Pete The Chop

U2 360 Tour

Irish band U2 confirmed that the band will play an extra concerts in Australia and New Zealand. Concert tickets to band’s five-city tour in Australia, and in Auckland are already sold out, with some play dates running out of concert tickets within mere hours.

“We’re delighted with the reaction of our New Zealand and Australian fans and that we are able to add further dates,” said U2 Manager Paul McGuinness in a statement.

U2 360° will have extra shows in Auckland on Friday, November 26th at Mt. Smart Stadium. The band will also have second shows in Melbourne on Friday, December 3rd at Etihad Stadium; in Brisbane on Thursday, December 9th at Suncorp Stadium and in Sydney on December 14th at ANZ Stadium.

U2 concert tickets in Auckland will be sold this Thursday, September 9th while U2 concert tickets for performances in Melbourne, Brisbane & Sydney will go on sale this Friday, September 10th. Subscribers of U2.com can buy concert tickets ahead of the public on-sale.

As previously reported, the concert tour will begin in Auckland’s Mount Smart Stadium on November 25. On December 1, U2 will play at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, and make its way to Brisbane and Sydney. The tour will end at Perth’s Subiaco Oval on December 18 and 19. On both play date at the Subiaco Oval, rapper Jay-Z will support the band. Billboard earlier revealed that Jay-Z will join U2 on Perth’s stop of their five-city Australian tour.

- IBTIMES

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By Alice Neville, New Zealand Herald

Many U2 fans were shocked yesterday to find their "cheap" tickets came with an online surcharge of almost $20 a transaction.

Tickets to the Irish supergroup's November 25 show at Mt Smart Stadium went on sale in the morning, with advertised ticket prices ranging from $39.90 to $349.50. Tickets are still available.

The cheapness of the tickets was due to the tour's new stage structure - a raised platform will let punters see from all four sides and allow more people in. The concert promoters said that because more tickets could be sold, they could be cheaper.

But for those buying tickets online - the only option unless you could get to a ticket outlet such as Real Groovy (which charged a fee of $4 a ticket) - a surcharge of at least $19 was placed on top of the total transaction price.

So if you bought one of the $39.90 tickets, you would in fact be paying $58.90 if you wanted to pick it up from the venue or have it sent in the post. If you wanted to have it couriered, the surcharge rose to $23, and rural delivery was $24.50.

If you were buying more than one ticket in a single transaction, the surcharge remained the same.

TICKETEK

Although Ticketek is the company charging the fee, country manager Brendon Bainbridge said it was actually up to the concert promoters to decide to what extent they would cover costs or pass them on to fans.

"This particular concert didn't allow people to print tickets at home, which is usually the cheapest option," said Mr Bainbridge. "So there was only a limited number of options for customers to choose how to get their tickets."

The fee for picking up the tickets was the same as delivery because of staff costs, he said. "It's still a cost to Ticketek to have people available to hand out tickets."

It's also partly to do with the Commerce Commission's decision last year to allow retailers to pass credit card charges on to purchasers, he said.

"This concert also asked to pass on some of the costs associated with credit card purchases, something that's happening a lot more in live entertainment and a lot of other services since the law change," said Mr Bainbridge.

"They roll that into a transaction fee, so the normal transaction fee was greater. When U2 was last here four or five years ago, you wouldn't have seen fees quite as high because the promoter of the concert paid for some of those services out of the ticket price."

So why can't the surcharge be advertised as part of the ticket price? Again, it's up to the promoter, said Mr Bainbridge. "This is just how this promoter chose to do it."

Asked if he thought it was fair, Mr Bainbridge said people had a choice - if they didn't want to buy the tickets, they didn't have to. "It's just how things are, and as an agent I don't make those decisions. We have some clients who don't charge the customer anything - they absorb it all."

THE PROMOTERS

The promoters, the Australian-based Live Nation Global Touring and Michael Coppel Presents, are yet to respond to nzherald.co.nz's questions.

A quick search for tickets for other high-profile concerts in Auckland shows the practice of charging extra fees varies widely.

Tickets for the Bon Jovi concert at Mt Smart in December, which Ticketek is also selling, can be received as an email and printed for a $5 fee, picked up or posted for $8 or couriered for $12 per transaction.

For those going to the Blondie and The Pretenders gig at Vector Arena in December, tickets for which are being sold by Ticketmaster, tickets can be printed at home, picked up from the venue or posted at no extra charge. Having them couriered is just $4 a transaction.

The issue of ticket companies lumping concertgoers with additional fees is a global one. In 2008, British MPs passed a motion challenging Ticketmaster's practice of charging additional fees which were not advertised in the ticket price.

The motion called on Ticketmaster to "advertise clearly the additional prices they charge ... so that customers are not misled".

And just last week, the Los Angeles Times reported Ticketmaster in the United States was changing its policy, and while it would still charge additional fees, they would now be included as part of the advertised ticket price.

Concert charges

* U2 tickets purchased online have a surcharge of $19 on top of the ticket price, to pick up the ticket from the venue or have it sent in the post. The courier fee is $23 and rural delivery $24.50.

* Tickets for Bon Jovi can be sent by email and printed for $5, picked up or posted for $8 or couriered for $12.

* Blondie and The Pretenders tickets can be printed at home, picked up or posted at no extra charge. Couriered is $4 per transaction.

Copyright 2010, APN Holdings NZ Limited

Tags: Tour News, australia, newzealand, tournews, u2360tour by Jonathan
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A day after he traveled to Sochi on the Black Sea to meet President Dmitry Medvedev, Bono joined the rest of the band onstage at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium. The show was U2’s first-ever in Russia; the group had been one of the few major international acts who hadn’t played in the country, where Western music is hugely popular.

As the band took the stage, the skies opened with torrential rain – especially ironic since “Beautiful Day” was among the first songs. Most of the 50,000-plus crowd stayed dry, though, since the seating area at the stadium – used primarily for soccer – is covered by a roof. The band, as well as the throngs of fans in the dance-floor area, weren’t so lucky. Only the drum kit seemed reliably protected from the rain, while Bono, Edge and bassist Adam Clayton played under the raindrops and got soaked in the process.

Bono treated the crowd to an a capella version of “Singing in the Rain,” though most fans seemed more familiar with the words to U2’s own hits like “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “One” and “With or Without You,” which brought virtually the entire house to its feet.

Bono, at first, directed the political references for which he’s known to places located far from Russia. At one point, the band played “Walk On,” a song dedicated to jailed Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi. Between songs, he thanked President Medvedev for his “gracious” reception.

But Bono gave his warmest shout-out (subtitled into Russian on the giant screen above the stage) to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, whom he said was at the show (the two have known each other for about a decade). The crowd’s response was less enthusiastic – though credited with ending communism, Gorbachev is deeply unpopular in Russia for bringing about the end of the Soviet Union.

The band followed the praise of Gorbachev with “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” – which could be interpreted as a veiled reference to Russia’s interrupted move to democracy since Gorbachev left office in 1991. In case anyone missed the point, Bono later led the crowd in a chorus of Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up” during a break in “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

The Russian politics got heavier in the encores, when Bono, playing acoustic guitar, invited Russian rocker Yuri Shevchuk onstage to join him for a version of Bob Dylan’s classic, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” Shevchuk, whose band DDT started out in the underground under the Soviets, has been one of the very few Russian musicians to publicly criticize the Kremlin for rolling back democratic freedoms. Shevchuk confronted Prime Minister Vladimir Putin about the issue at a meeting with artists and writers earlier this year. He’d signed an appeal with several other activists this week calling on Bono to raise the issues in his meeting with President Medvedev. It wasn’t clear from official Kremlin accounts if Russian domestic policies came up in that session, however. Bono started that meeting saying he hoped to bridge the musical gap between himself, a Led Zeppelin fan, and Medvedev, who is known for his love of Deep Purple (a group Bono and the rest of U2 had jokingly belittled in interviews with the Russian press this week). Medvedev resolved the issue by saying that he likes Led Zeppelin, too.

As the show headed into its third hour Wednesday and the group played its last encore (”Moment of Surrender”) dedicated to the victims of the wildfires that swept Russia this summer), the rain let up, releasing the crowd into a cool August evening.

- Wall Street Journal

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WASHINGTON, PRNewswire-USNewswire -- NASA and U2 released a commemorative video highlighting a year's worth of collaboration in space and on the Irish rock 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 U2's world tour. The astronauts of Expedition 20, the crew then living aboard the space station, agreed to participate and spoke with U2 several times before recording a video segment the band incorporated into its concerts.

The space station crew members were Michael Barratt of NASA, Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency, Bob Thirsk of the Canadian Space Agency, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Gennady Padalka and Roman Romanenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency.

"Working with U2 is atypical for NASA," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for Space Operations. "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."

Speaking onstage in Houston last year, Bono said, "These are the very best people in the world -- dedicated to figuring how our little planet exists in this cosmos we call home." De Winne and Romanenko attended U2's performance in Moscow on Wednesday and met with the band before the show.

U2.com created the video and presented it to NASA to document the collaboration between the band and the space agency.

Copyright © 2010 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Tags: Tour News, nasa, spacestation, tournews, u2360tour by Jonathan
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Rights group Amnesty said five of its activists were detained while distributing flyers at a U2 concert in Moscow on Wednesday, which ended with a celebrated Kremlin critic joining the Irish rock stars on stage.

Police detained the five volunteers who were distributing leaflets and displaying banners for holding an unsanctioned protest at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium, the head of Amnesty International in Russia Sergei Nikitin told the Interfax news agency.

"I am very sorry about what happened ... it overshadowed the concert," Nikitin said. He said the activists were later released without charge. Interfax quoted an unnamed police official as saying two activists were detained.

At the end of their concert, U2 invited Russian rock star turned Kremlin critic Yury Shevchuk to join them on stage for a rendition of "Knocking on Heaven's Door."

Shevchuk has become a significant figure in Russia's opposition movement since he delivered a rare public rebuke to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in May.

Shevchuk's appearance with a guitar at an opposition protest at the weekend attracted 2,000 people, making it one of Moscow's biggest protests in years.

U2 frontman Bono met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday to try to convince him to support his efforts to combat AIDS. He did not make any public criticism of the Russian leadership during his trip.

A spokeswoman for U2 said the band did not yet have the details of the detentions and could not immediately comment. An Amnesty spokesman said he could not immediately comment.

(Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Copyright 2010 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved.

Tags: Tour News, amnestyinternational, russia, tournews by Jonathan
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Live Nation Global Touring and Michael Coppel have today confirmed that U2 will end the year with live dates in New Zealand and Australia. The U2 360° Tour will visit Auckland, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and the tour also includes U2′s first Perth date since Popmart in 1998.

“U2 has always been at their best when surrounded by their audience, and this extraordinary production makes that happen in stadiums, says U2’s manager Paul McGuinness “It was important to the band that we were able to bring the whole 360° production to Australia and New Zealand so fans could experience the latest of U2′s legendary productions.”

The U2 360° Tour kicked off again in Turin, Italy this month and will visit 17 cities, including Moscow and Istanbul, before finishing at the Olympic Stadium in Rome on 8th October. By the time it reaches New Zealand and Australia, U2 360° will have been seen by over 4 million fans.

With a cylindrical video system of interlocking LED panels, and a steel structure rising 150 feet from the floor over a massive stage with rotating bridges, the band has truly created an intimate 360º experience for concert goers. Long-time U2 Show Director Willie Williams has worked again with architect Mark Fisher (ZooTV, PopMart, Elevation and Vertigo), to create an innovative 360 design, which affords an unobstructed view for the audience.

“To have an in-the-round transportable stadium production is something that the touring industry has been trying to figure out for some time. The extra capacity U2 360° gives us means that there are a large number, several thousand in fact, of low priced tickets at every show”, said U2 tour producer/promoter Arthur Fogel, CEO of Live Nation Global Touring.

In keeping with the concept that this tour is more about a unique staging configuration with excellent sight-lines tickets in all 5 cities will be available starting at $39.90 with general admission floor tickets available at $99.90. Additional reserved seat tickets also available starting at $99.90.

Tickets for the U2 performances in Australia and New Zealand will go on sale Friday, September 3rd at all usual outlets. U2.com subscribers will be able to buy tickets ahead of the public on-sale. Full details at: www.u2.com
The Australian and New Zealand dates are produced by Live Nation Global Touring in association with Michael Coppel and Live Nation Australia.

Australia & New Zealand Tour Dates

November 25 Auckland, NZ Mt. Smart Stadium
December 01 Melbourne, AU Etihad Stadium
December 08 Brisbane, AU Suncorp Stadium
December 13 Sydney, AU ANZ Stadium
December 18 Perth, AU Subiaco Oval

Tickets on sale @ 9.00am Friday, September 3

Bookings: Ticketek.co.nz/U2360 or 0800 TICKETEK

- Via U2Fanz

Tags: News & Rumors, Tour News by spun2u
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IRISH supergroup U2 are returning to Australia for a national tour. The band have announced their tour dates, including a stadium show in Sydney on December 13. The concert, to be held at ANZ Stadium, will mark the return of the band to Sydney after four years.

The band will begin their 360° Tour in New Zealand on November25, before travelling to Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Perth.

Tickets go on sale on September 3 – with promoters Michael Coppel and Live Nation Touring expecting enormous demand.

Although only one show has been announced for Sydney, it is highly likely tour dates will be extended.

Rumours about U2′s return to Australia have been swirling for months. The tour announcement is an early Christmas present for many of the band’s loyal Australian fans, who feared frontman Bono’s back injury earlier in the year might have affected plans for a trip Down Under.

The lead singer had emergency spinal surgery in May, which forced the band to postpone the US leg of their world tour, plus major performances including headlining the Glastonbury Festival in England.

U2 returned to touring this month, with concerts in Europe.

Bono said he was ”fighting fit” and thanked fans, and his bandmates, for their patience.

The U2 show, which features an innovative in-the-round experience for fans, also has a range of cheap tickets for Australian concert-goers.

The ”sight-lines” seats start from $39.90 a ticket, with general standing and stadium seats priced at $99.90.

U2′s manager Paul McGuinness said the band were keen for Australian fans to see the production.

”It was important to the band that we were able to bring the whole 360° production to Australia and New Zealand so fans could experience the latest of U2′s legendary productions,” he said.

More than 4 million fans will have seen U2′s 360° Tour worldwide by the time they arrive in Australia.

A source close to the tour has revealed U2 are also considering leaving their enormous set – a three-pronged alien-like tower – in Australia as a tourist attraction, at the end of the tour.

”They thought it was a great idea,” said the source. ”Rather than shipping it all back on a plane, it could become a local attraction.’

- Sydney Morning Herald

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MADRID — Irish rock megastars U2 have postponed one of their two concerts in Spain next month due to a general strike called by the country’s unions on the same day, the band announced Thursday.

“Due to the scheduled general strike in Spain, on September 29th, U2 promoters have today announced that the date for the U2 concert in Seville, currently set for that same day will be postponed to September 30th,” the band said on its website, www.u2.com.

“Although the specifics of the strike have not been announced, in the past the strike has affected security services, public transportation, cleaning as well as medical and hospital services which are all integral to the running of the concert.”

It said fans who had bought tickets but were unable to attend the rescheduled performance could obtain refunds by September 10.

The band, which launched the second part of its “360 degrees” tour in Turin on August 6, is also scheduled to play in the northern Spanish city of San Sebastian on September 26.

The tour, which began in Barcelona in June of last year, is to conclude in the United States in July 2011.

The 16 North American shows were initially planned for this year but were rescheduled for 2011 after lead singer Bono underwent emergency surgery on his back in Germany in May.

U2, founded in Dublin in 1978, has sold around 100 million albums.

The band’s last tour in 2005 and 2006 drew some 4.5 million fans at 127 shows, all sold out.

Spanish unions called a general strike for September 29 to protest the socialist government’s planned labour market reforms that would make it easier to hire and fire workers.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

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Opening Act(s): Kasabian

Main Set:
Return of the Stingray Guitar
Beautiful Day
New Year’s Day
Get On Your Boots
Magnificent
Mysterious Ways – My Sweet Lord
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For – Movin’ On Up
Glastonbury
Elevation
In A Little While
Miss Sarajevo
Until the End of the World
The Unforgettable Fire
City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo – It’s the End of the World as We Know It
I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight (remix) – Discotheque, Sunday Bloody Sunday
MLK
Walk On

Encore(s):
One
Amazing Grace – Where the Streets Have No Name
Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me
With or Without You
Moment of Surrender

Tags: Tour News, U2 360° Tour, U2 360° – 3rd Leg – Europe by spun2u
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By Ian Simpson

TURIN, Italy (Reuters) - U2 frontman Bono burst back onto rock's center stage on Friday after a two-month absence for a back injury, as the Irish band resumed what its manager predicts will be the most lucrative concert tour in history.

U2 shook a packed Olympic stadium in the northern Italian city of Turin as Bono strutted, pranced, jogged and danced with little sign of being a 50-year-old rock star just 10 weeks off spinal surgery.

"I don't really know how to hold back, is the problem. You have to let the songs sing you at a certain point," Bono told Reuters just before relaunching the second leg of U2's 360 Degree Tour, so called because fans surround a giant circular platform.

U2 and Bono, who said he had done rehabilitation work for three to four hours a day, kicked off a rousing set with "Beautiful Day" and "Magnificent." They also played two new tracks called "North Star Acoustic" and "Glastonbury."

Bono thanked the cheering crowd for letters and emails he had received wishing him a speedy recovery.

"This band is like a family. It's a family business, U2. I am the prodigal son. I would like to thank my brothers for their patience," the leather-clad Bono told the crowd, referring to his bandmates.

POSTPONEMENT, MAJOR LOSSES

The singer underwent emergency back surgery in May after injuring himself. His subsequent rehabilitation forced the band to delay the North American leg of the tour until 2011.

U2 began the tour in Barcelona in June 2009.

The band's manager Paul McGuinness said Bono had trained hard to get back to performing and the band had done some recording during his recovery.

"That's a process that goes on all the time," McGuinness told Reuters. "The doctors are very confident. They certified him fit to perform. It's really a very short time for a spinal injury."

U2's tour is widely expected to be a strong point in a weak concert season hit by low sales.

"This tour by the end of this year will be the biggest grossing music tour by anyone of all time," McGuinness predicted. "And we will still have another 30 shows next year, 20-30 shows next year."

He added that the group would probably gross somewhere between $650-700 million by the time the tour ended in 2011.

That would top the record $558 million generated by the Rolling Stones' 2005-2007 Bigger Bang tour, according to music industry publication Billboard Boxscore.

McGuinness said that rescheduling the North American tour had brought "enormous" complications.

"It was extraordinarily difficult to reschedule these events, because it's an outdoor show. But very few numbers of people have asked for refunds, and most of the shows were sold out."

He said the band had lost around $15 million as a result of the disruptions, half of which was covered by insurance.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson, writing by Mike Collett-White)

Copyright 2010 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved.

Tags: Tour News, bonosbackinjury, tournews, u2360tour by Jonathan
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Bono of U2 performing at the Stadio Olimpico in Turin, northern Italy, last night. It was U2's first show since back surgery sidelined the singer for two months and forced the band to postpone their North American tour by a year to May 2011. Photograph: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

THERE WERE no backflips or somersaults but U2 singer Bono still managed to throw himself around a bit on stage in Turin last night. It was U2’s first show back since the singer’s emergency spinal surgery last May, which led to the band cancelling the North American leg of their 360 degree tour.

Looking fit and toned, Bono (50) didn’t look restricted in his movements at the Stadio Olimpico as the band put in a robust performance. Showcasing a number of newly written songs including North Star and Flowering Rose Of Glastonbury , the setlist drew from most of their albums in what was a greatest hits-style show.

The fact that Bono is standing, swaying and swivelling again will come as good news to the hundreds of thousands of ticket-holders for upcoming U2 shows. This European leg – which doesn’t feature any UK or Irish dates – runs until October. Some South American/Australian dates are rumoured for early next year before the rescheduled North American dates next summer.

The band missed what would have been their first ever Glastonbury appearance last June.

- IrishTimes

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After Bono’s back surgery sidelined the band in May, the epic 360 Tour resumes in Turin, Italy.

Bono on stage in Turin

Visit Rolling Stone for the complete set of photos!

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August 06, 2010 at Turin, Italy

Main Set: Stingray Guitar Intro, Beautiful Day, Magnificent, Get On Your Boots, Mysterious Ways – My Sweet Lord, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, North Star, Glastonbury, Elevation, In A Little While, Miss Sarajevo, Until the End of the World, The Unforgettable Fire, City of Blinding Lights, Vertigo, Discotheque – I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight (remix), Sunday Bloody Sunday, MLK, Walk On

Encore: One, Where the Streets Have No Name, Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me, With or Without You, Moment of Surrender

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U2 singer Bono is ready to rock after back surgery sidelined him for two months.

The Irish rockers begin the second European leg of their 360 world tour on Friday in Italy.

“Things have gone very, very well,” U2 manager Paul McGuinness said from Turin, where he had just watched the band rehearse the entire show on stage.

“We did a full run-through with no breaks, straight through the show, and Bono was moving very well,” McGuinness said.

“He’s fit.”

Bono, 50, underwent emergency back surgery in May after injuring himself during training.

His subsequent rehabilitation forced the band to delay the tour’s second North American leg. The 16-date trek had been due to begin in Salt Lake City on June 3, but will now kick off in Denver on May 21.

The band has a seven-month break before Denver, prompting speculation that the tour will head to Australia and New Zealand for a series of shows.

McGuinness declined to comment.

- Reuters

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U2gigs: Update, morning of 31/07: The skepticism expressed below about some of the rehearsal reports was clearly on the mark, especially questions about the authenticity of the Pride video. Bono has still not arrived in Turin. Furthermore, his interview meant to take place last night with Zona Severgnini has been removed from Sky’s broadcast schedule. When Bono will arrive in Turin remains the subject of rumours. The rest of the band, however, are in the city.

Head on over to U2gigs for the complete story.

Tags: News & Rumors, Tour News by spun2u
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