hard to believe that it is already a year since U2 visited this part of the world for the first time in 8 years (Australia and South America) or 13 years (New Zealand). There were many memorable events, and the passage of time has revealed which stand out and stick with us the most. In this article, I'd like to mark my own aforementioned anniversary by remembering some of the best and most enjoyable moments of the Vertigo Tour. Naturally, they cover only the shows I attended, and in many cases, the events are chosen simply on a whim or are those about which I could most easily write.

Bono and Edge perform Wave Of Sorrow at surprise appearance in London

The 20th anniversary re-release of The Joshua Tree has just happened or is on the immediate horizon, depending upon what part of the world you live in. Otherwise, however, all seemed quiet on the U2 front, especially with regards to concert appearances. Rumours of U2 playing 21 concerts at London's O2 Arena next year have been swiftly debunked. U2 have sprung a London surprise on us, though. Last Friday night, the 23rd of November, Bono and Edge appeared at Union Chapel in Islington, London, for an appearance as part of Mencap's Little Noise Sessions.

Recently, U2.com featured a clip of Bono singing along to Wave Of Sorrow (Birdland), a rarity made public for the first time on the Joshua Tree re-release, and some fans wondered if Bono's evident enthusiasm for the track would lead to U2 performing the song live. However, given U2's track record of rarely playing b-sides, let alone other rarities, since the start of the 1990s, this was considered idle speculation. So to considerable surprise, Bono and Edge did in fact debut Wave Of Sorrow live. In addition, Zooropa's Stay (Faraway, So Close!) was performed for the first time in over six years - it last made a live setlist on 25 November 2001 in New York during the Elevation Tour.

The full setlist was:

Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
Desire / Need You Tonight (snippet) / Never Tear Us Apart (snippet)
Like A Rolling Stone (snippet) / Angel Of Harlem
Wave Of Sorrow (Birdland)

For more details about the concert, please see the NME's article "U2 Play Surprise Gig in London".

Deine Stimme Gegen Armut - P8 concert in Rostock

On June 7th, a unique concert event took place in Rostock. With the G8 summit just around the corner in Heiligendamm, the largest NGOs and popular musicians joined forces to speak out against extreme poverty around the globe. Bono was there to perform a couple of songs with other artists.

We posted quite a few of our photo to our gallery. Click the image above to see them all.

Photos of other artists at the concert can be found here as flickr set.

AWF U2 Photo Auction NOW LIVE!

(http://www.africanwellfund.org) -- Last year was such a success, we decided to do it again!

In addition to our Bono's birthday donation drive (which is well underway and goes through May 6th), we are offering U2 fans a chance to bid on some great photos from the Vertigo tour, including several from the West Coast and Hawaii.

100% of the proceeds of this auction will go towards building water projects in Africa. Be sure to bookmark our auction link on ebay and come back when the first auction begins on April 14, 2007 at 12pm EST.

Some additional details: Each auction will start at one-minute increments until they are all live. This is to allow time for each individual auction to end separately, as opposed to multiple auctions ending at the same time. So if you are bidding on several photos you will have a better chance of winning them!

AWF would like to thank Phil Romans and all of the following photographers for their generous donation of time and photographs:

Phil Romans, Babette Ross, Bob Reck, Matthias Muehlbradt, Daniel Boud, Greg Wigler, Mike Kurman, Caroline Oosten de Boer, Rob Wanenchak, Ruth Barohn,Ayaz Asif, Henry Wagner, Otto Kitsinger, Ingrid Erler, Jim Rinaldi, Barbara Kibart, Musicfoto.com, JJ Booth, John Griffin

HAPPY BIDDING!!!

A look back at the Vertigo Tour

Firstly, I would like to offer a somewhat belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of our visitors from those of us here at U2gigs.com. Have a fantastic 2007 - and let's hope that the year includes a new U2 album. But for now, instead of looking to the future, I would like to turn my sights back to the past and reflect on the last two years of U2's concerts. The Vertigo Tour is now well and truly over, and with everything in the U2 world calming down, now seems to be an opportune time to reflect on what has been. This article is a general reflection on the tour, and shall be followed by a detailed statistical analysis of the tour in the coming days.

New U2 release: U218 Singles

It has recently been announced on U2.com that U2 will soon be releasing a third Best Of compilation. However, it will not follow the format of the previous two Best Ofs in covering a specific decade; it is intended to cover U2's entire career thus far and include sixteen of the band's most well-known and definitive singles. It will contain a total of eighteen tracks and will be called U218 Singles. No announcement has been made on which sixteen singles will be included, but the two bonus tracks will be from U2's recent recording session at Abbey Road, London with Rick Rubin. One is the studio version of the Skids' cover U2 recently performed with Green Day, The Saints Are Coming, while the other is a brand new U2 song titled Window In The Sky.

The release date of the compilation will be in the second half of November, but differs slightly between markets. It will be released on 17 November in some European markets, 20 November in many locations worldwide such as Australia, and 21 November in North America. As has become normal with U2's recent releases, multiple formats will be available. As well as a CD release, U218 Singles will also be released on vinyl, and a DVD under the same name featuring video clips will be available. Furthermore, a deluxe edition of the CD release will be available; it will come with a DVD containing 10 songs performed in Milan on the Vertigo Tour last year. (See the setlists for the Milan concerts: 20 July 2005 and 21 July 2005).

The cover of U218 Singles can be seen on U2SwissHome.com. Visit their News section to view it. (Text is in German, but the cover can be viewed in the news entry that is the most recent at the time this article was posted.)

A new feature on U2-Vertigo-Tour.com!

Ever wondered just how many U2 songs you have heard live, or how many songs you've heard more than once? Ever been curious to find out what songs U2 has played on previous visits to your city or country? Now you can find out without tediously checking each concert's setlist and manually adding up the data.

We have added a new feature to U2gigs.com: a personal charts calculator that allows you to select any amount of individual shows and returns to you a number of details. It gives you a list of all of the songs played at the selected concerts, with the amount of times that song was played in brackets, followed by details on album representation and snippets included at the selected concert. Naturally, only concerts with setlists are included as shows without setlists would not add any data; we do, however, include shows with incomplete setlists. If a show you attended does not have a setlist and you can remember details (even if it is just one song), please feel welcome to contact us - every contribution is greatly appreciated!

This feature can be used to find more than just data on shows you have personally seen. Ever wondered what songs U2 has played in your home city and how many times? Select all of the shows U2 has played in your city and you can find out! Ever wanted statistics more specific than those we provide for full tours or legs, such as statistics on what songs were played in a particular month? Select all of the shows from the relevant time frame and you can find out! There is plenty you can do with this new feature.

Although a few fansites for other bands have a feature similar to this, we believe it is a first for the U2 world. We hope you enjoy it and find it informative and useful.

Regards,
Macphisto (Webmaster) and Axver (Setlistorian)