Latest U2 News & Information

The music of U2 spans decades. Since its formation in the late 1970s, the band has released 11 studio albums, produced several chart-topping hits and won countless awards on its way to earning a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. People don’t refer to U2 as the biggest rock band in the world for nothing. Read the rest of this story »

It’s a beautiful day for U2 fans everywhere as their long-awaited 3D concert movie opened in theaters nationwide this past weekend, and what a great movie it was. For a much cheaper price than one would pay for a terrible ticket in the back row of some arena, fans are given a front row seat that literally puts U2 front man and longtime political activist Bono in their laps for a fraction of the cost. Read the rest of this story »

No matter how good they are, concert films always seem like films of concerts. U2 3D puts viewers at the concert.

Seamlessly blending footage from several shows during the “Vertigo” tour, U2 3D was shot primarily in South America at packed stadiums bursting with energy. Read the rest of this story »

National Geographic is the distributor handling U2-3D, the new concert film from the legendary Bono-led band. The rookie distributor is managing to grab virtually all of the nation’s Digital 3D locations (although likely short of the number that the recent Hannah Montana from Disney opened on). There is no tracking available for U2-3D, and it’s difficult to tell how high the awareness is for this movie-going experience. I suspect that $10,000-$12,000 per location is possible, a far cry from Hannah’s $45,000+ PTA on opening weekend, but still an impressive $6M-$8M for the weekend.

Here are my predictions for Oscar weekend, February 22-24: Read the rest of this story »

Bono & Co. jump out to fans and foes alike in new, 3-D movie

The foremost question viewers will probably find themselves asking before putting on their special glasses and settling in to watch “U2 3-D” is: “Who is the intended audience for this movie?”

If you have never been to a U2 concert, are not a U2 fan or just find that sunglasses-at-night-wearing, globetrotting, world-saving force of nature and frontman of the world’s biggest rock band, Bono, to be extremely obnoxious, then you might be surprised by “U2 3-D.” Read the rest of this story »

Stars: Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jnr.
Directed by: Kathryn Owens and Mark Pellington
Reviewed by: Adam Mast, Zboneman.com
Grade: A-

U2-3-D is one of the greatest concert films of our time. It ranks right up there with the likes of The Last Waltz and Stop Making Sense. Being a massive fan of U2, there’s certainly a bit of bias to that statement, but the fact remains, this is one hell of a breathtaking movie.

Culled from several dates on their South American “Vertigo” tour, U2 3-D captures the most vital rock band of the last twenty five years in their prime. And through this amazing digital 3-D process – also used for Superman Returns and Beowulf - we the audience are not only thrust into a sea of cheering fans, but we also feel the sensation of being a rock star. This revolutionary third dimension actually allows us to explore the space inhabited by the band itself. By viewing U2 3-D, you won’t only be paying far less money than you would if you saw the band live (if you do get a chance however, they’re well worth the price of admission), but you won’t have to spend a majority of the show yelling “Down in front” at the drunk idiot swaying back and forth right in front of you. Read the rest of this story »

Halfway through the excellent new U2 album, Bono announces, “I like the sound of my own voice.” Well-said, lad; well-said. Ever since U2 started making noise in Dublin several hundred bloody Sundays ago, Bono has grooved to the sound of his own gargantuan rockness. Ego, shmego — this is one rock-star madman who should never scale down his epic ambitions. As the old Zen proverb goes, you will find no reasonable men on the tops of great mountains, and U2’s brilliance is their refusal to be reasonable. U2 were a drag in the 1990s, when they were trying to be cool, ironic hipsters. Feh! Nobody wants a skinny Santa, and for damn sure nobody wants a hipster Bono. We want him over the top, playing with unforgettable fire. We want him to sing in Latin or feed the world or play Jesus to the lepers in his head. We want him to be Bono. Nobody else is even remotely qualified.

U2 bring that old-school, wide-awake fervor to How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The last time we heard from them, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, U2 were auditioning for the job of the World’s Biggest Rock & Roll Band. They trimmed the Euro-techno pomp, sped up the tempos and let the Edge define the songs with his revitalized guitar. Well, they got the job. Read the rest of this story »

U2’s degeneration from the divine to the treadmill demands an answer to the question: why not disband?

John Waters

The new album by U2 was feted as a masterpiece before anyone heard it. It is already No. 1 in the U.S., Britain and Ireland. But How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is in reality a nondescript collection by a band nearly two decades at the top and desperate not to slip.

It is, you might say, U2’s fourth White Album, following Zooropa (1993), Pop (1997) and All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000). The White Album marked the beginning of the end of the Beatles and, though not without magic, was so underpinned by a sense of imminent disintegration as to be less a Beatles album than the first wave of a federal farewell.

Achtung Baby (1992) was U2’s Sergeant Pepper, combining a conceptual and sonic unity with a startlingly original vision of love as life. This is U2’s fourth past-their-best anthology, comprising 10 competent songs and a couple of greatish ones, a showcase of impressive talents and occasional genius, but nothing that, really, a disintegrated U2 couldn’t have left unsaid. It isn’t the album U2 should be making now, at the age they are, in a sequence defined from Boy to Achtung Baby. Sure, it has resonances that evoke different parts of their journey, but it all adds up to no more than a massive unit-shifter.

U2 promised more. They said the world could go far if it listened to what they said. They gathered up a ragged medium and sought to reintroduce it to its roots. They demanded of pop no less than that it grow up. Having started as pop illiterates, they acquired an awesome competence, implying an exalted purpose. They hinted at some sacred mission, which the attuned understand to transcend the Christian simplicities of the early years. There was something here about redemption, about taking the devil’s music back, about demonstrating some connection between inspiration and faith, love and rigour.
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U2’s new album has nothing to do with nuclear arsenals, yet its title couldn’t be more fitting.

Disarming and explosive, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (* * * * out of four) has the radiating energy of a reactor meltdown and the potential half-life of uranium. U2 is the new U-235, white-hot and untouchable.

Bomb, out today, is a blast, as quickly established by the spiking voltage of “Vertigo” and warped glam-rock of “Love and Peace or Else.” It’s also the band’s most emotionally absorbing work, riding on great swells of optimism and faith occasionally darkened by a chilly undertow of grief and anxiety.

Bomb’s majestic sweep owes much of its verve to the sparkle, thrum and roar of Edge’s bold guitar. Larry Mullen Jr. excites and fattens the songs with a pugnacious thump, spiced by the steady, seductive bass of Adam Clayton.

Bono, in peak form vocally and lyrically, sweats and bleeds passion, whether marveling at the human spirit in “Miracle Drug,” mourning shattered innocence in “City of Blinding Lights” or offering a healing prayer in the closing “Yahweh.” Read the rest of this story »

U2’s latest a muddle of music both memorable, middling

by David John Farinella

That giant whooshing sound you hear is the collective breath of relief coming from U2 fans around the world. The band that defined anthem-like protest alternative-rock during the 1980s is back.

Well, nearly.

All That You Can’t Leave Behind is not exactly akin to the guitar-centered fiery rockers U2 released during the 1980s, nor is it like any of the techno-laced junk from the 1990s. Rather, it is a blend that’s sure to please few, irritate some, and land flaccidly in the middle of modern-day musical relevance.

It’s not that the album is boring; it’s just not what’s happening now. Sure, that’s a good thing. Do we really need another Limp Bizkit release? But for the first time in their careers, the lads of U2 are standing at the crossroads: Are they hip? Are they revolutionary? Or are they soft? Read the rest of this story »