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From Dotmusic:

U2 World Tour Unveiled

U2’s imminent world tour will feature around 80 dates,culminating with an 80,000 show at Slane Castle, Ireland, dotmusic can exclusively reveal.

We have received unconfirmed reports that the dates, whichare set to be announced officially next week, will begin on March 24th at the Miami Arena, Miami, USA.

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Comparing it to a Beatles record, “in that every song feels like a single”, Bono and U2 have finally unveiled the contents on their upcoming album, “All That You Can’t Leave Behind”.

Due out in late October, the long-gestating follow-up to “Pop” will contain 11 songs that Bono characterizes as “tunes rather than just ideas. There’s no storytelling or artifice,” he writes on the band’s official website. “It’s about the pure joy of playing in a band, with or without an audience.”

“All That You Can’t Leave Behind” was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Here is the complete track listing:

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U2 are to go on line, at last. Speaking to ShowBiz Ireland recently Paul McGuiness, U2’s manager confirmed www.U2.com is soon to become a reality for their new album. "We now want to go on-line with U2.com and it’s just something we haven’t got around to yet. Well, at least until now."
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Courtesy of U2’s Bono, Wim Wenders will make a rare appearance at the Foyle film festival this week, reports MICK HEANEY.

by Mick Heaney

It has taken more than a decade, but Wim Wenders, the German film director, has finally brought to the screen The Million Dollar Hotel, the pet project of Bono, the U2 singer. As an ardent traveller it is no surprise that Wenders - currently riding high with his documentary film The Buena Vista Social Club and appearing this week at the Foyle film festival in Londonderry - was drawn to the film’s transient setting. Throughout his career he has been obsessed with journeys and dislocation, and his key artistic influences are largely foreign - American, British and Irish rock’n'roll are as important to him as the culture of his homeland. So it was natural that he should be drawn to a story formulated by an Irish rock singer.

“Bono is the one who started the whole movie,” says Wenders in his laid-back but precise English. “He wrote the story to begin with, a long time ago, and suggested it to me. He then developed the script with Nicholas Klein.

“Now we’re finally finishing it. We’ve been working on this project for almost eight years. If it’s all worth it in the end it’s fine, and I think this is.” Read the rest of this story »

The four members of Irish supergroup U2 are to be granted the Freedom of Dublin, the city council has decreed.

Bono, the Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton, as well as their manager Paul McGuinness - all from the Irish capital - will be conferred with the honour for their contribution to life in the city, said Lord Mayor Mary Freehill.

She added: “Despite their international success they continue to live, record and plan their world-class campaigns here.

“The band are always quick to support the city’s charities and cultural initiatives.”

Members of the council voted unanimously to honour the band, which found fame in the early 1980s and has maintained its status over the years as one of the most popular groups in the world.

Ms Freehill said: “U2 placed Dublin on the map as an attractive destination for many young music lovers who would never have visited Ireland otherwise.”

© 1999 Reuters. All rights reserved.

What Elvis was to rock’n'roll, David was to the blues. Bono, U2’s singer and a campaigner to end Third World debt, argues that the psalms truly rock the soul.

Explaining belief has always been difficult. How do you explain a love and logic at the heart of the universe when the world is so out of kilter with this? Has free will got us crucified? And what about the dodgy characters who inhabit the tome known as the Bible, who hear the voice of God? Explaining faith is impossible: vision over visibility; instinct over intellect. A songwriter plays a chord with the faith that he will hear the next one in his head.

One of the writers of the psalms was a musician, a harp-player whose talents were required at ‘the palace’ as the only medicine that would still the demons of the moody and insecure King Saul of Israel. It is a thought that still inspires: Marilyn sang for Kennedy, the Spice Girls for Prince Charles.

At the age of 12, I was a fan of David. He felt familiar, like a pop star could feel familiar. The words of the psalms were as poetic as they were religious, and he was a star. Before David could fulfil the prophecy and become the king of Israel, he had to take quite a beating. He was forced into exile and ended up in a cave in some no-name border town facing the collapse of his ego and abandonment by God. But this is where the soap opera got interesting. This is where David was said to have composed his first psalm - a blues. That’s what a lot of the psalms feel like to me, the blues. Man shouting at God - ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?’ (Psalm 22).

I hear echoes of this holy row when un-holy bluesman Robert Johnson howls, ‘There’s a hellhound on my trail’ or Van Morrison sings, ‘Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child.’ Texas Alexander mimics the psalms in ‘Justice Blues’: ‘I cried Lord my father, Lord kingdom come. Send me back my woman, then thy will be done.’ Humorous, sometimes blasphemous, the blues was backslidin’ music but, by its very opposition, it flattered the subject of its perfect cousin, gospel. Read the rest of this story »