Latest U2 News & Information

Following the success of the 25th Anniversary of the classic ‘Joshua Tree’ album last year, Island Records plan to kick start releasing the U2 back catalogue with ‘Boy’ on May 20.

Originally released in 1980, the Irish band’s debut album failed to reach to UK charts but it could fair a lot better this time with an extra CD available alongside a re-mastered version of the original.

- albumvote.co.uk

By Paul Whitington

As part of this year’s Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, which opens next Saturday with an exciting programme from new festival director Grainne Humphreys (see panel), there will be a European premiere of Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington’s film, U2:3D.

Filmed using the latest digital 3D technology, U2:3D is a concert movie with a difference. Sporting your special pair of polarized glasses, you will be transported to a balmy night in Buenos Aires, where the band kicked off the South American leg of their 2006 Vertigo tour.

The first live action movie to be filmed, produced and exhibited solely in digital 3D, U2:3D was actually shot at a series of concerts in South America, using nine pairs of special digital cameras each operated by crews of five.

Months of filming in this multi-angle approach resulted in over 100 hours of concert footage, which someone clearly blessed with saintly patience edited down to 85 minutes.

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“I’M doing some writing with (Brian) Eno and U2,” mega-producer Daniel Lanois tells Spinner magazine when asked about his work with Bono and the boys on their new CD. “We’re gonna knock out another record that’s promising to be a fantastically innovative collection of songs. I’m excited about that.”

Lanois is much more than a U2 insider. His fingerprints have been all over the production knobs of some of the greatest CDs by the likes of Peter Gabriel, the Neville Brothers, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan.

He creates that trademark spooky, atmospheric vibe on the discs he touches. It’s that same aura that made U2’s The Joshua Tree unlike anything you ever heard.

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Stars combine efforts for New York charity event

U2’s Bono and British artist Damien Hirst have teamed up to help organise an art auction in New York to raise money for the United Nations‘ HIV relief program in Africa.

There will be an auction on February 14 in the Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan, New York City, during which 83 pieces of art will be auctioned off.

Damien Hirst has contributed seven of his works to be auctioned at the event, which was conceived by himself and U2’s frontman Bono.

Hirst’s sculpture, ‘Where There’s A Will There’s A Way’, a depiction of a medicine chest with hundreds of metal HIV pills, is expected to raise up to $7 million.

- NME

U2 go supersize in new 3-D movie

U2’s film ‘U2 3D’ had its London premiere on the UK’s biggest screen - the IMAX - last night (February 5) in front of a bespectacled audience.

The band’s latest release is the first ever live action three dimensional digital film.‘U2 3D’ – which premiered at the Sundance Festival last month – is a montage from several spectacular Latin American shows from their 2005-6 Vertigo tour shot with new 3-D technology.

The effect is startling – a giant Bono occasionally looms into your face, people lurched backwards to avoid a mic-stand and you can almost touch the fingers of waving Argentinian fans.

Given the sheer size of the screen, viewers were able to feel as if they were in the thick of the slightly rally-like excitement, just with extra added popcorn, and of course, ridiculous glasses.

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While Radiohead, The Stones, Coldplay, Robbie Williams and Paul McCartney have all either left or in the process of leaving EMI, U2’s manager Paul McGuiness has confirmed that his band will not be leaving Universal Music.

McGuiness has stated that the relationship between U2 and Universal is an “excellent relationship” and that last year, the band resigned for another four albums.

Comments by McGuiness were misinterpreted by a tabloid journalist for Fox News last week causing Fox to incorrectly headline the departure of the band from the label.

McGuiness was critical of the major labels saying that “through lack of foresight and planning allowed a range of industries to arise that let people steal music.”

It was not a statement that U2 were departing the label they started with 28 years ago.

U2 released launched their new concert movie U2-3D at the Sundance Film Festival. All four members of the band attended the premiere.

The movie was shot during the South American leg of the Vertigo tour.

Undercover - U2 Stay With Universal