U2: История одного проекта

Bono to address Labour conference

Bono, lead singer with the Irish rock band U2, is to take centre stage at the Labour Party conference on Wednesday.

The star and global campaigner will call for action to combat the spread of Aids and ease Africa's burden of debt.

Bono has praised the government's decision to increase its contribution to the global fight against HIV/Aids.

His speech will take in the work of his Debt, Aids, Trade Africa (Data) organisation as well as his backing for a campaign called Make Poverty History.

Bono is the latest in a string of high-profile speakers from around the world to address the annual gathering in recent years, following on from Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai.

The singer has been a long-time campaigner on the need to fight the spectre of Aids in Africa and recently spoke at both the Republican and Democrat party conventions in the US.

He has also been instrumental in the Drop The Debt campaign, which wiped out millions of pounds of international debt owed by Third World governments.

His campaigning work - which he fits in alongside a busy rock career that sees his band release their 14th album in November - has led to calls from several quarters for him to be considered for a Nobel Prize for humanitarianism.

Bono called on Europe and the United States to commit more resources to stemming poverty and AIDS in Africa during an address Wednesday in Brighton, England, at the annual conference of the United Kingdom's governing Labour Party. "This is not about charity, this is about justice," said the U2 frontman. Read the entire text of Bono's lengthy speech http://216.166.80.129/news.php?mode=full&news_id=963

Bono reveals U2's deal with fans

Bono says U2 have for a deal with their fans - two crap albums and they're out.

The singer told XFM: "There's a real deal. A real deal, between us and our audience.

"Which is we don't have to worry about where our kids are going to school, paying a hospital bill, paying the mortgage, in return we don't make a crap album.

"Two crap albums and you're out. That's our deal with our audience.

"Whether it's catholic guilt or whatever it is, it's not on to have this life that we've been given - this amazing life - and be crap... And have a fish farm in Wales. It's unacceptable."

Bono said the band would be happy to tour again to support new album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, because of the quality of the new songs.

"For the first time we've made an album that we like," he joked, "which could mean the end of our band.

"Cos normally we find the songs, when we go out and play them, that you step inside them. And you want to find some really good reasons to leave home.

"We've all got some nice houses and family and friends and it's hard to leave. We had to find some really good reasons to leave home and I think we've found eleven."

07.10.2004
Vertigo Breaking (digital) Records!

Vertigo has gone straight to No.1 in the UK official download chart – and has broken weekly download records in the US.

Check the UK official download chart here.

In the US the digital version of Vertigo has sold sold more in the past week than any track in download history !

Vertigo has now also achieved the No.1 slot in all four iTunes stores - UK, US, France and Germany.

More records as they are broken!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/top40/download.shtml

Так, возможно, будет выглядеть новый альбом.

Рекордсмены!

Oct 18, 9:46 PM EDT
U2's Bono, Georgia Congressman Honored
Associated Press

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- U2 lead singer Bono and a civil rights leader from Georgia received awards Monday from the National Civil Rights Museum at the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.

Bono, a native of Ireland, was honored with the international Freedom Award for promoting greater Western involvement in improving medical care and reducing poverty in Africa.

Bono said in a speech to 3,500 public school students before the ceremony that the kind of energy young people brought to the civil rights movement is needed in the fight against AIDS.

"What are the blind spots of our age, of these times? What might you help the rest of us to see?" he said. "It might be something as simple as the idea that every human life, no matter where they live, has equal worth."

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., was the national award winner for his civil rights work in the 1960s. He was jailed during a protest at a whites-only lunch counter in Nashville in 1960 and joined the marches and voter registration drives aimed at breaking racial segregation in the South.

The National Civil Rights Museum opened in 1991 at the former Lorraine Motel, where King was shot in 1968 while in Memphis to lead a strike by city sanitation workers.

Past Freedom Award recipients include King's widow, Coretta Scott King; former South African President Nelson Mandela; Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Presidents Carter and Clinton.

U2 Frontman Bono Finds His Missing Lyrics
Fri Oct 22

PORTLAND, Ore. - A long-lost briefcase full of notes and lyrics that were intended for the 1981 U2 album "October" has been returned, 23 years after it was stolen at a Portland concert.

U2 frontman Bono made the announcement Wednesday during an appearance before the World Affairs Council of Oregon, saying the returned notes were "an act of grace."

Bono had to rewrite the "October" lyrics in the studio, and band members called it their worst recording experience. Though the record was generally well-received, it didn't earn the praise of the band's debut album, "Boy," or third album, "War."

The briefcase was returned by Cindy Harris, 44, who said she found it in the attic of a rental home in Tacoma, Wash., in 1981. She said she did not know the notes had been stolen until many years later, and then she had no idea how to reach the band.

Her friend Danielle Rheaume spent much of the past year contacting U2's management.

According to "Into the Heart," a book of stories about U2 songs, the briefcase was stolen by some women who joined the band backstage at a now-defunct Portland nightclub.

The band returned to Portland a few years after the theft and Bono asked the audience if anyone knew about the briefcase. He repeated the question when the band played at the Rose Garden arena in 2001.

X-clusive: Bono Talks Piracy And Band Aid

U2 frontman Bono has been talking exclusively to Xfm about the recent illegal pirating of his band’s new album and what it was like re-recording his legendary line for the new Band Aid 20 single ahead of this weekend’s studio session

Speaking to Xfm after U2 were officially inducted into the first UK Music Hall Of Fame at the Hackney Empire in London last night, Bono confessed that despite all the press speculation as to who would be singing his famous line “Well tonight thank God it’s them, instead of you” he has already sung the part.

Bono recorded his vocal – alongside some guitars by his bandmate The Edge – to a basic version of the track, so it can be inserted in the finished song which is being recorded at Air Studios in London this Sunday (November 14).

“Y’know that song is s great lyric,” he explained, “They had a demo version of it that was like a Holiday Inn band, fairly cheesy, and yet singing it I was… I remembered why it moved so many people. Why it moved me.”

“And it changed my life that song y’know? It brought me to Live Aid then brought me to Africa and Africa is an extraordinary place. An extraordinary shining place. Beautiful continent full of these royal people, incredible people, as well as this awfulness that they’re in. There’s so much to believe in Africa. And the thing that gets to me is they really believe in us. They really believe we can help them. And we can if we really want to.

The press has also been full of news that U2’s new album ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’ has already been pirated and has surfaced on the internet ahead of it's official release date of November 22. Bono told Xfm he reckons that the person responsible was also behind the resent piracy of Eminem’s upcoming new record.

“Same person we think,” he explained, “It’s never nice to have a little thief in charge of your release campaign for your new album, however it up there. Our fans are not the kind of people who will really run amok with this, they want the CD, they want the download, they’ll go to apple iTunes or somewhere else where its fun and interesting and easy to download music.

“Bootlegs are fine if you’re making a few of them for your friends I've no problem with that but if its big business, bad ass crime, I don’t think you want to be a part of that – and that’s what this is. We’re dealing with some nasty people and I don’t think you should be paying for their summer holiday in Ibiza “

As previously reported, there are rumoured U2 shows taking place at Croke Park, Dublin on June 26, 27 and 28, London’s Twickenham Park on July 2 and the Stade De France in Paris in early July next year – but none have been officially confirmed.

U2 release their new album ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’ on November 22 preceded by new single ‘Vertigo’ on November 8.
http://www.xfm.co.uk/Article.asp?id=53562

Так, ребята... Давайте немножко поговорим на родном языке, вы не против? :)
Как вам Vertigo? Слышал ли кто-нибудь би-сайды?

Вчера был куплен для ознакомления "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb". Альбом очень хорош, он очень ровный, не возникает ощущения, что музыканты "отрабатывали" свой контракт. Vertigo на альбоме не производит такого впечатления, как в музыкальном видео. Проэппловское представление очень динамично с крутящимися кольцами, аудиотрэк этого не передает.
На пиратском диске присутствуют некие ремиксы Jacknife Lee на Vertigo, лично меня они не впечатлили...

Из интервью для Interference.com:

Определенно, каждое название альбомов U2 – уникально. Что повлияло на ваше решение назвать этот альбом именно так?

U2: Ну в общем-то альбом хотелось назвать вроде как “Hanover Quay” в качестве намека на снос нашей старой студии. И это название оставалось рабочим вариантом, пока альбом не сформировался. Нами прокручивались сотни названий. И тогда ты сталкиваешься с тем, что все считают идеальным вариантом или резюмируют лучшее из данной пластинки. Просто каждый согласен с чем-то вроде этого. Большую роль играет и контекст альбома. Я даже знаю, почему мы никогда не назовем альбом “Windmill Lane”. Это слишком по-битловски. “Abbey Road” или “Penny Lane”. Мы любим The Beatles слишком сильно, чтобы заимствовать у них идеи. И, в итоге, ты собираешься и подбираешь название – “Boy”, первый альбом, “War” получилось из названия песни “Sunday Bloody Sunday” и от ярости, с которой мы работали над тем альбомом. И под конец появилось название.

Соглашусь с MacRatt. Альбом очень приличный, на уровне их лучших работ.
Я где-то читал, что основную работу над "звуком" делал Эдж. Молодчина! результат достойный, и вновь появились его (Эджа) "фирминные" гитарные партии, коих так не хватало на предыдущих альбомах.

Я обажаю их последний альбом "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb"!!!. Любимые композиции: Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, Miracle Drug, A Man and A Woman, One Step Closer to Knowing. Последние две подобрал на гитаре.

Пожалуй лучшая вещь на альбоме - Fast Cars. Очень необычная для U2, поэтому звучит очень свежо. Странно, что она вошла только в special edition, тем более, что строчка из нее стала названием альбома.

А, на мой взгляд, ничегоособо необычного в Fast Cars нет. U2 уже делали подобные вещи. Но это отнюдь не умаляет прелести песни, которая мне тоже очень нравится. Кстати, ещё один би-сайд очень хорош - Are You Gonna Wait Forever.
Да, в целом альбом просто замечательный, он вобрал в себя всё лучшее из U2 за последние лет 15, наверное :).

Альбом, конечно, хороший, но с первого раза совсем не зацепил, как и 2000-й. По-другому было и с Зуропой, и с Ахтунг, и с Попом.

Посмотрел расписание гастролей на следующий год. Опять мы в пролете :(((

U2 выступят на церемонии "Грэмми" 13 февраля. Кроме того, они номинированы в 3 категориях: лучшее исполнение дуэтом или группой с вокалом, лучшая рок-песня и лучшее короткометражное музыкальное видео за "Vertigo".

BEAUTIFUL PAY DAY!

U2 have smashed Irish box office records with ticket sales for their DUBLIN concerts, after more than 150,000 were sold for their two CROKE PARK gigs within 50 minutes.

Tickets were released at 8am on Friday morning (February 5).

The Dublin dates on June 24 and 25 form part of the worldwide Vertigo tour. The jaunt begins in San Diego on March 28. The band start their European stadium tour in Brussels on June 12. There will be UK shows in Manchester, Glasgow and London.

The BBC reports that legions of fans camped on the streets of the Dublin for three days to ensure they were first in line at Ticketmaster in St Stephen's Green Shopping Centre, where the tickets went on sale on Friday. However the majority of tickets were sold online.
http://www.nme.com/news/111305.htm