September 9th, 2010 by brand-m

U2 and NASA have released a video highlighting one year’s worth of collaboration in space… as well as the Irish band’s 360 Degree tour.

U2 approached NASA in 2009 with an idea to include a dialogue between the band and the crew of the International Space Station during the world tour. The astronauts spoke with the rockers several times before recording a video segment which the band incorporated into its gigs.

“Working with U2 is atypical for NASA,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space ops. “By combining their world tour with the space station’s out-of-this-world mission, more people – and different people than our normal target audiences -learned about the International Space Station and the important work we are doing in orbit.”

That NASA/U2 clip is right here.

http://www.brand-m.biz

http://www.u2.com

SPIN’s editors rank the most influential releases since the magazine’s beginning in 1985.

By Andy Battaglia; Scott Indrisek on April 22, 2010 2:00 PM (66) Comments

1 U2, Achtung Baby
1991

Spin

Instead, three years later they emerged with the album — Achtung Baby, cheekily titled as a nod to German reunification — that would energize their career and genetically engineer rock music into the hybridized mutant we know today. Initially recorded at Hansa Studios, a former SS ballroom near the reopened Berlin Wall (and later completed back home in Dublin), Achtung was an effort, stoked primarily by Bono and the Edge, to “deconstruct” the band and rewire it with jolts of beat-generated clutter and collage, nicked from industrial music, hip-hop, dance remixes, and the Madchester scene. That method almost collapsed the band — bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr., as well as coproducer Daniel Lanois, were left bewildered and cranky.

But the frisson found expression in U2’s most immediately dynamic music since 1982’s War, and its most emotionally frank songs to date, capturing that particular early-’90s rub of boundless possibility and worn-down despair. Bono’s lyrical flights had a battered grit, like a defrocked cleric stirred to regain his flock without the usual trick bag of bullshit. “One” became an indelible anthem because it admitted “we’re not the same” but urged that we’ve gotta “carry each other” nonetheless. The squalling swagger of “The Fly” resonated due to the rock star at its center confessing he’s a liar and a thief. And for “Mysterious Ways,” the Edge somehow concocted a jubilantly snarling riff that transformed Bono’s gospel come-on so it didn’t feel gross the morning after.

Unlike Radiohead with OK Computer and Kid A, U2 took their post-industrial, trad-rock disillusionment not as a symbol of overall cultural malaise, but as a challenge to buck up and transcend. Their confessions of frailty and blindness amid murky atmospherics (no doubt egged on by coproducer Brian Eno) had an air of cleansing rather than whining. That the album trails off introspectively is brave in its own quiet way.

Though they continued to bumble through periods of bloat and self-delusion and irrelevance, U2 became the emblematic band of the alternative-rock era with Achtung Baby. Struggling to simultaneously embrace and blow up the world, they were never more inspirational. — Charles Aaron

http://www.spin.com

U2 War (1983)

With War, U2 build skyscrapers upon the foundation of their debut album Boy. If the startling cover art—the same young boy staring at the viewer, only with a face of righteous anger replacing innocence—wasn’t enough of an indication, these men, just 23 at the time of release, expand upon the sound they had already established while incorporating new, striking elements. The first of a holy trilogy of U2 albums, War begat the vastly different Unforgettable Fire, and it would be the last time U2 would reside in the realm of such crunching hard rock.

War, in standard U2 fashion, opens with a heavyweight, “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” which has only improved with time. Larry Mullen Jr.’s propulsive drum beat is the best thing he’s ever done, and Bono’s anti-war lyrics (“And the battle’s just begun / There’s many lost, but tell me, Who has won?”) have never before or since sounded so revelatory. The band shrewdly places the calmer “Seconds” afterwards, but don’t let the acoustic guitar and groovy bass line fool you, for Bono is still fiery as ever—“London, New York, Peking / Yes, the puppets pull the strings.” But it’s the next two tracks that announce War as an album to withstand the test of time, not because either is better than “Sunday,” but because they reassure the cautious listener expecting a one-song album, worried that nothing else would resonate in a similar way.

“New Year’s Day” was the band’s first U.S. hit, and it remains a concert favorite to this day. Adam Clayton’s instantly recognizable bass line, mixing well with the piano, underscore the Edge’s penetrating guitar, which seems to fill up vacuums of space, be they in an arena or in your head. Then, on “Like a Song…” the band revives the punkish energy of Boy while cranking up the volume, resulting in a delightful mash-up that’s a more political and slightly smoother version of The Unforgettable Fire’s “Wire.” Bono never forgets his purpose, but his voice is so beautiful that one would be forgiven for allowing it to take him away. When he cries, “Angry words won’t stop my fight / Two wrongs won’t make it right / A new heart is what I need / Oh, God, make it bleed,” it’s pretty damn impossible to deny his sentiments.

If the latter six songs of War were as good as the first four, we’d be talking about one of the eight or ten best albums ever made, but they’re nevertheless able to change the tone while still maintaining the feel of the entire album. The lovely “The Drowning Man” and quirky “The Refugee” are U2 originals that feel at home here. Every song is worthy in its own right, from the dance-rock of “Two Hearts Beat as One” to the glorious breathy vocals on “Surrender.” It all rocks, and it all works.

What helps make the album so successful is the way Bono delivers his messages passionately, but not in a way that overwhelms the listener. I have gotten just as much pleasure out of quietly listening to the album at night, paying more attention to softer songs like “The Drowning Man,” “Red Light,” and “40,” than in those times when I want to revel in the music’s rage and unbridled power. Of course, the band behind the frontman makes it easy to take him seriously, as every member contributes and no song is underdeveloped.

Rolling Stone avowed that the songs on War match up, pound for pound, with those on London Calling (an obvious influence), at least in terms of sheer impact. That may have sounded like hyperbole in 1983, but time has proven RS right—and then some. Though U2 were still getting better, War, with its coherent theme, consistency, and commitment to excellence, defines them as much as anything else. Even at their young age, U2 had long since proved that they wanted to be in the big leagues.

http://earnthis.net

U2’s Bono performs at the Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona, Spain. Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

When we hear the blending of music that matters and music that moves us, we do more than listen. We ask questions that are at the core of our identity. Rock music is often discounted in theological circles as mere distraction from what we are called to be and do in the name of Christ. Music that does nothing more than make people fantasize about becoming rock stars is a good example. But when we hear music, regardless of genre, that calls out the “Better angels of our nature” and causes us to reflect on our core vocations — as spouses, parents, leaders — then we need to inline our ears and consider what is going on in that music.

Lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, identified U2’s goal in a 1981 interview in Rolling Stone magazine. He said the band sought to move beyond “punk rock” and re-establish rock and roll as a vehicle for people to think about their actions in relation to one another:

“The idea of punk at first was, ‘Look, you’re an individual, express yourself how you want, do what you want to do,’” Bono told the reporter. “Kids were sold the imagery of violence, which turned into the reality of violence, and it’s that negative side that I worry about. … We want our audience to think about their actions and where they are going, to realize the pressures that are on them, but at the same time, not to give up.”

As a band whose career has charted countless No. 1 hits and filled stadiums with fans of all ages for three decades, U2 has certainly earned a place in the history of rock and roll as one of the most successful rock acts ever. But can a rock band, to borrow Seattle Pacific University’s vision statement, move beyond fame to truly “engage the culture and change the world” as Christ would have us do?

Eugene Peterson, Seattle Pacific alumnus of 1954 and author of The Message, thinks so. In a foreword to Get Up Off Your Knees (Cowley Publications, 2003), a collection of sermons inspired by the music of U2, he wrote: “Is U2 a prophetic voice? I rather think so. And many of my friends think so. If they do not explicitly proclaim the Kingdom, they certainly prepare the way for that proclamation in much the same way that John the Baptist prepared the way for the kerygma [preaching] of Jesus.”

While it is true that U2 is a band where three of the four members are self-described Christians, they are not a “Christian rock band” in the sense that we would understand in the States. They prefer to compete in the public marketplace, not preach to the choir. That impulse motivates imaginative and compelling lyrics at the symbolic intersections of faith and apathy, hope and despair, love and betrayal, grace and damnation. And that impulse reminds us that true leaders speak without boundaries.

If U2’s early albums (War, 1983; and The Unforgettable Fire, 1985) were about kerygma — getting the word out — and their later albums (Achtung Baby, 1992; Zooropa, 1993; and Pop, 1997) were about the musical form of that kerygmatic vision — R&B, Euro pop, retro disco, electronica — then their latest CDs have been about putting it all together.

The years after Zooropa and Pop have been enlivened by Bono’s renewed passion for the social gospel, only hinted at during the mid-’80s by his now-famous cry “Thank God it’s them instead of you” in Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Today U2’s music challenges people to stand up from their comfortable lives and look into the eyes of the oppressed, who were the concern of Jesus’ ministry.

Through decades of conversations with some of the greatest activists, economists, and political leaders of the 20th and 21st centuries — Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, and Mother Teresa, among others — Bono has made overcoming debt for developing countries a mandate for his life. That vision began with Live Aid in 1985 and Bono’s 1986 trip to work with various development organizations in Ethiopia with his wife, Alison Stewart.

Taking seriously the commission of Leviticus 25:10 — “Proclaim liberty throughout the lands and to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you” — Bono became actively involved with such programs as Drop the Debt, End AIDS Now, and Jubilee 2000 and galvanized a vision of responsive activism that brought secular and Christian groups together rather than letting them remain sectarian. Today he is co-founder and spokesperson for the ONE campaign, one of the most influential anti-poverty and debt-relief organizations committed to collaborating with the private sector, faith-based organizations, and government agencies.

For theologians, one indication of what a church values is the way in which a community of faith worships together. Similarly, transformational leaders gather people together in ways that exemplify what they value and seek to embody. From their earliest concerts, U2 has seen the gathering of people as an opportunity to invite people into causes larger than the music and spectacle of typical rock shows.

During the 1983 “War” tour, members of the band waved a white flag to challenge their audience to look beyond mere nationalism and embrace a larger humanitarian spirit. And during the 2005 “Vertigo” tour, thousands of lit cell phones texted support for African relief work through the ONE campaign. Now, during the current 360° tour, audience members line the stage choosing to wear a mask with the face of the imprisoned Burmese Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi during the song “Walk On” as a sign of solidarity, demonstrating how U2 has continued to lead its fans into acts of selflessness and social action that many churches would do well to emulate.

The closing tracks of U2 albums usually function as benedictions and “songs of sending” — an overt turn to the liturgical and a direct assessment of Christendom and the Christ that can sometimes get lost within it.

Whether it is the direct biblical quotation in “40” from War, or the reframing of Pilgrim’s Progress for the e-generation in “The Wanderer” from Zooropa, or the whispering cry of the Psalmist in “Wake Up Dead Man” from Pop, or the call of grace from All That You Can’t Leave Behind — U2 continues to draw its productions to a close with an invitation to something more, more than words and music can convey. This is continued in How to ?Dismantle an Atomic Bomb with the final song “Yahweh”:

Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don’t make a fist …

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I’m waiting for the dawn

The band became superstars in the late ’80s singing about the already-but-not-yet character of God’s reign in “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and they now seem to rest in the assurance that amidst the uncertainty and pain in this life, to paraphrase Rattle and Hum, Love has indeed come to town, and for now maybe that is what we need the most. As Bono sings in “A Man and a Woman” from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb:

You can run from love
And if it’s really love it will find you
Catch you by the heel
But you can’t be numb for love
The only pain is to feel nothing at all
How can I hurt when I’m holding you?

Bono once asked Christian songwriter Michael W. Smith if he knew how someone could dismantle an atomic bomb — a question that would lead to the title of U2’s 2004 album. After Smith replied that he didn’t, Bono simply answered, “Love. With love.”

And this is what U2 has given us as probably the highest watermark for transformational leadership — that in the end, the world will change when we truly learn to love it as Jesus did. Jesus did not call us to evoke change through willpower or blind agendas. Rather, akin to St. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13, change will come when we realize that of all virtues a leader can offer us, the greatest of these is love.

http://www.spu.edu

Read this also from U2 Sermons

http://u2blog.com

By Charlotte Cripps

Friday, 9 April 2010

Rubble and hum: the band record the video for their early “A Celebration” single in Dublin Colm Henry

With 12 studio albums under their belts, it’s hard to imagine U2’s humble beginnings – or even the lead singer Bono without his trademark sunglasses on.

A new exhibition, U2: The Early Years, by photographer Colm Henry, captures the band before they were even signed.

The photographer met them in 1979, at one of their first gigs at Dublin’s Baggot Inn. “They were one of about 600 bands around Ireland at that time and there was high unemployment. Everyone felt that someone had to make it and it turned out to be U2,” recalls Henry, who worked for Irish music magazine Hot Press.

U2, who are headlining Glastonbury this summer, are shown in a new light, long before they became megastars.

Having formed in Dublin in 1976 as teenagers at school, they signed to Island Records and released their debut album, Boy, in 1980. Recording The Unforgettable Fire in 1984 with Brian Eno, at Slane Castle, made a change from the cramped conditions of their previous albums in Windmill Lane, Dublin.

Bono abandoned the cowboy style for a more classic rock star look in 1987, when “With or Without You” became their first American No 1. “Soon they became international celebrities and became somewhat remote, which was necessary for their survival,” adds Henry.

‘U2: The Early Years’, Proud Camden, London NW1 (Proud.co.uk) 14 April to 6 June

http://www.independent.co.uk

Lenny Kravitz

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 9:58p.m.

Lenny Kravitz rejected all offers to tour this summer – until rockers U2 made him an offer he couldn’t resist.

The ‘American Woman’ singer had planned to take a few months off from his hectic live schedule later this year – but he soon changed his mind after the Irish icons approached him to join them on the road.

And now he can’t wait to hang out with Bono and the band when the tour starts in June.

He tells People magazine, “I wouldn’t normally tour then. But they asked me to do these gigs. It’s going to be fun to play some stadiums with friends.”

WENN.com

http://www.3news.co.nz

by Ann Donahue, L.A. | helmikuu 10, 2010 3:40 EST

U2 - Welcome Home

“The Music of Ireland – Welcome Home,” a documentary featuring interviews and performances from U2, Pete Seeger, Sinead O’Connor and the Chieftans will debut on New York public television station WLIW on Feb. 17, then rollout to other PBS affiliates throughout March.

“Music of Ireland” will be available as a CD and DVD in a number of outlets: Barnes & Noble is the exclusive brick and mortar retail partner and will debut an in-store promotional campaign on March 2; Amazon.com will feature all the CD tracks digitally on a 45-day exclusive starting that same day. In addition, the CD and DVD will be bundled as a bonus for those who donate to public television during pledge drives.

The CD was produced by John Reynolds, and features new material by Clannad’s Moya Brennan – who also hosts the documentary – O’Connor, the Chieftans, former Irish Tenor Ronan Tyanan and Shane MacGowan of the Pogues, among others.

The documentary “Music of Ireland” opens in 1960 with the success of the pioneering Clancy Brothers, and includes Liam Clancy’s final U.S. television interview before his death. Other interviews include “Riverdance’s” Michael Flatley, Bob Geldof and Academy Award-nominated director Jim Sheridan.

A sequel to the “Music of Ireland” is planned for later this year, and will focus on U2, Celtic Woman, The Cranberries, The Corrs, the Irish Tenors and songwriters Glen Hansard and Damien Rice.

The documentary was executive produced by The Elevation Group’s Denny Young, who previously produced “Bonefish Grill’s Notes From The Road” for Ovation, and is presented by WLIW in association with WNET.org and Tourism Ireland.

“For such a small country to produce such amazing talent and the way their music defines the people is just extraordinary,” Young says. “It has fascinated me for most of my life and is something I wanted more people to be in tune with.”

http://www.billboard.com

By Neil McCormick Music Last updated: November 24th, 2009

U2: ultimate outsiders?
U2 are to headline Glastonbury this year, on the festival’s 40th anniversary. There has been some predictable scepticism expressed about this from the anti-U2 brigade, although it seems a bit of a no-brainer to me: rock band plays rock festival – let the controversy begin!
Like last year’s headliners, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, the Irish group have a long established reputation as outstanding live performers, which has helped make them one of the most consistently popular live attractions of the last few decades. It was probably a given that U2 would get to Glastonbury sooner or later (The Rolling Stones are really the only other band of that stature never to have played the festival), the real question being why has it taken them 26 years.
The answer lies partly in the fact that U2 just don’t need Glastonbury, or any other festival. They are one of the few bands who can pull mass crowds under their own steam on a regular basis anywhere in the world. And, certainly since they ascended to stadium status with The Joshua Tree in 1987, they have put a great deal of care and effort into creating their own unique and artfully integrated live environments. Whenever the issue of Glastonbury has arisen within the U2 camp, the same questions tend to arise, which, if I might paraphrase the succinct directness of their very pragmatic drummer, boil down to: “So, if I understand this correctly, we wouldn’t be playing to our fans, right? It’s not our sound system? It’s not our lighting rig? And we would be doing this for a fee that would be less than we would make on the gate at our own gig? And the point of this would be …?”
So what has changed? Well, Glastonbury itself, for one thing. It has become a kind of something-for-everyone entertainment smorgasbord. There may still be a quasi hippy ideal of the Pyramid stage headliner connecting to the audience in a mystical way as the sun goes down and the lights go up, but you can’t have Radiohead every year. It’s hard to see how having one of the world’s greatest rock bands at the top of the bill is any more unlikely to appeal to the mass of festival goers than other recent headliners, such as Jay Z or Sir Paul McCartney.
But the whole music business has changed, beset by technological challenges that have not just damaged recorded music sales but provided so much choice that it is becoming ever harder to achieve the kind of universal, crossover audience that U2 are used to. They may have a huge fan base, but for them to remain a truly effective force in the wider world of popular music, they need to find new ways to reach out to people who are not, perhaps, their natural listeners.
I imagine the band see Glastonbury as an opportunity to woo the sceptics, that increasingly shrill minority of mockers who loudly denigrate their every move. Bono has the instincts of a perennial suitor, a rock and roll travelling salesman who almost sees it as a matter of pride to be able to sell his wares to the most reluctant customer. The fact is the general public loves them, as their sell out live shows (this year alone, U2 have performed to over 3 million fans and grossed more than $300 million in ticket sales) and multi-million selling albums attest (although their latest ‘No Line On The Horizon’ has been widely perceived as a four million selling flop, low sales by U2’s standards, it is nonetheless amongst the best selling albums in the UK and the world this year). But somehow U2 have never belonged in the rock fraternity that seems to locate Glastonbury as its spiritual home. They have never actually been part of a British rock scene. In earlier days, U2 did play festivals. But never Glastonbury, probably because they were never invited. Coming from Ireland as post-punk rockers in the early 80s, they were critically aligned with the Liverpool new-psychedelic scene of Echo & The Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes, but were viewed suspiciously by those bands as over-eager Irish interlopers, rivals rather than peers. And while they have certainly had their champions amongst critics (in the UK, The NME’s influential, polemical and cerebral critic Paul Morley was an unlikely early supporter) they have always had their vocal denigrators, who use them almost as short-hand for naffness: too sincere, to epic, too ambitious to ever be cool. U2 achieved success on their own terms, almost completely outside of the framework of the British music scene, and actually more on an Irish-US axis.
There is still something about playing Glastonbury that is a badge of honour amongst British bands, and I know that is something that appeals to Bono. There is a fraternity that exists in at least the perception of a shared experience, where the bands not only mingle back stage, striking up new friendships and alliances, but are perceived to share the trials of the often embattled festival goers themselves. Indeed, the regularly appalling weather of the worst Glastonbury festivals seems to be a positive bonus in this regard. Bonds are formed in the mud and rain. Bands wear those wellies with pride.
U2 live are a fairly irresistible force. They have passion, commitment, charisma, imagination and the kind of songs you can find yourself singing despite yourself, delivered with the showmanship and warrior skills of a gang who have been playing together all their lives. And with Bono at the helm, they are a band of seducers: put them in front of even the most sceptical crowd and they will do everything in their power to win them over. It may be a greater challenge to perform to an audience that is not, naturally, their own, but if they deliver at Glastonbury, the ripples could spread out into the wider musical community of both fans and artists. For all their success, U2 have been outsiders in the British rock scene. On some level, Glastonbury still represents a kind of inclusion. With these kind of stakes, I think U2 at Glastonbury could turn out to be legendary.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/

21 November 2009

A second night at the Montreal Hippodrome has been added for the 360° Tour next year – it will be on July 17th.

The show will go on public sale on Monday November 30th and a presale for U2.com subscribers will open this coming Tuesday.

We’ll be emailing our subscribers with presale details. Click here for the latest information on 2010 dates and onsales. (On this tour grid you can also see which presale groups go on sale on which day.)

Anyone joining U2.com as a subscriber this week, can enter the presale on Wednesday. When you subscribe you also qualify to be sent the limited edition U2 Remix album as soon as it comes off the press. Here’s the lowdown.