Muse were joined onstage by U2 guitarist The Edge as they headlined Glastonbury tonight (June 26).

The space-rock trio played the closing Pyramid Stage for the second time in six years, bringing the second day to an epic finish.

The band brought their special brand of bombast, despite a relatively-stripped down show compared to what they are used to, although the biggest surprise was reserved for the encore.

The band left the stage for a lengthy breather after finishing the initial set with ‘Stockholm Syndrome’. When they returned, they were joined by The Edge, who added his trademark guitar to a version of U2′s ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’.

“This is our friend The Edge,” Muse frontman Matt Bellamy said simply at the end of the mass sing-along.

U2 had been due to headline Glastonbury last night, but were forced to pull out after Bono seriously injured his back. They were replaced by Gorillaz.

Muse appeared relaxed onstage throughout the gig, with Bellamy, dressed in white trousers and a red T-shirt, telling the audience; “I can’t believe it’s not fucking raining. I’ve been waiting 15 years for it to be sunny at Glastonbury. Shout out to Michael Eavis! And his daughter [Emily]!”

Muse’s return to Glastonbury was heavy on material from current album ‘The Resistance’, but they threw in curveballs such as ‘Nishe’, the B-side to 2000 single ‘Unintended’, and their traditional cover of ‘Feeling Good’, the song made famous by Nina Simone.

Muse played:

‘Uprising’
‘Supermassive Black Hole’
‘New Born’
‘Map Of The Problematique’
‘Guiding Light’
‘Citizen Erased’
‘Nishe’
‘United States Of Eurasia’
‘Feeling Good’
‘Undisclosed Desires’
‘Resistance’
‘Hysteria’
‘Time Is Running Out’
‘Starlight’
‘Stockholm Syndrome’
‘Where The Streets Have No Name’
‘Plug In Baby’
‘Knights Of Cydonia’

- NME

Another year, another Glastonbury — and another fresh round of what-ifs and maybes for the festival rumour mill.

This year the most-whispered tale involves two of the 2010 festival’s headliners – or, rather, one of the headliners and a band who were supposed to be topping the bill on the Pyramid Stage.

Saturday’s headliners Muse had hinted they were planning something special for their headline slot. On Friday, BBC 6 Music reported that the band might be joined by U2′s guitarist the Edge for their slot.

U2, of course, were supposed to be headlining the festival on Friday night but had to pull out after Bono underwent surgery, leading them to pull a series of dates on their world tour.

Festival organiser Michael Eavis had been asked by the station if the rumours were true, and did not deny the story – though he did not confirm it either.

Whether Matt Bellamy and company are joined by the veteran guitar great, only a time machine or patience will tell. Stay tuned.

- Spinner

Bono and U2 on stage

The festival spokesperson for Britain’s most famous music festival, Glastonbury, has said that the Irish legends U2 are likely to play in 2011.

A spokesperson for the festival said “They’ve never played here before and we’re very disappointed they can’t perform…but they could well be back next year.”

U2 were to play the headline slot on June 25 until Bono, the front man, was rushed to hospital for emergency back surgery due to a disease which could have left him paralyzed.

The British band, Gorillaz, fronted by Damon Albarn, has agreed to replace U2 as the headline act on June 25 while Muse and Stevie Wonder are also set to play the headline slots at the sold out festival.

- IrishCentral.com

Damon Albarn has spoken about Gorillaz being drafted in to replace U2 as headliners at this year’s Glastonbury.

Earlier today (May 26) the band were confirmed to headline the Pyramid Stage on June 25 following the news that original headliners U2 have been forced to pull out following a back injury sustained by frontman Bono.

Speaking of the change in line-up, Albarn paid tribute to the Irish band. “It’s a terrible thing for U2,” he said. “Glastonbury is magical. Gorillaz will come to life on that stage, but we wish Bono all the best.”

Gorillaz co-founder Jamie Hewlett said that, after the band’s recent performance at Coachella festival, he is confident of delivering a successful show.

“I wasn’t sure how Gorillaz would work in a festival environment, but Coachella was amazing,” he said. “I think Glastonbury will be an unbelievable experience for us.”

The festival headline appearance will be Damon Albarn’s second in as many years, following Blur’s show on the same stage in 2009.

- NME

More images in the Bono gallery >>

ShareThis

Although Japan gave the most overseas aid in the early 1990s, its generosity has steadily fallen since then, the U2 frontman told students at Tokyo’s prestigious Keio University, where he received an honorary doctorate of law earlier in the day.

“The world is watching Japan as the G8 (summit) approaches, and it’s not good news,” he said. The summit is scheduled to take place in Hokkaido, northern Japan, in July. Japan’s net official development assistance in 2007 was US$7.7 billion, down 30 per cent from the previous year and dropping the country to fifth place among foreign aid donors, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Bono, in Japan this week for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, called it a “monumental error” to ignore Africa or write the continent off as a lost cause. Japan’s development model for Southeast Asia led to the emergence of the so-called ’Asian tigers’ and could prove similarly successful in Africa, he said. “I believe in this country,” he said to an auditorium of nearly 900 students.

“The world needs your involvement.” Bono said his interest in Africa extends back to the Live Aid concert in 1985. Since then, he has become one of the most effective, though sometimes controversial, crusaders against poverty and AIDS in Africa.

The Irish rocker and Nobel Peace Prize nominee is scheduled to speak at the African development conference Thursday and meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda later this week. Michitake Watanabe, a first-year graduate student at Keio, said Bono’s words opened his eyes to issues he had never considered.

“He is an amazing person,” said Watanabe, who admitted he isn’t a fan of Bono’s music. “It’s really incredible that he doesn’t seem to be confined by traditional frameworks like race or religion.”

- ASSOCIATED PRESS

ShareThis

The weather bordered on sleet and rain all day — hardly idyllic conditions for a video shoot that included countless cameras and three giant torches sitting atop the rocks.The promoters were in California until the afternoon of the show, and when they flew into a blustery Stapleton Airport, they called the mountain amphitheater’s backstage to see where the show had been moved.

But the band wasn’t about to move the concert.

“I asked them why they didn’t call me, and the people said, ‘The band wouldn’t let us, because they knew you’d want to move the show,’ ” retired promoter Barry Fey remembered.

“Then Paul McGuinness, their manager, got on the phone, and then Bono got on the phone, and then Chuck (Morris) and I headed home to change out of our sunny California gear into something much heavier before heading up to Red Rocks.”

As fans, local and abroad, mark the 25th anniversary of the legendary show — captured dramatically on video and record under the title “Under the Blood Red Sky” — record companies will also use the occasion as their opportunity to remaster the music on a CD (with a bonus disc), due in stores June 24, and finally release the remarkable performance on DVD, due in August.

The video, a venture among the band, their label and Feyline Concerts, captures the enduring image of U2’s early years. It was played heavily on MTV, and it’s been credited as the single piece of media that solidified U2’s reputation as an epic live band — and Red Rocks’ status as the world’s premiere outdoor amphitheater.

It was no accident that U2 chose Red Rocks as the location for their live video experiment, an outing that cost the band their life savings, they said at the time.

In the summer of 1981, U2 played two shows in Colorado, at Fort Collins’ Lincoln Center and Denver’s Rainbow Music Hall. The day after the Rainbow show, promoter Morris, working with Fey at the time, loaded the band in his Jeep for a field trip.

“I took them up to Red Rocks so they could see it,” Morris said. “I told them they were going to play there some day. But their second record wasn’t doing that well, even though it got great reviews, and they weren’t so sure. But I was. I drove them to the top. We walked down to the stage, and they were, like, ‘Oh my God, this is the greatest place we’ve ever seen.’ “

Years later, McGuinness was sitting in Fey’s office, setting up a partnership with the band, the promoter and the label, Island Records, to shoot a live video at Red Rocks. Everybody was happy.

Until the morning of the show, when the weather was so foul. A group of 15 or 20 hard-core fans sat in the front rows at Red Rocks under their ponchos, and around 10 or 11 a.m., Bono found his way to the catering room backstage, where he met Nancy May, who was running errands for Fey at the time.

“(Bono) was suddenly in the food room, and he said, ‘It’s really cold out there. Can we get these people some coffee and tea?’ I said sure, and we made it up, and then Bono went out and served the fans some coffee and tea. He was out there chatting over tea with 10 or 20 people, and we were like, ‘Wow.’ I’d never seen a rock star do that in all those years.”

The day progressed, and the weather worsened. Morris and Fey arrived, and Bono called a Denver radio station, telling his fans that the Red Rocks show would go on — but there would also be another indoor show the following night at the CU Field House in Boulder for those who didn’t want to brave the elements.

And after a short introduction from Fey, the show was on. Red Rocks, which holds nearly 10,000 people, was about half-full with 4,400 in attendance. The venue has never looked more mystical, alluring. Red Rocks was ready for its close-up.

“For years, when I told people in L.A. that I worked at Red Rocks, people would always say, ‘Did you see the U2 video?’ ” said May, now a production manager for the Denver Performing Arts Center. “When I went to Los Angeles to work for Dick Clark, everybody knew that video. And everybody knew Red Rocks because of that video.”

Looking back at the 25-year-old footage, it’s amazing how powerful it remains. The band couldn’t have purchased those kinds of special effects: The sleety mist softened all the edges, and the steam coming out of Bono’s mouth with each word gave the footage an otherworldly feel.

And they were just kids. The Edge still had hair, and you could hear his towering backup vocals waver as he nervously looked down at his guitar. Alternating between a little girl’s skip and a soldier’s march, Bono had never looked stronger. “This song is not a rebel song,” he said at one point, wearing a sleeveless shirt and looking like an ’80s movie star. “This song is ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday.’ ” The band’s 6-minute take on their beloved anthem was capped with Bono planting a white flag of truce in the crowd, and it’s one of the most iconic moments in rock history. And it was a Sunday.

“One person remarked that it was a religious experience, and it was,” said Greg Wigler, one of three professional photographers at the show. “The show was way beyond anything I’d seen before.”

Fans agreed. “Under a Blood Red Sky” is the all-time best-selling recording in the U.K. Fey jokes that he recouped his investment very quickly.

“But had it been another 78 degree day, it would have been just another concert,” Fey said. “Instead it was an amazing concert. You knew you were seeing some kind of history. I stood alone at the side of the stage, and my feet were locked. I couldn’t go anywhere.”

Morris calls it “one of my finest hours of promoting.”

“The way Bono played with the crowd, getting all into the audience, and the way the fire looked up on the sides with the rain coming down, and everyone was freezing, but they couldn’t care less. In my long career, nothing has come close to that.”

A popular rumor every other summer is that U2 is coming back to Red Rocks. But for 25 years now, that’s been nothing but a rumor.

“I can’t speak for the band on something like that,” Morris said. “Would I love it? Absolutely.”

Added Fey: “I asked them many years ago, ‘You wanna give Red Rocks another try?’ They said, ‘Absolutely not.’ And you can’t blame them. They couldn’t do anything that would be comparable to that. This is the 25th year, and I asked them if they wanted to do it again. But you can’t duplicate that. You’d be foolish to try and duplicate that. It would be like going to Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and saying, ‘Hey, let’s shoot “Casablanca” over again.’ “

By Ricardo Baca, Denver Post Pop Music Critic

ShareThis

The ‘Fight Club’ star joined the U2 frontman and his wife Ali Hewson for an intimate dinner party at Sass’ Café, where they enjoyed an elaborate meal washed down with red wine and champagne on Friday night.

Although Brad’s pregnant partner Angelina Jolie didn’t join them, Bono’s bandmate The Edge was there along with Monaco’s Prince Albert.

The cafe’s maitre de said: “It was really quite a surprise. It wasn’t organised in advance. We only got called on it that afternoon.”

The meal, which began at 10pm, was finished off with a strawberry cake lit with candles.

A staff member described the party as “tres speciale”.
Last week, Angelina – who is rumoured to be pregnant with twins – and Brad took their four children, Maddox, Pax, Zahara and Shiloh, to visit Bono’s home in Eze, France.

The superstar couple are currently in France to prepare for the birth of their rumoured twin daughters.

Brad and Angelina have forged a close bond with Bono and his family as they only live 15 minutes away.

- Tonight & Independent Online (Pty) Ltd.

ShareThis

John Kelly of RTÉ’s arts show The View, discusses creativity and longevity with Edge next week, in an exclusive one-on-one interview. Edge says that things now are as they were in the beginning, explaining how the four band members have managed to maintain such an unusually cohesive unit for over thirty years. (more…)

ShareThis