From The Independent (Britain)
(U2 held their historic gig in the Bosnian capital and although Bono’s voice gave out, Andrew Meuller witnessed a set which lit up the city).

There probably hasn’t been as strange a cast of characters at a backstage party since the reign of Caligula. It is not often, as you elbow your way to the free drinks after a concert, that you find yourself standing next to the Irish Minister for Defence or tripping over cables trailing behind a CNN crew, or sharing a couch with the Bosnian ambassador to the United Nations.

By this point of the night, however, any previous conceptions of what constituted weirdness have been well and truly run through the shredder. We live in an age in which rock n’roll gigs are routinely described as history in the making. These stakes on posterity are at best silly and at worst mendacious, as if a few thousand people standing in a paddock, or a group of middle-aged bores deciding to speak to each other again are events comparable to moon landings. Tonight, its happened for real.

As Faris, the drummer with the local support act, Sikter put it: “It’s one of the most important things that’s ever happened here. The railway has
opened today, after four years, just for this. It’s like when the Winter Olympics were held here, in 1984. But it’s bigger than that, even. Look, my
father made me some new shoes, just for tonight.”

Faris smiles. There’s been a lot of that this evening, a night which has been four years in the planning. In 1993, U2 were on the road in Europe
when their Zoo TV tour. At a concert in Italy, a film crew from Sarajevo presented themselves. After being granted the interview they’d come for, the crew explained to the band something of what was then being done to their city by the Bosnian Serb Army. U2’s response was to suggest that they go and play there. The band were persuaded that, as things stood, that wasn’t practical – aside from the fact that such a trip would have induced spectacular apoplexy in U2’s insurers, the crowd such a show would have attracted would doubtless have been all too tempting a target for snipers and gunners who had already demonstrated that they considered marketplaces, water queues and funerals to be fair game. The idea was shelved.

The compromise arrived at was the satellite link with Sarajevo, which saw part of each night’s Zoo TV multi-media overload being devoted to the beseiged city. A young American aid worker called Bill carter, then working in Sarajevo for London-based organisation, The Serious Road Trip, operated a hook-up, enabling various citizens to speak, live, to whichever audience U2 were playing to at the time. Memorably, during a show at Wembley Stadium, one young woman scoffed via satellite that “Nobody cares. You’re going to let us die. Why not let them get it over with?”

Back in Sarajevo, Bill Carter had been aiming his camera away from the headlines. His acclaimed documentary, `Miss Sarajevo,’ recording a beauty contest heald during the war, inspired a song of the same name by Passengers, a group consisting of U2, long-time producer and mentor Brian Eno and, for that one song, Luciano Pavarotti. Bono finally made it to Sarajevo at the end of 1995, three months after NATO’s bombers had put an overdue stop to the city’s misery. He sang at impromptu sessions in a few bars, put in several hours being deafened by local groups in snad-bagged rehearsal spaces, said he’d be back, and that next time, he’d bring the band.

And that he did as part of the current world tour, PopMart. He brought with him the most complicated and expensive live rock show ever assembled. PopMart employs 250 people, costs around ?160,000 a day to run, and requires 55 trucks and a Boeing 727 to carry it. When I heard, earlier this year, that U2 were definitely going to play Sarajevo, I assumed they’d be taking the bare minimum equipment. When I heard they intended to take the whole show, I assumed they’d been out in the sun without hats on.

In July 1996, I covered the first post-war visit to Sarajevo by a British band. Newcastle punk trio, China Drum travelled a good deal lighter than
U2. All their gear, crew and me, just about fit into one van. They did two shows at one small club. The trip was a logistical and administrative
nightmare.

We were turned over by Croatian customs, run off the road by a deranged woman who then abused us for trying to hurt her baby, pestered by a rogue Bosnian Serb Army checkpoint, menaced with a pistol by a clearly insane Bosnian policeman, refused entry to Slovenia, and if it hadn’t been for thebottomless kindness of the Queen’s Lancashires British Army regiment, we would probably still be camped in our broken-down truck, somewhere near Vitez, drawing lots to see which of use we ate next. It could be said that Bosnia doesn’t really have an infrastructure for dealing with touring rock groups, especially if you were trying to win some sort of award for understatement.

“We thought it was going to be difficult,” agrees Paul McGuinness, U2’s long-sewrving manager, speaking after the show. “But it’s been quite
straightforward. People have just wanted to help. We’ve blagged a lot of equipment, forklifts and son on, from the military, and the local crew have been incredibly enthusiastic. There was talk of just doing a scratch show, but we felt it was important that we treat this as another city on the tour, to pay them that respect. To come here and not do the whole show would have been rude.”

McGuinness cheerfully confirms that U2 will lose a tidy fortune on the gig recognising Sarajevo’s post-war poverty, tickets were sold cheaply – by McGuiness’s estimation, the last time it cost that little to see U2 was around 1983 – and whatever surplus wa realised from sales of the concert to radio stations around the world wa earmarked for the coffers of the War Child charity. Crucially, tickets were also sold in the Serbian and Croatian areas of Bosnia-Hercegovina, as well as in Ljubljana, Zagreb and Belgrade. Sarajevan friends had been telling me all day of their happiness that the night before the show, Sarajevo’s bars had been full of people from all over what was once Yugoslavia and there’d been no trouble – although, the next day in town, I see one local knock on a window of a car with Belgrade license plates and scream uncomfortable obscenities at the occupant.

Inside the 45,000-capacity Kosevo Stadium, as showtime nears, no such bad vibes are evident. Even the stands containing the khaki ranks of troops serving with the multi-national stabilisation force (SFOR) are getting in on the act – the Spanish contingent have tied their national flag in
bandannas around their heads and are crowd surfing among themselves. They also try to institute a Mexican wave among the foreign troops but, in a neat metaphor for the western military presence during Bosnia’s war, this collapses amid confused signalling and lack of communication.

The first two acts on stage are a local choir and local rock group, Protest, one of the better acts to have emerged from Sarajevo’s startingly
vibrant wartime rock n’roll scene. Sikter, who follow them, start by tearing up the Bosnian national anthem i the style of Hendrix’s `Star
Spangled Banner,’ – an astute populist touch that properly kickstarts the evening.

U2’s show is perhaps not everything it could have been, as Bono’s voice gives out on him about six songs in and he struggles with high notes after that. It doesn’t really matter, of course. What’s important tonight is that one of the biggest bands in the world is here, that their set lit up when it was plugged in, and that, with the exception of a few entirely forgiveable yelps of “Viva Sarajevo!,” there’s no hint of self-congratulation up on the stage. The only moments tailored to the evening are Edge’s lovely solo rendering of `Sunday Bloody Sunday,’ and the first tentative live performance of `Miss Sarajevo,’ for which the band are joined onstage by Brian Eno and on tape by Pavarotti. “We wrote that song for you,” laughs Bono, as it closes, “and we can’t fucking play it!” This, like everything else, gets a huge and heartfelt roar.

There’s anothing touching moment as the lights come up. Led by the Spanish, the SFOR troops rise and applaud the crowd, the people of Sarajevo, as they file out of the stadium. The people stop, turn around, and clap back. The Spaniards, who appear to enjoy their work, respond with spirited renditions of `Y’Viva Espana’ and `The Macarena.’

By Caroline Smith

SARAJEVO, Sept 21 (Reuter) – In what is being billed as the biggest concert ever staged in Sarajevo, the rock group U2 is about to fulfil a promise lead singer Bono made to the city shortly after Bosnia’s war ended in 1995.

The Irish group’s concert in Kosevo stadium on Tuesday will be the first major pop spectacular in Sarajevo since the war ended and is already providing welcome relief to a people tired of politics and the memory of years under siege.

Bono used U2 concerts to attack Western powers for failing to end the war in Bosnia and celebrated New Year’s Eve here with his wife Ali in 1995. He did not perform but promised to return and hold a concert in 1997.

“Don’t worry, next time I’ll bring the band,” he said after arriving on a United Nations aid flight in December 1995, just a few weeks after the war ended.

In a telephone interview with Bosnian state television on Sunday, Bono said that if rock and roll music could be summed up in one word, it would be the word liberation.

“Music doesn’t know political divides and music has a joy that ignores borders and defies borders even, this is what we’ve always stood for as a group.”

He said he did not want to patronise Sarajevans by pretending to have a great message but said the whole U2 tour “extravaganza” would show “this is a cultural city for the future and this concert belongs to the future not the past.”

Bono said the band could relate to Bosnia because of the long-running dispute in Northern Ireland between pro-British Protestants who want to be ruled by London and nationalists who want to create a united all-Ireland state.

“We come from Ireland, it’s a small country and we have been divided also. We are trying to wrestle our world from the fools of the past and give it to the wise men of the future.”

Kosevo stadium is being transformed by hundreds of workers, 450 of them just to build the stage and sound system.

An advance guard of 250 of U2’s own technicians was due to arrive in Sarajevo on Sunday to help build the 30-metre (90 foot) high stage backed by a giant screen. Organisers said the group had invested $1 million to stage the concert.

Organisers have printed 45,000 tickets, which have been priced three to four times lower than anywhere else on U2’s PopMart tour, but expect around 50,000 people to turn up, a spokeswoman said on Sunday.

Special trains will bring fans from across Bosnia and thousands are expected to arrive from other former Yugoslav republics Slovenia and Croatia — Slovenes have been told they will not require a visa for the evening.

The inflow of visitors is likely to cause havoc around the city, reachable only on narrow, winding mountain roads which 60 U2 trucks will have to navigate to bring in equipment.

The organisational board for the concert groups most of the government of the Moslem-Croat Federation, which makes up half of present-day Bosnia, including the head of the country’s collective presidency, Alija Izetbegovic.

Izetbegovic told Bosnian state television: “This concert…will not only be an event for Sarajevo but I could say without exaggeration it is an event for the entire planet.”

Transcript by Adam<Paul> Welcome everyone!
<Paul> Thanks for joining me live!

<Tonster> nate says:
<Tonster> paul: do you play any musical instrument and if so have you ever been on a U2 album

<Paul> No, I play no musicial instruments. I had an early and unhappy experience with the piano when I was about 12 years old.
<Paul> Since then my only contribution musically to a U2 album was some hand clapping on one track on the War album.
<Paul> I suppose the lesson from that is that I wasn’t good enough to be asked again.

<Tonster> Miss_Fly says:
<Tonster> Paul: hi. how did you find U2, and how were you able to spot their potential so early in their career?

<Paul> I met them in 1977, I think, at a concert in the Project Arts Centre in Dublin. They wer elooking for a manager and I was looking for a band to manage and we were introduced by a Dublin music journalist named Bill Graham, who was afriend of mine.
<Paul> They had attracted him to one of their rehearsals and he had told them that I should be their manager so I suppose we owe it all to him.
<Paul> As for spotting their potential, I would have to say that I have no technique for that anymore now than I did then.
<Paul> Since I’ve only ahd to be right once, I wouldn’t claim a technique. I just thought they were very, very good and I suppose they were doing more or less as they are doing now, except that then they were doing it quite badly and now they’re doing it rather well.

<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul–are you pleased with the way Sarajevo’s turning out? And, are you concerned about the gig in Israel?

<Paul> Sarajevo is turning out very well. As of today, we’ve sold prettyclose to the capacity and we’re flying in there tomorrow omrning. As you know, we’re doing a webcast of the entire concert.
<Paul> There’s a lot of excitement around the world about this ocncert. I’ve seen a story today on CNN and European newspapers are paying a lot of attention to it.
<Paul> It’s an usual situation because Sarajevo is absolutely still devastated by the war. On account of that we’re charging a very low ticket price.
<Paul> We’re paying Sarajevo the compliment that it is a Eyuropean city, a center of cultrure.
<Paul> It was always very clear that the people of Sarajevo wanted us to do the whole show. They weren’t interested in us turning up doing a scratch concer or a benefit.
<Paul> If we’d charged the same price as in other European cities, the people of Sarajevo wouldn’t be able to afford the concert. So we’ve reduced the price to about $12.

<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul–are you pleased with the way Sarajevo’s turning out? And, are you concerned about the gig in Israel?
<Tonster> whoops!
(Ed. note: Tonster never said the correct Q. here. Make it up )

<Paul> Gosh, well, when people ask me who is the best manager in history I suppose I would have to say Brian Epstein. He really did a brilliant job. He was the first person on mys ide of the quation who understood how big pop music could be.
<Paul> I’ve always had enormous admiration for what he and the Beatles did together.
<Paul> I suppose they would have to be anyone’s favorite client. They had so much talent and they really invented the musical world we all live in now.

<Tonster> Aingeal says:
<Tonster> Question: What do you do with yourself while the show is going on?

<Paul> I watch every show! I think it would be crazy to be the manager of U2 and not have the pleasure of seeing the concert.
<Paul> I’m a connoisseur of their live performances and I look forward to the show every night and if I possibly can watch it from start to finish.

<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul, which has been the most exciting date on the tour so far?

<Paul> I suppose Belfast. Belfast was pulled together at very short notice as people will probably have heard, we had legal difficulty playing Dublin.
<Paul> Even as the two shows sold out, local residents objected to the shows going ahead. We had acontingency plan to move those shows to Belfast where the authorities were frankly much more cooperative than in Dublin.
<Paul> When the Dublin shows received permission to go ahead, the people in belfast said why not come here and play as well./
<Paul> Becasue the ceasefire was only a few weeks old, the authorities were incredibly cooperative and we had a spare date and we were able to fit it in.
<Paul> We used to play there a lot in the early days but we hadn’t played there since 1987. The exdcitement of playing to 40,000 in Belfast made it the most exciting show to play to date.

<Tonster> kdaniels says:
<Tonster> Question — There have been a few celebrities who have said some negative things about U2 (i.e. George Harrison). What are your feelings about their statements?

<Paul> I was a bit surprised about that. George is alittle out of touch. If he wanted to come see a U2 show he’d be most welcome. I’m not sure he’s in contact with the modern world at this stage. Nonetheless he’s got a fine bodyof work behind him even if some of it turned out in court to be borrowed from other authors.
<Paul> Bono has regularly quoted from George Harrison’s songs since he did that interview. I think in recent times George has been more concerned about his taxes and perhaps his garden.

<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul–what went through your mind when the Lemon did not open in Oslo?

<Paul> Utter panic. But also a feeling of immense relief that it was not me inside. I was standing there as it opened. It did open about a foot and I could see the 8 feet of my clients but not the rest of them.
<Paul> As I watched, they tried to close it first and open it again and it was well and truly jammed. It then made a retreat to its starting position and they had to climb out the back and out to the B stage. I really felt for them. It was, of course, the ultimate Spinal Tap moment.

<Tonster> Aingeal says:
<Tonster> Aingeal says: What made U2 decide to take a presence on the net?

<Paul> Well, it’s a thriving area of cultural activity.
<Paul> We’d had many approaches from people who wanted to work us on producing a site but we felt that in order to do a truly great site we would have to be with some people from “that culture” rather than make it up for ourselves.
<Paul> The Microsoft Network came to us on a creative basis and said for the first time rather than make money on this, let’s get sponsors and we can alll make a fortune, the approach from Microsoft was particularly attractive because it was creatively led.
<Paul> Microsoft wanted to do something that was groundbreaking and state of the art. It was a creative decision, if you like, and I’m very happy we made the arrangement.

<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul…if you could change one thing from the popmart tour, what would it be?

<Paul> I suppose we would’ve put the tickets on sale later and released the album earlier. I think the timing at the beginning of the campaign was out of whack and we’ve been catching up ever since.
<Paul> Becauase we were late delivering the album, the two more of less coincided and I regret that because it made the campaign less organic. The early part of the campaign was a bit too compressed.
<Paul> But these were the consequenes of our own decisions and our own delays. But we’re adults and we take the responsnibility.

<Tonster> Ibon says:
<Tonster> Paul: Where you at Barcelona’s concert? What is your opinion about the happenings in the karaoke?

<Paul> Oh it was a disaster. It was just a complete misjudgement on our part. That song, the Macarena, is very much identified with Spanish-speaking Spain. In Barcelona, they really thought it was utterly gauche and I think we just didn’t do our research properly.
<Paul> I hope the population of Barcelona will get over it by the time we come back there.

<Tonster> U2Reverand says:
<Tonster> Question: do you think Bran Eno’s gonna come back for a future U2 album?

<Paul> Oh yes, I’m sure we’ll work with Brian again in some way. We’re actually meeting him tomorrow in Sarajevo.
<Paul> We remain in closetouch with everyone we’ve ever worked with! Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois are all very much friends of ours and people whose oopinions we take very seriously.

<Tonster> u2pride says:
<Tonster> Paul: what do you feel about boot legs

<Paul> Well, I would distinguish between bootlegs and counterfeits. Counterfeits I take avery dim view of because they’re taking money from my clients’ pockets.
<Paul> The bootleg phenomenon I’m very relaxed about, quite honestly. I think everyone knows the difference between an authorized recording we’d put out.
<Paul> The fact that people circulate and swap recordings they’ve made at our concerts I’m actually very relaxed about even though the industry is formally opposed to it.
<Paul> I do have a problem with the recordings produced in Europe, particularly in Italy — you can find a whole range of things that look like official U2 recordings in full color packaging — they are extremely poor quality with a very high price tag and I think there should be more legal protection against things like that.
<Paul> But in Italy the law is inadequate to deal with that.

<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul, do you have any say in what goes in and what dosen’t in a setlist?

<Paul> I have an opinion — I wouldn’t call it a veto. One of our rituals is that we have a post-mortem after every single concert and discuss what worked, what didn’t work.
<Paul> Now it’s not just the 4 members of the band and me, now it’s Howie B as well. He’s much more musical than I am.
<Paul> It’s the old Chinese communist technique of ruthless self-criticism. Because a day later you can’t really remember much of the show. I will certainly make suggestions about what should and shouldn’t be in the setlist.
<Paul> At the beginning of this tour, neither Still Haven’t Found nor Pride were in the set and I really thought that would be very bad. I still meet a lot of people who want Sunday Bloody Sunday and Bad. Who knows, maybe they will turn up in the set list before the end of the tour.

<Tonster> Ai says:
<Tonster> It is said that U2 will move on to smaller venues/concerts after Popmart. Any truth to that?

<Paul> We have no such plans at the moment. I wouldn’t rule it out. I get asked whether we’d like to play clubs and the answer to that is no. We were pretty crap band in clubs. It was really only when we got into the bigger places that the scale seemed right.
<Paul> At the same time we played two nights ago to 150,000 people at least. There’s an obvious loss of contact and intimacy even with a show like PopMart with that size — but it’s still a very big crowd.
<Paul> When I walked through the crowd, even way in the back, I was amazed that people were still singing along.
<Paul> It’s really not planned at the moment. One of the things about having developed the expertise of playing very large shows is that you want to extend it and see how far the art form of the stadium rock spectacular can be taken.
<Paul> I’m very surprised there aren’t more bands who want to take it on. The only other people in modern times who do anything on this scale are the Rolling Stones.
<Paul> But there’s a change in the culture at the moment and it’s becoming hip again to be big. I think that may lead other rock and roll artists into performing on a large scale rather than doing that veryboring thing of putting a stage up at the end of a stadium.
<Paul> You really have to embrace the scale of a stadium.

<Tonster> ^BadCop^ says:
<Tonster> Paul : What is the secret of keeping a huge band like U2 together for 20 years?

<Paul> I don’t know that there’s a secret. I think it’s about getting the right people together in the first place.
<Paul> They were a band before some of them before some of them could play very well. The peole were more important than the instruments. Over the 20 years we’ve been toegher we’ve learned how to be together and how to keep out of each other’s way at times.
<Paul> I think that’s the secret to any friendship or any business relationship.

<Tonster> sirkits says:
<Tonster> Paul: do you sing along at the shows?

<Paul> I think I have caught myself singing along once or twice. But I don’t think anyone would want to hear my harmony.

<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul, who has been your favorite bono character so far? macphisto, the fly…etc…

<Paul> I think MacPhisto. MacPhisto who came from lots of different directions — I don’t know if you know the character of Archie Rice in John Osborne’s The Entertainer — I think MacPhisto derived a lot from him.
<Paul> I thought MacPhisto was terrific and I definitely miss him.

<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul, does it surprise you when people ask you for an autograph and/or a picture?

<Paul> It does a little. I’m not as good as dealing with it as the band are and I do sometimes feel they’re only asking me because they can’t get an autograph from the band.
<Paul> If I have time, I certainly will always sign somebody’s autograph.

<Tonster> swagger says:
<Tonster> Paul…Do you spend a lot of the time in the studio when U2 are recording?

<Paul> As little as possible <laughs>. The recording process is definitely not a spectator’s sport. I’m filled with admiration but certainly no wish to be there!
<Paul> I’m filled with admiration for the concentration that’s required to spend months in a studio producing a great album. For a non-participant it’s a bit like watching paint dry.

<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul–how does your family handle these long tours and what do you do in your precious spare time?

<Paul> My family are old enough now to come out and visit the tours, so I see them every couple of weeks. My son is 11, my daughter is 12. I’m delighted that they think U2 are pretty cool.
<Paul> They go to school in Ireland and send me tapes of music they’re listening to and try to educate me what’s cool.
<Paul> This is obviously a difficult year in that we’re away from home.

<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul…what is the most fulfilling aspect to your job?

<Paul> Managing a great band like U2 is still enjoyable for me because they still are getting better. They’re doing their best work now. I’m sure the work they do after this will be even better.
<Paul> i’m sure it’s very hard managing a band who’s lost its creative spark. I’m sure if that ever happens with U2, they’ll hang up their instruments and stop. The fact that it hasn’t happened is exciting.

<Tonster> sirkits says:
<Tonster> Paul: what exactly did you grow up listening to?

<Paul> Very much the Beatles and the Stones, Dylan . . . I was never into Led Zeppelin until Adam turned me on in the early 80s. I also listened to opera, classical music. I have an involvement in an ethnic label from Ireland called Celtic Heartbeat.
<Paul> Riverdance is one of our records. I would like to think I have very broad tastes. I’m always a little disappointed when people express their interest in a single genre.
<Paul> This is ag reat failing in the record businss in that they don’t care to address the great variety of people’s taste.

<Tonster> Victum says:
<Tonster> Paul: who else do you manage?

<Paul> Through Principle we manage PJ Harvey. We recently starting managing Sinead O’Connor. And we manage another artist called Lazlo Bane. He’s just made his first record.
<Paul> Those are our only management clients. We’re also involved in Celtic Heartbeat which is a business of mine.
<Paul> With U2 I’m owner of a label called Mother Records, which is a joint venture with PolyGram.

<Tonster> L`edGE says:
<Tonster> Who chooses what bands open for U2 ?

<Paul> Like many other things that’s a committee process based on who we like and who’s available. We rarely choose those bands on the basis of selling tickets.
<Paul> We do expect people to come to a U2 show without trying to attract them with the opening act.
<Paul> We tryto have bands that the audience will be into even if they’re unknown to them. We’ve had some good bands on this tour — Rage Against The Machine, Oasis, Fun Lovin’ Criminals.
<Paul> In some countries we try to choose bands from that country — in Italy we had a band called Casino Royale. In France and Spain we had a band called Placebo. In Ireland we had Ash. In Wembley we had Audioweb and Long Pings. We had a band called Skunk Anansie.
<Paul> It’s a fairly organic process and I think U2 audiences have learned if youcome early the opening act will be worth seeing.

<Tonster> Gibigiane says:
<Tonster> Paul – what are the plans for the POPMart stage after the tour is over – can we bid on the inflatable olive or slices of the lemon?

<Paul> <laughs> if anyone wants to buy the lemon, theyshould get in touch with us! Adam has said it’s the transport of the future.
<Paul> The screen will probably be sold to a sports facility. The other bits — who knows. I’m not sure anyone will have much use for the arch. I don’t know. Maybe we could have an auction.

<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul…any truth to the rumours that Pearl Jam will open in Seattle?

<Paul> That’s the first I’ve heard of it, so I suppose the answer is no. But if they want to, that would be fine. They know how to get in touch.

<Tonster> Victum says:
<Tonster> Paul: What are your thoughts as to the state of the music industry today? Bono believes music is too boring. Do you share this thought?

<Paul> Boring music is too boring, but there’s a lot of good music around. I think what I was referring to before, the lack of interest by the industry and the diversity of people.
<Paul> Selling lots of one thing is not good for developing acts, or baby acts, as we call them. I’m delighted by the phenomenon of Oasis in that candidly admit they want to be a big band.
<Paul> Big is cool again whereas for a few years it was decidedly unhip to be in a big band which is ridiculous. People join bands in order to get onstage and sell lots of records. That’s the rock and roll instinct. I believe that’s why people join bands.
<Paul> The grunge movement was very joyless and there’s a lot of joy being a rock and roll band on a roll.

<Tonster> With your filmmaking background, did you ever find yourself sitting on your hands during Rattle & Hum?

<Paul> I was the exectuve producer of that and I was deeply involved in that! I never sat on my hands. I thought it was a good film but a band campaign. I’ve said before that we underestimated the impact of a full-blown 1400 screen movie release.
<Paul> I think movie marketing operates in a very different way from record marketing in that you get hit over the head with it all at once. It’s an inappropriate way of marketing formusic and I think our audience were turned off by that. Underlying it was a very good film and a very good record.
<Paul> The movie had one of the most unusual openign weekends of all time. It had a huge Friday night, Saturday it tailedoff, and no one turned up on Sunday. Gave Paramount a bit of a shock, but exciting to U2 fans.

<Tonster> teafan says:
<Tonster> Will there ever be a U2 “box” set ?

<Paul> I wouldn’t rule it out and in fact we need to do it at some time. There’s an enormous quantity of records made — B sides that have never been compiled properly, remixes . . .
<Paul> We’re wary of it to the extent that the release of a boxed set signals the end of somebody’s career and we’re certainly not at the end or anything like it of U2’s career.

<Tonster> ^BadCop^ says:
<Tonster> Paul : What makes you really angry?

<Paul> In the context of our business overzealous security people, ticket scalping, people taking advantage of our audience, those sort of things.
<Paul> People doing things in U2’s name without our approval. It’s not so much that we’re control freaks, we just want to ensure if you buy something U2, it should be worth the money.

<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul, do you ever get frustrated with the americans’ taste in music? bands like the spice girls are topping the charts while bands like u2 are not doing as well?

<Paul> I rather like the Spice Girls, actually. It’s in a long tradition of pop-of-the-moment and I think they do what they do rather amusingly.
<Paul> I can see why people are drawn to it. They’re all very pretty.

<Tonster> What kind of conclusions have you drawn on online U2 fans? How do we differ from other fans? Are they positive or negative differences?

<Paul> There’s been a lot of U2 web activity over the years and the people who go online are slightly more studious.
<Paul> Sometimes on individual pages you can see a sort of party atmosphere generating. I don’t think the people who tune into the PopMart site on MSN are different from U2’s other fans.
<Paul> We seem to have intelligent fans wherever we go.

<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul…why is U2 choosing to perform at awards shows?

<Paul> Like the MTV Awards? MTV hhas an enormous reach. The VMA’s had a verysignificant rating. It’s a way of reaching the audience. Showing people who might not otherwise see U2 perform live how good they are.

<Tonster> Vini-Brazil says:
<Tonster> PAUL TALK ABOUT BRAZIL TOUR !!!!!!!! We WAIT many years FOR THIS !!!!!!!!!!

<Paul> We’ve been putting together the last details of the South American tour. We’re very excited about going to South America and indeed we’re overdue.
<Paul> I’m sure the concerts in Sao Paolo and Rio, Buenes Aires and Santiago will be absolutely wild.
<Paul> We’ve had recent experience of the Latin audience in Spain and Portugal and no doubt about it, the further south you go, the more exciting it is.

<Tonster> Victum says:
<Tonster> Paul: can you describe, as briefly as possible, your various tasks and responsibilities in a typical day of touring?

<Paul> An awful lto of it is to do with staying in touch with the record company in all the countries in the world where we sell records.
<Paul> This album went to #1 in 29 countries. Stay in touch with the production — our command structure is quite military adn the people who run the stage show are briefed to put up the show physically in an identical way in each city.
<Paul> I’m responsible to the band to produce a working environment. Watching out for trouble. I’m basically in charge of worrying.

<Tonster> ^BadCop^ says:
<Tonster> Paul : Why is the Red Hill Mining Town video still locked up in a vault? A lot of fans would love to see it.

<Paul> The real answer is that it’s not very good. We thought that song was a hit and went straight into making a video before the song was played on the radio.
<Paul> The moment it was played on the radio it was the 11th most popular track in 1987 so clearly it wasn’t the hit single we imagined it to be.
<Paul> We threw ourselves into amking that video withNeil Jordan without checking to see whether the audience liked the song.
<Paul> The other part is that the video was really terrible and embarassing. That’s the reason it’s been deep sixed.

<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul..who’s idea was it for the band to walk through the crowd during Pop Muzik?

<Paul> I think it was Bono’s idea. Then we were in Vegas and Oscar de la Hoya — we wanted to copy an authentic boxer’s robe and I think he suggested the traditional Las Vegas boxer’s entry.
<Paul> Like most good ideas it came from the ether — good ideas have many claimants. Success has many parents and failure is an orphan.

<Tonster> Zye says:
<Tonster> Is U2 really doing that Simpson 200th episode. Any cameos from you ?

<Paul> That is true. I can indeed confirm that U2 will perform in the Simpsons episode. I do not have a role myself.
<Paul> Keep logging on and let us know what you think of the site at u2popmart@msn.com.

<Tonster> Thanks to all of you for coming!
<Tonster> Paul has left the v-building.