BBC Picks UP U2 Documentary

BBC Worldwide Canada, part of the BBC’s commercial arm, has picked up distribution rights to Davis Guggenheim’s U2 film From the Sky Down (pictured), which earlier this month became the first documentary to ever open the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

The documentary celebrates the 20th anniversary of U2’s 1991 album Achtung Baby!, the creation of which marked a major turning point for the band musically.

Earlier this year, U2 returned to Hansa Studios in Berlin, the site where they first recorded the album, with Oscar-winning director Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for “Superman”) in tow, to make the doc.

Following the film’s September 8 premiere at TIFF, Guggenheim and U2 band members Bono and The Edge held a press conference to discuss the making of the film and highlight their favorite rock documentaries, paying praise to filmmakers including Jonathan Demme, DA Pennebaker and Martin Scorsese.

Packed Rogers Centre Welcomes U2

U2 360 Tour /U2TOURFANS 2011 TORONTO – U2 proved that the wait was worth it. Rogers Centre sold out and the tour is coming to a finish finally. Now fans may want the tour to go on, however its time to come to close.  The evening started out the same as the rest of the shows with David Bowie’s Major Tom, driving the band right into “Even Better than the Real Thing” “Achtung Baby” and “The Fly” as the crowds arose from their feet to welcome the boys from Ireland back.

Rise your hands in the air! Bono shouts during Mysterious Ways as he walks towards the The Edge on the walkway.

 No Line on the Horizon tracks was few and the 130-minute show could be called the greatest hits show.   

“Thank you for your patience, some of you were two years younger when you bought tickets for tonight’s show, feeling much better thank you,” Bono said, adding Mullen was starring in the new film Trainspotting III before saying The Edge had a new idea for a musical: a superhero bitten by a spider and turns into a nerd.

“Where are we? Who are we?” Bono quipped before the first notes put him and the sold-out right at home with I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. Here the crowd took over the first verse while Sunday Bloody Sunday had the same effect with one massive sing-along. 

U2 360 Tour / U2TOURFANS 2011 Dedicating Beautiful Day to Arizona Congresswoman and shooting victim Gabrielle Giffords, U2 shifted into another gear with Elevation as Bono crammed a Canadian flag tossed onstage into his rear pants pocket. “I got Canada shining from my backside.” 

From there Pride (In The Name Of Love) had its spine-tingling moments as the lights along the CN tower glowed and rose, looking like an applause meter. The same could be said for City Of Blinding Lights, another highlight with Bono taking a young boy from the audience, walking the circular walkway and harmonizing with him. 

If there was one slight lull it might have been the one-two combination of Miss Sarajevo and Zooropa, but even this was striking with the screen expanding and elongating from the claw’s floor to ceiling. The dance-meets-disco medley featuring with I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight and Discotheque was also okay but slowly grew on the crowd.

After Walk On, the group returned for more warhorses in One, an epic Where The Streets Have No Name and a memorable With Or Without You.

 The Set list

  1. Even Better Than The Real Thing
  2. The Fly
  3. Mysterious Ways / Someone Somewhere In Summertime (snippet)
  4. Until The End Of The World / Anthem (snippet)
  5. I Will Follow
  6. Get On Your Boots
  7. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
  8. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
  9. Beautiful Day
  10. Elevation
  11. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
  12. Miss Sarajevo
  13. Zooropa
  14. City Of Blinding Lights
  15. Vertigo
  16. Miss You (snippet) / Crazy Tonight / Discothèque (snippet)
  17. Sunday Bloody Sunday
  18. Scarlet
  19. Walk On

    20. Encore(s):
  20. One
  21. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (snippet) / Where The Streets Have No Name
  22. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
  23. With Or Without You
  24. Moment of Surrender

Snippets provided from u2gigs -

160K Fans in Montreal

MONTREAL — After 160,000 people in Montreal made their way through the gates of the Hippodrome this weekend to watch U2 perform, Sunday was a day for the massive cleanup.

Crews showed up at the site of the two nights of massive concerts early Sunday morning to pick up debris and garbage left behind.

Most of The Claw, the infamous stage allowing Bono and bandmates to put on a 360-degree performance, is en route to Toronto, where the Irish rock stars take the stage Monday.

Vendors and sponsors were on hand to tear down their booths, while nearby businesses were recuperating from a busy night.

“It was completely full – every single seat, table, chair… There was a line up of people waiting to be seated and outside we made a take-out counter for smoked meat, just for take out—there was a big line all through the whole parking lot,” said Shafir Mohammed of Dunn’s restaurant.

The U2 360° tour ends on Moncton’s Magnetic Hill July 30.

Check out the set list

  1. Even Better Than The Real Thing
  2. The Fly
  3. Mysterious Ways / Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) (snippet)
  4. Until The End Of The World / Where Have All The Flowers Gone? (snippet)
  5. Out Of Control
  6. Get On Your Boots
  7. All I Want Is You
  8. Stuck In A Moment
  9. Beautiful Day / Space Oddity (snippet)
  10. Elevation
  11. New Year’s Day
  12. Miss Sarajevo
  13. Zooropa
  14. City Of Blinding Lights
  15. Vertigo / Teenage Kicks (snippet)
  16. Miss You (snippet) / Crazy Tonight / Discothèque (snippet) / Please (snippet) / Life During Wartime (snippet) / Psycho Killer (snippet)
  17. Sunday Bloody Sunday
  18. Scarlet
  19. Walk On

    20. Encore(s):
  20. One
  21. Hallelujah (snippet) / Where The Streets Have No Name
  22. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
  23. With Or Without You / Shine Like Stars (snippet)
  24. Moment of Surrender

U2 and 80K Fans at Hippodrome

MONTREAL - “Secteur Decarie à Eviter – Concert Rock” read the illuminated highway sign over the 20 eastbound. So at least Transport Quebec got that one right.

It takes a special kind of ambition to actually build a venue in a sunstroked parking lot and completely paralyze a habitually thromboid traffic artery for a rock concert because the local 60,000-seater is too cramped, but the Irish band appeared to have bet on the right pony at the Hippodrome. Welcome to U2ville. Population: me.

And people like me, who’ve seen U2 … before. This was something of a surprise, and the radio call-in folks and Twitterati may disagree … but Friday night’s first of two U2 360 megashows under the light-green Spacecrab was proof that the Gen X/Boomer ticket dollar is the viable rock market. And that legacy carries an audience.

A year delayed, we ramped up for the show with a day or two of Montreal’s fave new summertime game, Where’s Bono? He got a haircut yesterday … he was in the Apple Store … saw him in this restaurant … There was talk of a Helipad on the site, perhaps the band’s way onto and off an unprecedentedly massive site. And a helicopter lazily circled 5 or 6 times – but the real question answered here was: Where were your parents last night?

Lead in with Bono ad libbing “Mister I ain’t a boy / no, I’m a man” in I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. Ottawa’s Darlene Levecque, 51, wore a custom Irish tricolour dress, designed by husband Joe Neil, 52. “Their music inspires and comforts me,” she said. “We’ve seen them 7 times – Dublin, Paris, Toronto, Montreal,” Neil added. “The dress was made for the Dublin show.” And all the teenagers, where are they, in an 80,000-strong crowd?

Set List

  1. Even Better Than The Real Thing
  2. The Fly
  3. Mysterious Ways / Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World (snippet)
  4. Until The End Of The World / Anthem (snippet) / Where Have All The Flowers Gone? (snippet)
  5. I Will Follow
  6. Get On Your Boots
  7. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / The Promised Land (snippet)
  8. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
  9. Beautiful Day / Space Oddity (snippet)
  10. Elevation
  11. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
  12. Miss Sarajevo
  13. Zooropa
  14. City Of Blinding Lights
  15. Vertigo
  16. Crazy Tonight / Discothèque (snippet) / Life During Wartime (snippet) / Psycho Killer (snippet)
  17. Sunday Bloody Sunday
  18. Scarlet
  19. Walk On / You’ll Never Walk Alone (snippet)

    20. Encore(s):
  20. One
  21. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (snippet) / Where The Streets Have No Name
  22. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
  23. With Or Without You
  24. Moment of Surrender / Rain (snippet)

 

U2 Live from Canada

U2TOURFANS 2011 Chicago Cancel your plans for Saturday night!  ( Only U2 Subscribers)

In Montreal, U2 will play the second of two shows at the Hippodrome and we’re carrying a live, uninterrupted audio stream on U2.com

If you’re a (free) registered member of the site, log-in and listen live to the opening three tracks from the show.

If you’re a (paid) U2.com Subscriber, log-in and listen to the whole show. The show will not be aired on any other channels - only on U2.com - the third time we’ve carried a live audio stream from the U2360° Tour for our subscribers.

Hard as it is to believe, there are only SEVEN shows to go after this one - don’t miss it, should be a special night!.

Find the latest details here including how to take out a free registration - or how to become a paid subscriber.
Then tune in on Saturday - from 9pm (EDT) / 2am (GMT) - to catch it all live.

50K Winnipeg U2 Fans Rocked !

Some 50,000 people packed Canad Inns Stadium in Winnipeg on Sunday for the much-anticipated concert by Irish rock band U2. Check out the updated setlist.

Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. stopped in the city as part of their 360-degree world tour.

The unseasonably chilly May evening didn’t deter fans, who cheered, danced and sang along. 

Bono certainly earned his share of that accolade. Sauntering and bounding around his $35 million playground, the black leather-clad singer was the consummate frontman, energizing the crowd with every rock-star gesture, coaxing them to sing along with every soaring chorus — and winning them over by dismissing the unseasonably cool and breezy conditions.

“We don’t feel the cold in Winnipeg,” he assured us. “You’re Canadian; we’re Irish.”

While Bono was the obvious focal point of the night, the rest of the band weren’t playing second fiddle. White-haired (and white-suited) Adam Clayton, like all great bassists, was a study in understated cool, casually strolling and posing while unspooling thick, propulsive lines.

Guitarist The Edge — sporting his trademark skullcap and goatee — was only slightly more animated, focusing his concentration on picking his chiming guitar lines, manipulating them with his vast array of effects and handling backup vocal chores through his headset mic.

And drummer Larry Mullen Jr. — bundled up in a scarf and sweater as he thwacked away on his rotating drum riser — was more Ringo or Charlie than Neil Peart, but efficiently effective at his role: Holding down the centre of the sound (and the centre of the stage) so Bono and Edge can roam where they want and still find their way back.

Winnipegger Paul Martens, who lined up for nearly two days to grab a prime spot on the floor, counted Sunday’s show as his fifth U2 concert.

“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a band that is able to connect with their audience quite like U2 does, and in such a massive setting as this as well. Yet they seem to somehow bring it down to an intimate level,” he said.

The last time U2 played in Winnipeg was in 1997, at the stadium as part of its PopMart tour.

For the second encore, Bono came out swinging on a microphone that was set inside a glowing red ring and suspended from the rigging. At any other show, it would have been a highlight; here it was only the third or fourth-coolest moment of the night.

Not that anybody complained about it — nor about the fact they skipped their usual closer Moment of Surrender (maybe the group weren’t quite as immune to the cold as they maintained; it was pretty nippy by that point).

By the time they wrapped with With or Without You, they’d supplied 130 minutes of the most powerful, passionate and stylishly presented rock this city has seen for some time. Or is likely to see for some time.

1000 New Tickets Released Today

It turned into a “beautiful day” for dozens of star struck U2 fans in Winnipeg Friday. Crowds of fans and onlookers gathered outside the Burton Cummings Theatre for a chance to meet the famous rockers, who said they’re happy to be back in Manitoba for the first time in 15 years.

“You know Winnipeg, we need to spend more time to get to know the place,” said legendary U2 rock star Bono. “We get to know the people, but we don’t get to know the place, it’s funny.”

“I got to hug him and take a picture with bono and he shook my hand,” said Jadeen Sinclair, who was shaking with excitement. “All I had was my beginner’s license,” said Liam Gillen. “So I had him sign it.”

The band showed up to shoot part of a documentary inside the legendary venue. But they took several minutes to mingle with fans and sign autographs.

“What a sweet man to stop,” said Tara Gouzecky. “He could have gone right in there but he stopped and I’m glad he did.”

Meanwhile, the tour released 1,000 more tickets for todays show at the Canad Inns Stadium Saturday afternoon and offered the media a sneak peak of their set. A huge 360-degree stage is set up close to the centre of the Canad Inns Stadium, and a four-legged steel structure holds a massive speaker system and cylindrical video screen that hovers above the performance area. ( Click the link belong to get to the tickets)

U2 tickets at TicketsNow

Bono and crew will perform in front of tens of thousands of fans at Canad Inns Stadium Sunday as part of their 360 Degree Tour. The band hasn’t played in Winnipeg since 1997.