U2 wraps up tour with spectacular Vancouver show
The energy was high and an emotional Bono was in fine voice, writes Marsha Lederman


Marsha Lederman

Published on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009 5:29AM EDT

Last updated on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009 11:33AM EDT


.U2

•At BC Place in Vancouver on Wednesday
In front of an audience that included Bill Gates and “Mrs. Edge,” U2 wrapped up its North American 360 tour with a stunning performance at Vancouver's BC Place Wednesday night.

Dressed all in black and wearing his trademark sunglasses, Bono thrilled the crowd with his showmanship, his still-strong voice and his shout-outs to Vancouver.

“Where are we going on the SkyTrain? Millennium Line. Expo Line. Canada Line.”

The reference to Vancouver's public transit system sent the crowd into a frenzy and was one of the very few surprises of the night for anyone who has been following the band's much-publicized tour – in particular, Sunday night's live web cast of their Los Angeles concert which featured an identical set list and some of the same word-for-word on-stage banter from Bono.

Still, it's quite something to see the spectacle in person.

The band kicked things off with three tracks from their latest release, No Line on the Horizon – building energy through Breathe, Get on Your Boots and Magnificent.

But things really took off when Bono launched into Mysterious Ways, strutting across the enormous catwalk – and the crowd was on its feet.

Throughout the two-hour-and-15-minute show, it was unquestionably the older material that resonated with the multi-generational crowd. The crowd knew every word to I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Beautiful Day and Where the Streets Have No Name.

The sound was inconsistent, not surprising for this venue. But if anyone can sound good at BC Place, it's U2.


Photo gallery


U2 performs at BC Place in Vancouver
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Sunday Bloody Sunday was a show-stopper. Bono has long since lost the white flag that made his performance of the anti-war anthem so legendary way back in the ‘80s, but he doesn't appear to have lost the passion. Performing the song on a stage bathed in green, the youthful anger was replaced by an older, wiser man's concern. (The song followed a plea for democracy to Iran.) There was also a tribute to Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, for whom Bono wrote the song Walk On.

The show was spectacular in the true sense of the word – the much-written-about mega stage, the enormous video screen, the intricate light show – but all that technology seems to pose a problem too. With a show so complex, spontaneity seems to be difficult if not impossible.

Even a City of Blinding Lights stroll around the catwalk with a young girl (to whom he sang “oh you look so beautiful tonight” – which actually felt kind of odd rather than cute) was clearly planned; not the spontaneous dance-with-a-fan of the U2 of old.

The evening was a star-studded affair off-stage as well as on, with Liam Neeson and football great Warren Moon in attendance, guitarist The Edge's mother (“our very first crew member,” said Bono) and Bill and Melinda Gates. Bono led the crowd in a rendition of Happy Birthday for Mr. Gates, who celebrated his 54th birthday at the concert.

If the Vancouver show was anti-climactic after Sunday's Rose Bowl event (with 95,000 people in attendance plus millions more streaming online), the band didn't let on. The energy was high and Bono was in fine voice (for the most part). If anything, the show had an added element as the band wrapped up the tour – thanking the “best crew we've ever worked with” (at which point Bono's microphone went all crackly – a joke, surely), congratulating the tour's designer and singling out his band mates with praise and hugs.

“It's getting very emotional around here,” Bono said toward the end of the show.

It was, indeed.

theglobeandmail

Postcard from the road: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts
October 30, 2009


Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello perform during Thursday's gala at Madison Square Garden.

By Jerry Shriver, USA TODAY
The event: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Stevie Wonder, Simon & Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills & Nash and numerous guests kicked off a two-night celebration, playing both their own songs and the music that inspired them.

TIMELINE: A quarter-century of rock royalty
VIDEO: Check out the performances

Envious insider: "I'm a fan — I don't know what to say to half these guys," said Tom Hanks backstage before the show. His production company is working with HBO, which is filming the concerts to air Nov. 29 as a four-hour special. "I grew up with the hi-fi on in the front room, the (Beatles') White Album on — everything that's going on tonight is the soundtrack of our lives."

Banner night: The acts performed under a wood-framed arch adorned with images of Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Sizzling warm-up: As lights dimmed, video clips played on a curved screen above the stage, showing Rock Hall induction speeches and all-star jams of dozens of stars.

Killer opening: Following a short welcoming speech by Hanks ("When we were down, rock 'n' roll lifted us"), the man some consider rock's true king, Jerry Lee Lewis, lit into Whole Lotta Shaking Going On at a white baby grand. Though his manner was subdued, with none of the trademark hellfire menace, his voice was strong and the fingers pounded the keys adroitly.

Double triple whammy: CSN honored the hall's 25th and Woodstock's 40th with an electrifying version of the festival's theme song. Stephen Stills still has the guitar chops, even when not prodded by rival and sometimes bandmate (and double inductee) Neil Young, who didn't appear. Graham Nash showed off his gorgeous tenor on Marrakech Express while David Crosby let his freak flag (now long and white) fly on Almost Cut My Hair, which tripped and soared for five-plus minutes.

Just dropped in: Bonnie Raitt, the first of the night's stream of guests, got strong vocal support from Crosby and Nash as she and her guitar took the lead on an aching Love Has No Pride. The Allman Brothers got a nice shout-out as the four sang a funk-blues version of Midnight Rider.

A dream-team theme: Raitt was followed by Jackson Browne (The Pretender) and James Taylor (Mexico and Love the One You're With). After a CSN nod to Buffalo Springfield via Stills' Rock & Roll Woman, the whole folkie crew reassembled for a Garden-wide singalong on Teach Your Children.

Hometown heroes: Paul Simon — first by himself, then with Dion (DiMucci), then with Nash and Crosby on a magical Here Comes the Sun, and finally with Little Anthony and the Imperials — was just a sweet tease for the outpouring of love that greeted Art Garfunkel's appearance. The duo ran off a string of hits, including a mesmerizing Sounds of Silence. After trading verses on Bridge Over Troubled Water, they mingled their voices rapturously on the bridge before bringing it home alone on a high note.

Wonder of Motown: Stevie Wonder, celebrating the 20th anniversary of his induction, encountered early microphone problems and switched his planned opener from You Haven't Done Nothin' to a Blowin' In the Wind singalong. Then he launched into an unplanned Uptight (Everything's Alright) to get everyone dancing, followed by an unplanned and joyous I Was Made to Love Her/For Once in My Life. The crowd, unaware of the changes, lapped up whatever he and his turn-on-a-dime band offered.

Teachers and students: After dropping to his knees briefly for a harmonica solo on Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours), Wonder returned to his electric piano and welcomed mentor Smokey Robinson for a smoldering Tracks of My Tears, then disciple John Legend for the sensuous and consciousness-raising Marvin Gaye classic Mercy Mercy Me. Blues great B.B. King, the oldest announced performer at 84, strolled out slowly in a vivid smoking jacket, strapped on his guitar Lucille, then spun a spell with The Thrill Is Gone.

Missing Michael: The late King of Pop got his props from Legend and Stevie, who broke down briefly during Jackson's The Way You Make Me Feel, then recovered to lead the clap-a-thon.

Trading off: Sting walked onstage playing bass guitar during Higher Ground, then traded helium-voiced lead vocals with Stevie on Roxanne, with the two sounding surprisingly alike. 2009 inductee Jeff Beck made a surprise appearance on Superstition and dropped in a scintillating heavy-metal guitar solo to close the powerhouse set.

Parting waves: E Streeter Steve Van Zant wandered through the crowd during Simon's and Wonder's sets.

Hometown heroes II: New York seldom gets wound this tight — Simon & Garfunkel and Bruce at the Garden, and the Yankees winning a World Series game. Springsteen and company kept the stars aligned with a long, raucous and righteous set to close the first night.

Back in black: The E Streeters, all clad in New York black, launched into the N.Y. anthem Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out. Bruce Springsteen bent back until his head almost touched the stage, then leapt up to direct the revival. Saxophonist Clarence Clemons, wearing a black fedora and draped with a gold scarf, commanded his side of the stage with honks and shouts. Not wasting time, he brought out Sam Moore of Sam & Dave for Hold On I'm Comin', prefaced with a glorious a capella intro. Sweaty and furious, it blew up the house.

The Bruce blend: Moore took a powerful lead on Soul Man as Bruce and band did giddy soul moves behind, in a perfect melding of forces and influences and circumstances.

Enraged: Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello joined in for The Ghost of Tom Joad, spitting torrents of guitar licks abetted by Nils Lofgren and Van Zandt. For his own songs, Springsteen stuck mostly to material from his classic Born to Run album, which he has been performing in its entirety at a few recent shows.

Next up: John Fogerty, called by Springsteen "the Hank Williams of our time" for Fortunate Son, a '60s protest song Springsteen has sometimes performed. Creedence Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary was done proud with a faithful stomping version, as the heavenly hootenanny continued. Springsteen honored key influence Roy Orbison ("Me and John will take a stab") with a lovely Pretty Woman, punched up with a horn section.

A fine, fine song: Bruce kept the soul vibe alive by bringing out Darlene Love for A Fine, Fine Boy, a Phil Spector-produced '60s classic. Springsteen grinned from ear to ear as Love, Patti Scialfa and Clemons pounded out Da Doo Ron Ron.

Going 180: Having reached back to country, soul and girl-group pop, Bruce spun forward to offspring punk by bringing out Morello for The Clash's London Calling.

The New Yorkers: "Is there anybody alive in New York City?" Bruce implored before Badlands' end with Morello. Heck, yeah, the wrung-out crowd replied, pleading successfully for an encore. He completed the regional trifecta by bringing out Long Island favorite son Billy Joel to take over the piano for You May Be Right. Joel stayed on for his saucy Only the Good Die Young, as Springsteen's voice began to strain a bit. Joel's New York State of Mind was the obvious next choice, and he and Springsteen gave it their saloon crooner best. Who knew Bruce had that in him?

Funneling the fun: The concerts raised money for a permanent endowment of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and Museum, co-established in 1984 by Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun. Tickets went for $80-$2,500, with VIP packages priced as high as $100,000.

Behind the scenes: Big guns from the entertainment and publishing worlds helped put the show together, including Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, screenwriter Cameron Crowe and guitarist Robbie Robertson, formerly of The Band.

The end: Before anyone had to run for buses and subways, the band rolled out a post-1 a.m. Born to Run, with Joel taking a turn on the sacred text. Springsteen walked to the lip of the stage, let fans pound his guitar, then sent 19,500 tramps like him out into the New York night. Almost. All his guests came back on for a loving (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher tribute to Jackie Wilson. Wave after wave of pure soul joy, carried out for countless choruses, carried it home.

Next stop: Tonight, when U2, Aretha Franklin, Jeff Beck and Metallica will headline.

usatoday

Rock royalty tips its cap to the 1960s at Hall of Fame concert in New York
Springsteen, Sting, Paul Simon and other icons perform at Madison Square Garden in the shadow of Woodstock's 40th anniversary.

By Geoff Boucher

October 31, 2009


Sting performs - October 29, 2009

Reporting from New York - The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame sits on the shore of Lake Erie in Cleveland, but if you wanted to see the music legends it celebrates, the best place to be this week was Seventh Avenue in rainy Manhattan. Even in this era of nonstop all-star benefits and award shows, it was a bit stunning to see the rock royalty that walked on stage at Madison Square Garden for two concerts honoring the silver anniversary of the museum in the distant Midwest.

The rhythm of the event went something like this: An iconic music act would step to the microphone and bring the crowd to its feet with a single line from its signature songbooks.

"Hello darkness my old friend . . . "

"The rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night . . . "

"Very superstitious, writings on the wall . . ."

On Night 1, in a show that stretched 4 1/2 hours, it was Simon & Garfunkel, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Stevie Wonder, Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills & Nash, John Fogerty, Sting, Smokey Robinson, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Dion, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Tom Morello and John Legend.

As this article was written, the Friday night schedule included: U2, Metallica, Aretha Franklin, Lou Reed, the Jeff Beck Band, Ray Davies, Ozzy Osbourne, Annie Lennox, Buddy Guy, Lenny Kravitz and a several notable surprise guests.

The performers came on stage beneath two arches that were adorned with portraits of the founding voices -- Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Little Richard and Buddy Holly among them. The 74-year-old Lewis was the only person who appeared in both the paintings and in the spotlight; the man who gave the world "Great Balls of Fire" was among the Hall's first class of inductees in January 1986, which is why, undoubtedly, he was the only performer scheduled to play both nights and was given the honor of the opening number.

The real tilt for most of the first evening, though, was the 1960s, an emphasis made clear by the act who followed Lewis into the spotlight: Crosby, Stills & Nash opened with their familiar harmonies on Joni Mitchell's " Woodstock" as an image of Yasgur's farm filled the screen behind them. "This is Woodstock," Stephen Stills yelped waving at the arena and audience around him.

That festival celebrated its 40th anniversary this past summer and it has become such a relentless revisited generational signpost that younger music fans might wonder with a wink if their elders might better be called the Woodstuck Generation.

But an anniversary show for a museum is precisely the right place to look backward and many of the artists took the chance to share their own life-shaping memories of rock heroes and peers. For instance, Simon, (who performed a solo set of his 1970s and 1980s hits before old frienemy Garfunkel joined him in the spotlight) waxed on about Alan Freed, the Cleveland disc jockey who popularized the term "rock 'n' roll" (and earned Ohio the home-field advantage for the museum) and channeled Holly on "Not Fade Away."

He also dedicated a gentle version of "Here Comes the Sun" to the late George Harrison.

The night's bumpiest performance was from Wonder, who changed his set order on the fly to deal with some nasty sound problems. It was interesting that he treated the show as a concert, not a television taping -- it will air Nov. 29 on HBO. instead of halting the set and starting over, he pressed on, which was admirable and likely preserved the perceived momentum of the night for the arena audience.

Wonder also performed a spirited version of the 1987 Michael Jackson hit "The Way You Make Me Feel" but turned away from the microphone for a moment; viewed from a distance it wasn't clear if it was because of the emotion of singing his late friend's endearing hit or frustration with the balky sound issues. Wonder also led the audience in a call-and-response chant of Jackson's name.

There was even more crackling energy in the venue late Thursday as the crowd waited for the show-closer, a band of note from New Jersey. Much of the night had been about gentle harmonies with songs such as "The Boxer" and "Teach Your Children," and the audience was clearly ready for some roadhouse evangelism.

A TiVo-sabotaging announcement was made in the arena that the Yankees had just defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the World Series and then Springsteen walked out on stage and belted out "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"; needless to say, these two back-to-back moments had a significant effect on the heart rate of middle-aged East Coast men in the audience.

Springsteen didn't disappoint anyone. He was joined by Sam Moore of Sam & Dave fame for sinewy versions of "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Soul Man" and then Fogerty for "Fortunate Son," which roared like a sawmill. Springsteen, making the night's lone comments about contemporary issues, spoke a bit about the battle for "decent healthcare" and was then joined by gifted guitarist Morello of Rage Against the Machine for a glass-shard rendition of "The Ghost of Tom Joad."

The great mystery of the two-night affair in New York is how exactly the producers of the show will turn it into the planned four-hour broadcast for HBO. The show's producers, Jann S. Wenner and Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, loaded the stage with historic talent and they also brought in Robbie Robertson, T Bone Burnett and others to curate the moments and film segments that played between sets.

Those film segments, though, certainly will force director Joel Gallen and his team to leave a number of startling stage moments on the cutting-room floor -- although a future DVD document of the night seems a certainty.

geoff.boucher@latimes.com
latimes

Live review: U2's 360 Tour at the Rose Bowl
October 26, 2009 | 7:28 am


"Enough of the folk mass!" declared Bono during U2's historic Rose Bowl performance Sunday, leading his band and the nearly 100,000 fans in the stadium out of a singalong and into a dance party. The 49-year-old singer/activist/life of the party has been making such quick metaphorical turns for much of his life, fronting a band known for transcendence but hardly immune to sensual pleasure.
Usually, Bono and his band mates travel from prayers to come-ons on the force of charisma and a sound that's ascendant and sleekly funky, structured around the Edge's stretchy guitar parts and Bono's dirty-faced choirboy cries. But for this tour, U2 has adopted another mode of transport: the four-legged circular stage rig known as the Claw, or the Space Station. This contraption is an extravagance with a big carbon footprint and an even bigger price tag. But in Pasadena, it proved worth every Euro, allowing this most ambitious rock band to genuinely reconfigure live pop performance.


Plenty of artists have played in the round, built multi-tiered sets and spent time roaming through the crowd on ramps or trapezes. But the Space Station (Bono's preferred term these days) changes the architecture of the live concert. It not only puts the stadium audience closer to the band, it cuts holes in the fourth wall between star and fan, creating a feeling of immersion and communal connection that's startling in such a huge venue, and that translated differently in person than it could have on YouTube, where the concert was streamed live.


Ringed by a ramp that the band members usually reached via moving bridges, enclosing a good chunk of the crowd within a welcome pen, the Space Station truly conjoined U2 and its audience. The Rose Bowl's relatively low walls enhanced the illusion that mere footsteps (and sometimes less than that) stood between the men unstack and their elated devotees. When Bono crouched at the ramp's edge or the Edge strode across it, churning out a riff, they seemed as touchable as superstars could be.

The Space Station's fragmented and shifting ground dismantled the conventions of the rock concert. "I was born to lift you up," Bono sang in "Magnificent," one of the many songs performed from the band's latest album, "No Line on the Horizon." But at times this music seemed to do the opposite -- it pushed the crowd under a wave of echo and distortion, or formed a passageway between the fans and the band.

Those joyfully shouted group choruses, to older songs like "One" and "With or Without You" but also to newer ones like "Magnificent" and "Unknown Caller" (the latter aided by lyrics splayed across the Space Station's screen), offered the clearest route to union. But it also happened when the Edge and billowing guitar phrases bathed the space in harmonics during "Until the End of the World," or when the rhythm section of Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. (the latter playing a strapped-on conga) moved every body in the house with a Latin-cum-rave take on "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight."

U2's time-honored approach to spiritual enlightenment worked its magic too, when Bono prefaced the old favorite "Where the Streets Have No Name" with some verses of "Amazing Grace," or when he interjected phrases from crowd-pleasing oldies like "Stand by Me," or simply shouted "Soul! Soul! Soul!" (His funniest interjection, though, was when he compared himself to Dennis Hopper and then did a bit of that actor's heavy breathing from the film "Blue Velvet.")

But after three decades as an important band, U2 is long past simple uplift. Its music is as much about emotional entanglement (as in "Ultraviolet" on Sunday) and disorientation ("Vertigo"). Ultimately, it is a meditation on space: the majestic natural landscapes that the Edge's guitar playing often describes; the crowded dance floors or train platforms Clayton and Mullen's rhythms evoke; the inches between a whispering mouth and a lover's ear, or the infinite journey of a prayer hurled into the air.

The Space Station allows U2 to make those musical and lyrical preoccupations physical in a new way. At the Rose Bowl, it created a new experience even for the most jaded concertgoer. U2 concerts have often included moments in which raised voices build goodwill, or shaking hips stimulate joy. But for the first time, perhaps, this band's noise resulted in a kind of silence and stillness -- not a literal one, but the rapture that comes when nearly 100,000 people relax together, as if held within a gentle, open hand.

"God will put a wind at our back and a rising road ahead, if we work together as one," said Archbishop Desmond Tutu in an on-screen message late in the concert. That vision of nations and individuals opening up to one another is at the core of U2's mission. This extravagant tour gave the band another way to enact it and made for a whole new concert experience in the process.

Opening the show, the Black Eyed Peas went for something more tried and true, but also powerful: a party vibe celebrating the home team. Performing its many hits in an exuberant set, the Peas radiated Southern California pride. Tabu draped himself in Mexican and American flags; will.i.am name-checked neighborhoods and towns from Hollywood to East L.A. to La Crescenta.

The set's spirited climax came when Fergie took Axl Rose's part in a rough and true-blooded cover of the Guns N' Roses classic "Sweet Child o' Mine," with Slash himself on guitar. If U2 aimed for universals, the Black Eyed Peas reminded us that particulars have their uses too. Especially when those particulars are as diverse as the elements that make up the Southland.

-- Ann Powers

latimes

U2 gig streamed live on YouTube
(UKPA) – 1 day ago

U2 became the first stadium-packing stars to allow a full live show to be streamed for free on YouTube.

Millions of people around the world could watch the Irish band's show from the Pasadena Rose Bowl in California via the internet at the same time as thousands of fans who packed into the stadium.

The rockers revealed the tie-up with the video-sharing website last week.

U2 manager Paul McGuinness said: "The band has wanted to do something like this for a long time.

"As we're filming the Los Angeles show, it's the perfect opportunity to extend the party beyond the stadium. Fans often travel long distances to come to see U2 - this time U2 can go to them, globally."

The Rose Bowl show was U2's penultimate show this year on the 360 degrees Tour and sold out to the biggest crowd of more than 96,000 fans.

Wearing his trademark sunglasses, lead singer Bono said: "Thank you Los Angeles. Thanks to everyone watching on YouTube all over the world - seven continents."

The band performed classic U2 hits including I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For to rapturous applause.

Michele Flannery, YouTube's music manager, said: "YouTube is thrilled to be able to provide our global audience with a live streaming performance from one of the world's greatest bands.

"We are always looking for new ways to connect fans around the world with their favourite artists, and this is the perfect opportunity to do just that."

google

U2 concert broadcast live on YouTube drew in millions from 16 countries on the Web (a crowd of 100,000 - YouTube page that hosted the concert has received over 7 million views so far - a promotional clip for the concert alone received 2.7 million views
By Amy Eisinger
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, October 27th 2009, 9:50 AM



U2's October 25th concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasedena, California was viewed live by millions who couldn't be there - on YouTube.

Millions of people from around the globe caught Sunday's U2 concert - right from their home computers.

The legendary rock group set yet another career record Sunday night as the first band to broadcast a concert live on the popular video sharing Web site YouTube. The band performed at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. in front of a crowd of 100,000 while simultaneously, Internet users from 16 countries around the world were able to tune in to the concert from the comfort of their own homes.

Thousands of fans left messages for the band thanking them for the free concert, says Spinner.com.

Final figures for the concert have not yet been reported but the YouTube page that hosted the concert has received over 7 million views so far.

A spokesperson for the Google-owned YouTube also noted that while the concert was streaming it was the top global-trending topic on Twitter and that a promotional clip for the concert alone received 2.7 million views.

But retailers like Best Buy aren't expecting a huge jump in album sales thanks to the Internet concert, reports the LA Times. U2's album, "No Line," has already spent 33 weeks on the charts and sold 4,000 copies last week alone, meaning that more than a few fans already have their newest release.

After the California concert, the group is continuing their tour in Europe, including their first-ever shows in Russia and Turkey. On Monday, U2 also announced new tour dates for North America in 2010, including a show at Giants Stadium next July.



nydailynews

U2 concert goes live on YouTube
Irish rock group U2 have broadcast an entire live show via the video sharing website YouTube.

Monday, 26 October 2009



(The concert was bookended by songs from the band's latest album)

Although 96,000 people turned up to see the show at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in California, many times that number were expected to have watched it online.

As he took to the stage, lead singer Bono said: "Thank you Los Angeles. Thanks to everyone watching on YouTube all over the world - seven continents."

The quartet played hits including Beautiful Day and Mysterious Ways.

'Mad scientist'

Other tracks in the 24-song set included Vertigo, One and With Or Without You.

The entire show, which Bono described as a "space adventure", is being repeated on YouTube.

The singer introduced his bandmates as famous characters from Hollywood history. Drummer Larry Mullen was "James Dean", while bassist Adam Clayton was Clark Gable as Gone With The Wind's Rhett Butler.

"Every horror movie needs a mad scientist," Bono continued as he introduced The Edge, "and ours is just to my right.

"He wants to boldly go where no guitar players have ever gone before. He's Mr Spock to us, he's The Edge to you."

The singer went on to compare himself to "Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito with a little bit of Dennis Hopper thrown in".


(Hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas were the night's support act)


(The towering "claw" stage has allowed U2 to squeeze in bigger audiences)

It was the band's penultimate date of the year, with one more concert to take place in Vancouver, Canada, on Wednesday.

The 360 Degrees World Tour resumes next June in Anaheim, California.

Meanwhile, the band have been speaking candidly about the mixed reaction to their recent album, No Line On The Horizon.

Although it among the best-selling albums of the year to date, it has underperformed compared to their previous records.

It has been certified platinum in the UK - meaning 300,000 sales - while in the US it has shifted just over 1m copies. Those figures mean it is the band's least successful album since the experimental Zooropa in 1993.

Speaking before Sunday's concert, Bono admitted the album had lacked a big, commercial hit like Vertigo or Beautiful Day.

"We weren't really in that mindset," he said.

"We felt that the album was a kind of an almost extinct species, and we should approach it in totality and create a mood and a feeling, and a beginning, middle and an end.

"And I suppose we've made a work that is a bit challenging for people who have grown up on a diet of pop stars."

"The commercial challenges have to be confronted," bassist Adam Clayton added.

bbc

U2 Live Stream May Have Problems
by Music-News.com - October 25 2009
photo by Ros O'Gorman


U2 will stream their Pasadena show live on YouTube this weekend but their may be technical issues.


Millions of music fans hoping to witness a U2 show online that’s even better than catching the real thing live could be left disappointed, according to Top 10 Broadband (www.top10-broadband.co.uk), as poor connections put paid to what promised to be a landmark moment in music history.

Sunday will mark the first time that a gig from a major, stadium-filling act has been broadcast live on video-sharing site YouTube. An audience of millions is expected for U2’s appearance at California’s Rosebowl stadium, which is being shown in 16 countries across the globe.

Despite the UK broadcast time of 4.30am on Monday morning, fans are expected to stay up to watch the show in huge numbers. YouTube is confident that its servers will be able to cope with the surge in usage.

Official figures show that the average connection speed across the UK is 3.6Mb. However figures gleaned from Top 10 Broadband’s interactive coverage map show many parts of the UK experience connections well below this level.

Alex Buttle, Marketing Director at Top 10 Broadband, said: 'Just two weeks after the historic online-only broadcast of England’s game against the Ukraine, we are witnessing another landmark event in the history of the internet.

'The 360 stage set is one of the most technologically advanced ever staged – rivalled only by the multi-media blitz that was the Zoo TV tour. So it’s especially ironic that thousands of UK fans’ enjoyment will be spoiled by slow broadband connections that threaten to turn their beautiful day into a nightmare'
undercover

U2: Still what fans are looking for
By Ryan Carter, Staff Writer
Posted: 10/24/2009 07:11:12 AM PDT









PASADENA - It was March 1981 - the Country Club in Reseda. U2 opened and closed their gig that night with a song called "I Will Follow."

Los Angeles Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn left the show that night knowing he'd seen something special.

Technically, Bono, a guy called The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton weren't stellar musicians. They didn't even have enough songs to close with something different.

And yet Hilburn could see that these guys - then in their early 20s - were on to something.

"This was a band that could matter," he said.

Six years later they would hit mega-stardom with the album "Joshua Tree." A stream of hits would follow.

And nearly 30 years after Hilburn saw them, they still matter.

If you're anywhere near the Rose Bowl on Sunday, you'll see why. Nearly 100,000 people will fill the stadium for the band's penultimate show on a North American stadium tour that is breaking house records across the country.

Among the masses there will be Ramon Arellano, of San Gabriel, a manager at El Portal Restaurant in Pasadena. When he heard the band was playing the Rose Bowl, he went on-line and paid more than $500 for tickets for him and his wife.

For Arellano, even though he couldn't really understand Bono's talking when he first heard a live version in his native Mexico of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" - "something about people dying because of bombs" - he knew he was a fan.

"For me, the music was more than about the lyrics," he said.

Speaking of lyrics, also there on Sunday will be Joe Hier - otherwise known as Hollywood Bono, the frontman for tribute band Hollywood U2.

He couldn't believe it when, he said, he got a call from Bono's cousin, Simon Hewson, asking his band to play an afternoon benefit for the St. Baldrick's Foundation - a cancer research foundation - at The Vault Bar & Grill in Pasadena.

"This is going to be the biggest show I ever play in my life," Hier said, adding that afterward, he's going to the show.

He and a lot of others.

Fans are coming from everywhere from San Diego to Jamaica to see this show, one local hotel manager said.

Why all the fuss over four guys from Ireland?

It goes back to what Hilburn saw back in 1981.

It didn't matter that they weren't great technically.

"It was the songs, the attitude, the message," Hilburn said. "I saw something in Bono and the band that night that was so promising. They stood for something, and seemed to have purpose, passion and promise."

It was the kind of something, Hilburn said, that few bands have been able to hold on to.

They channeled that energy, Hilburn said, into great music and an integrity rooted in staying together as a band long after their peers broke up or sold out.

Only the Beatles surpass U2 in terms of bands with such mass appeal, said Hilburn, who's memoir, "Corn Flakes with John Lennon (And Other Tales from a Rock `n' Roll Life)," chronicles his experiences with U2 and other performers. (In fact, Bono wrote its introduction).

That appeal is strong in Southern California, which - along with the fact that the Rose Bowl is their only California show - helps explain why the show sparked a record sell-out in a matter of hours.

Hilburn suggested the Southern California appeal goes back to the mid-1980s, when "Joshua Tree" hit and the song "Where the Street Have No Name."

"Joshua Tree" had a California symbolism in it, Hilburn said, and ultimately that would endear fans to the band.

Hier - Hollywood Bono - has tapped into that endearing spirit when covering U2 tunes.

"I never get tired of it," Hier said of playing U2's songs live. "People just go crazy over it. They really give a crap about what they are doing."

ryan.carter@sgvn.com

(626) 962-8811, ext. 2720

sgvtribune

U2 fans get 360 degrees of rock
Eclectic-but-aging crowd turns out, some all day long

Oct 24, 2009
By MIKE WEATHERFORD
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL View the slide show


Bassist Adam Clayton, left, and guitarist The Edge show why U2 is one of the few musical acts that can still fill stadiums.


The current president appeared in a video graphic and a former one -- Bill Clinton -- was in the press box. But the night belonged to U2, the rock 'n' roll royalty that convenes a party at Sam Boyd Stadium about once every president or two.

And frontman Bono, who's had the ear of those presidents for his social activism, needed only to spin around in circles a couple of times, arms overhead, to rechristen the stadium for a sold-out crowd of more than 40,000 for the "360" tour.

But, as he sang in the second song, "Get On Your Boots," it was too nice a night "to talk about wars between nations."

"Every religion has its Mecca," Bono told the crowd. "We (entertainers) end up here, sometimes on our knees, but we come to Vegas."

He introduced his bandmates with comparisons to every entertainer from Bette Midler to David Copperfield before declaring, "My name is Wayne Newton."

Before long, he was leading a "Viva Las Vegas" sing-a-long.

The Irish rockers and Sam Boyd Stadium don't get together too often, but when they do it's an affair to remember, fleeting but passionate.

It started in November 1992 with the "Zoo TV" tour, the first 80-foot stage with 1,200 tons of giant TV screens the stadium had ever known. It continued when the "PopMart" tour launched in April 1997. Parking-lot bootleggers rolled tape (yeah, it was tape back then) on the nightly rehearsals.

But even after a lot of practice, that date was best known for the boys getting stuck, "Spinal Type"-style, inside a giant lemon.

Now the tour is sponsored by BlackBerry and everyone used their smart phones to talk to friends on the other side.

The massive "360" stage made it look like the stadium came out on the losing end of a flying saucer invasion, almost a living-room show compared to a recent stop at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium where photos reveal the earthlings won.

Not many bands can host this kind of party. Festivals such as Vegoose -- already come and gone since the last U2 stop -- mostly replaced single headliners for gatherings of this magnitude. Other stars on the short list, namely the Rolling Stones, opt to play big-money indoor dates on the Strip instead.

The weather smiled on the band's choice to take the path less Vegas on one of those fine desert nights that wasn't too hot, too cold or too windy. The crowd had clearly aged along with the band. Tailgating was light and refined; one party of about two dozen even hired a hosted bar with table cloths and a bartender in bow tie.

As he cooked chicken fajitas for a group in the parking lot, Las Vegan Rick Wylie said he was here for the Zoo TV tour in 92 as well, but there was no cooking then.

"Just heavy drinkin'" he said with a laugh. "That's when we could handle a hangover."

More current pop stars, Black Eyed Peas, were added as the opening act, possibly to youthen the demographic of a stadium light on the "Now Generation" they sang about.

The crowd was more on the cordial side until frontman will.i.am. won them over with sincerity, a shout-out to U2 and other bands who manage to "stay together for the love of the music," and a little humiliation of those who would be "chillin' lackadaisical" up in the stands while Fergie did her "Boom Boom Pow."

Friday also offered a pleasant morning to those who started arriving at 6 a.m. to line up for a preferred spot on the general-admission floor.

Fans debated whether it was better to be inside the race-track ramp that circled the stage or on the outside of the rail.

"We're just addicted to it, to be honest with you," said Pat Dalug, the Princeton, N.J., man who had a place near the front of the line. "Some people don't understand, but we understand. I always tell my wife -- it's better than smoking crack."

Dalug even was on the clock, sort of, passing out sunblock samples. As he eyed other fans sipping coffee or napping on air mattresses, he noted, "You forget about all the problems, all the responsibilities."

"Chicago was a little crazy," Dalug added. But neither U2 nor its fans are spring chickens anymore. "If you get arrested, it's on our record. We're not underage anymore."

Boris "Bowman" Poehland from Hamburg, Germany, was trying to follow as many shows as he could in the United States.

"This show is all about different perspectives," he says. "I've been almost everywhere with this show."

But, he confessed, "U2 is the name of my traveling agency. I love this band, but it's only 40 percent the show. Sixty percent is traveling around the world meeting old friends, meeting new friends, being in G.A. line for two days. That is the fun."

lvrj

U2 and Bono adapt to changing times


In this Sept. 24, 2009 file photo, from left, Larry Mullen Jr., Bono, Adam Clayton and The Edge …

By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Music Writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody, Ap Music Writer – Fri Oct 23, 10:58 am ET
Even while maintaining its status as one of the few musical acts that can still fill stadiums, U2 is struck by how quickly its world is changing — musically and politically.

Charismatic front man Bono, in a reflective mood as U2 closes the North American leg of its "360" tour, notes the different, more polarized atmosphere in the United States since the band performed its anthem, "City of Blinding Lights," at President Obama's inauguration in January.

"I didn't think it could come to this so quickly, after the joyous occasion of that election," Bono says in an interview on board the band's plane, as they jet to another stop on the tour. "I thought America was looking good. ... Things are getting a little rough now."

Bono says he's been in touch with Obama and is confident the president will deliver on promises made during the campaign, including the singer's favorite issue: funding to fight AIDS in Africa. "The Obama administration is just getting going. (He) has promised to double aid over the next years, because even though (President George W.) Bush tripled it, ... the United States is still about half as what European countries give as a percentage, and I think he knows that's not right."

Meanwhile, Bono the rock star and the rest of U2 are struggling a bit themselves — as incongruous as that might seem for a band that will have performed to millions of people before its tour wraps overseas next year. (U2 ends its North American tour on Wednesday in Vancouver, British Columbia.)

Like other bands in the digital age, U2 is struggling to grab new listeners. Its members admit to frustration at the average album sales for its most recent release and wonder, as bassist Adam Clayton put it, whether the idea of an impassioned rock 'n' roll fan is becoming a thing of the past. (One experiment — U2 is broadcasting one of this weekend's concerts in Los Angeles on YouTube.com.)

"The commercial challenges have to be confronted," Clayton says during an interview backstage at "Saturday Night Live," as awaits the band's performance on the show's season kickoff. "But I think, in a sense, the more interesting challenge is, 'What is rock 'n' roll in this changing world?' Because, to some extent, the concept of the music fan — the concept of the person who buys music and listens to music for the pleasure of music itself — is an outdated idea."

The band's latest CD, "No Line on the Horizon," debuted at the top of the charts when it was released in March and has sold a respectable 1 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But the CD, which features more electronic music experimentation from U2, is the group's lowest selling CD in more than a decade. It represents a marked drop from 2004's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb," which has sold 3.2 million copies to date, and 2000's 4.3 million seller, "All That You Can't Leave Behind."

"No Line" is also an album that hasn't had that one signature hit.

U2's last CD had "Vertigo," which wasn't a huge song on the pop charts, but became so ubiquitous thanks to Apple's iPod commercial that it might as well have been a No. 1 smash.

The first single from "No Line" — the driving, upbeat "Get on Your Boots" — didn't have a similar platform and didn't crack Billboard's top 30 singles pop chart. Meanwhile, "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" was featured in a Blackberry ad as part of the new partnership between the mobile device and U2 but was not released as a single.

Songs from the new album are clearly resonating with die-hard fans. "Get on Your Boots" drew one of the more frenetic responses from the crowd during a recent concert in Foxborough, Mass., outside of Boston, as did the anthemic show closer, "Moment of Surrender." Yet the album hasn't had the impact for which U2 had hoped.

While noting that signature U2 songs such as "Beautiful Day" and even "One" weren't massive or immediate hits, Bono does acknowledge disappointment that the band didn't quite "pull off the pop songs" with the new work.

"But we weren't really in that mindset," he says, "and we felt that the album was a kind of an almost extinct species, and we should approach it in totality and create a mood and a feeling, and a beginning, middle and an end. And I suppose we've made a work that is a bit challenging for people who have grown up on a diet of pop stars."

Some would argue that the Irish rockers — Bono, Clayton, The Edge and Larry Mullen Jr. — remain pop's biggest act. They are entering their fourth decade of music-making with a string of awards, from Grammys to Billboard to Golden Globes, tens of millions of records sold and a social impact that few musical acts can ever hope to achieve. Still, they find themselves in the same challenging position as most pop groups today, who must seek new ways to connect with music buyers in a declining industry and an increasingly fractious entertainment world.

"Music exists in an environment where people are multitasking, and I think that's a very different environment," says Clayton, who grew up appreciating jazz but realized "it was for people who took life a certain way, but it wasn't part of the modern world for me.

"I worry that the world of rock 'n' roll that I grew up in is destined to end up that way."

U2, of course, is hardly in danger of becoming a band that only gets heard in obscure clubs or on niche radio stations.

Its "360" tour is a massive undertaking that has the band performing in the center of stadiums, hence the "360" title. The production, which includes stages that take days to dismantle, has been one of the top grossing tours in the country since it kicked off in September, despite a price tag that runs upward of $250 (at least 10,000 tickets for $30 have been made available for every show).

And when the band played at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., last month, it broke attendance records with a crowd of about 84,500 fans.

"In many ways, U2 has had such an enormous amount of success over the years we're almost proof against that," the band's longtime manager, Paul McGuinness, says, talking about U2 and the music industry's decline. "We're still selling a lot of recorded music, but it's a much smaller part of our business than playing live. This tour, by the time it's finished, we would have played ... to roughly 6 million people."

It is during live shows when U2 feels the most connection with its audience. Despite the stadium shows and the immense stage structure, the band insists that this time, the set up has created perhaps a greater intimacy with fans than the group has enjoyed in the past. They are literally surrounded by fans.

"The staging itself is something we've tried to do for a long, long time. The idea of playing 360 — it's never been done successfully, ... where everybody gets good sound and good visuals, and we managed to achieve that, I think," says Mullen, who, like the rest of his band mates, is affable and thoughtful as he talks about U2 backstage at "SNL."

"The thing about U2 has always been its audience, and in this environment, I think the audience is so important, and the reaction is so important," he says.

On tour, U2 can best gauge fan reaction to the new material. Last month at the cavernous Gillette Stadium near Boston, it was almost as frenzied and passionate as the reaction U2 gets for its classics. A roar came from the crowd as the band opened the show with "Magnificent," and the energy kept building as U2 performed four more new songs, including "Get on Your Boots."

"Judging by the reaction to the album, live, I feel like it has really connected," The Edge says. "There's a lot of records that make great first impressions. There might be one song that gets to be big on the radio, but they're not albums that people ... play a lot.

"This is one that I gather from talking to people. ... Four months later, they're saying, 'I'm really getting into the album now.'"

U2 is still hustling to promote the CD. When it was released in March, the group did "Good Morning America" and an unprecedented five-night appearance on "Late Show With David Letterman." More recently, U2 appeared on "SNL."

"I love to see an outsized band like U2 behaving like they're in the kindergarten and just doing what you do with your first album — taking it to the market, setting up your table, selling your wares, selling it out the street corners, giving out fliers," says an animated Bono, breaking into a wide grin behind his trademark sunglasses. "I think selling out is when you stop believing enough in your music to put yourself out to explain it to people."

U2's Blackberry partnership includes an application that allows users to download the CD and photographs, liner notes and more.

Yet the band is also careful not to be too unwieldy when it comes to attempting new avenues to promote its music.

"We're trying to do everything we can on that front without having to change what we're about artistically: The music stays sacrosanct," The Edge says. "We are much more focused on being the best than being the biggest."

And that means perhaps making the kind of album that doesn't guarantee hits but does guarantee surprises and new ideas, which "No Line" has delivered.

"The biggest danger for a band like U2 is accepting that you've reached a certain age, and, therefore, you can just actually sit back," says Mullen.

"That's not what we signed up to do. We want to make relevant, great music, and Bono has said numerous times, 'One crap album and you're out,'" he adds. "We've avoided it so far."

___

AP Television Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
yahoo

Op-Ed Guest Columnist
Rebranding America

By BONO
Published: October 17, 2009
A FEW years ago, I accepted a Golden Globe award by barking out an expletive.



One imagines President Obama did the same when he heard about his Nobel, and not out of excitement.

When Mr. Obama takes the stage at Oslo City Hall this December, he won’t be the first sitting president to receive the peace prize, but he might be the most controversial. There’s a sense in some quarters of these not-so-United States that Norway, Europe and the World haven’t a clue about the real President Obama; instead, they fixate on a fantasy version of the president, a projection of what they hope and wish he is, and what they wish America to be.



Well, I happen to be European, and I can project with the best of them. So here’s why I think the virtual Obama is the real Obama, and why I think the man might deserve the hype. It starts with a quotation from a speech he gave at the United Nations last month:

“We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”

They’re not my words, they’re your president’s. If they’re not familiar, it’s because they didn’t make many headlines. But for me, these 36 words are why I believe Mr. Obama could well be a force for peace and prosperity — if the words signal action.

The millennium goals, for those of you who don’t know, are a persistent nag of a noble, global compact. They’re a set of commitments we all made nine years ago whose goal is to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Barack Obama wasn’t there in 2000, but he’s there now. Indeed he’s gone further — all the way, in fact. Halve it, he says, then end it.

Many have spoken about the need for a rebranding of America. Rebrand, restart, reboot. In my view these 36 words, alongside the administration’s approach to fighting nuclear proliferation and climate change, improving relations in the Middle East and, by the way, creating jobs and providing health care at home, are rebranding in action.

These new steps — and those 36 words — remind the world that America is not just a country but an idea, a great idea about opportunity for all and responsibility to your fellow man.

All right ... I don’t speak for the rest of the world. Sometimes I think I do — but as my bandmates will quickly (and loudly) point out, I don’t even speak for one small group of four musicians. But I will venture to say that in the farthest corners of the globe, the president’s words are more than a pop song people want to hear on the radio. They are lifelines.

In dangerous, clangorous times, the idea of America rings like a bell (see King, M. L., Jr., and Dylan, Bob). It hits a high note and sustains it without wearing on your nerves. (If only we all could.) This was the melody line of the Marshall Plan and it’s resonating again. Why? Because the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy.

It is a strangely unsettling feeling to realize that the largest Navy, the fastest Air Force, the fittest strike force, cannot fully protect us from the ghost that is terrorism .... Asymmetry is the key word from Kabul to Gaza .... Might is not right.

I think back to a phone call I got a couple of years ago from Gen. James Jones. At the time, he was retiring from the top job at NATO; the idea of a President Obama was a wild flight of the imagination.

General Jones was curious about the work many of us were doing in economic development, and how smarter aid — embodied in initiatives like President George W. Bush’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief and the Millennium Challenge Corporation — was beginning to save lives and change the game for many countries. Remember, this was a moment when America couldn’t get its cigarette lighted in polite European nations like Norway; but even then, in the developing world, the United States was still seen as a positive, even transformative, presence.

The general and I also found ourselves talking about what can happen when the three extremes — poverty, ideology and climate — come together. We found ourselves discussing the stretch of land that runs across the continent of Africa, just along the creeping sands of the Sahara — an area that includes Sudan and northern Nigeria. He also agreed that many people didn’t see that the Horn of Africa — the troubled region that encompasses Somalia and Ethiopia — is a classic case of the three extremes becoming an unholy trinity (I’m paraphrasing) and threatening peace and stability around the world.

The military man also offered me an equation. Stability = security + development.

In an asymmetrical war, he said, the emphasis had to be on making American foreign policy conform to that formula.

Enter Barack Obama.

If that last line still seems like a joke to you ... it may not for long.

Mr. Obama has put together a team of people who believe in this equation. That includes the general himself, now at the National Security Council; the vice president, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the Republican defense secretary; and a secretary of state, someone with a long record of championing the cause of women and girls living in poverty, who is now determined to revolutionize health and agriculture for the world’s poor. And it looks like the bipartisan coalition in Congress that accomplished so much in global development over the past eight years is still holding amid rancor on pretty much everything else. From a development perspective, you couldn’t dream up a better dream team to pursue peace in this way, to rebrand America.

The president said that he considered the peace prize a call to action. And in the fight against extreme poverty, it’s action, not intentions, that counts. That stirring sentence he uttered last month will ring hollow unless he returns to next year’s United Nations summit meeting with a meaningful, inclusive plan, one that gets results for the billion or more people living on less than $1 a day. Difficult. Very difficult. But doable.

The Nobel Peace Prize is the rest of the world saying, “Don’t blow it.”

But that’s not just directed at Mr. Obama. It’s directed at all of us. What the president promised was a “global plan,” not an American plan. The same is true on all the other issues that the Nobel committee cited, from nuclear disarmament to climate change — none of these things will yield to unilateral approaches. They’ll take international cooperation and American leadership.

The president has set himself, and the rest of us, no small task.

That’s why America shouldn’t turn up its national nose at popularity contests. In the same week that Mr. Obama won the Nobel, the United States was ranked as the most admired country in the world, leapfrogging from seventh to the top of the Nation Brands Index survey — the biggest jump any country has ever made. Like the Nobel, this can be written off as meaningless ... a measure of Mr. Obama’s celebrity (and we know what people think of celebrities).

But an America that’s tired of being the world’s policeman, and is too pinched to be the world’s philanthropist, could still be the world’s partner. And you can’t do that without being, well, loved. Here come the letters to the editor, but let me just say it: Americans are like singers — we just a little bit, kind of like to be loved. The British want to be admired; the Russians, feared; the French, envied. (The Irish, we just want to be listened to.) But the idea of America, from the very start, was supposed to be contagious enough to sweep up and enthrall the world.

And it is. The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas — your idea — at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them.

Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE and (Product)RED, is a contributing columnist for The Times.

nytimes

Five Great U2 Songs Even the Band Has Probably Forgotten About
By Chris Gray in Lists, PlaybillTue., Oct. 13 2009 @ 2:30PM



Well, now you've seen the set list from Monday's U2 Dallas show, and it's pretty short on both pre-Joshua Tree songs and surprises in general. This will be Rocks Off's eighth U2 show since 1992, and we can't remember ever having seen the band do "The Unforgettable Fire" live, but besides the No Line on the Horizon stuff, everything else we have.

So instead of cuing up "One" - which we fully expect to be played at our funeral - or "Where the Streets Have No Name" for the 16 millionth time, we combed U2's back catalog for a few songs the band might want to take a second look at the next time they're slotting those diehard-fan cuts into their set list. Although we're perfectly happy with "Unforgettable Fire" and "Until the End of the World." This time.



"So Cruel" (Achtung Baby, 1991): Even on a record steeped in pain and heartbreak - Edge's first marriage broke up during recording, Bono's nearly did and "hats" Bono and Edge were constantly at odds with "haircuts" Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. over whether to introduce club rhythms and "Madchester" loops into the band's sound - "So Cruel" aches even more than "One" or "Love Is Blindness."

If you ever want to hear the sound of a heart breaking, the three-note opening piano figure and Larry's pitter-pat drumbeat come pretty close, while Bono's bone-cutting lyrics ("You don't know if it's fear or desire/ Danger the drug that takes you higher") sum up the exhilarating uncertainty we've all had to face in our love lives from time to time - if you've ever thought you needed someone "like a drug," this song is for you.



"Wild Honey" (All That You Can't Leave Behind, 2000): A complete 180 from "So Cruel," "Wild Honey" is almost giddy. Bono going on about being a "monkey swinging from the trees" elicits a chuckle or two, but Edge's lightning-quick acoustic lead floats like a butterfly and stings like a (honey) bee, while the swells of B-3 organ at the bridge justify Bono's oft-repeated slogan for All That You Can't Leave Behind, "the goal is soul." Mission accomplished - like the best soul music, there's real hurt under all that happiness.



"Exit" (The Joshua Tree, 1987): Bono has said he doesn't like to play this song - told from the point of view of someone moments away from suicide ("A hand in the pocket/ Fingering the steel") - live because it creeps him out. Shame, because the crescendo at the end is U2 at their fiercest and heaviest. Rage, rage against the dying of the light...



"God Part II" (Rattle and Hum, 1988): Pound for pound the most underrated - and, lyrically, the best-written - song on Rattle and Hum. Adam Clayton's bass throbs like a wound, and Edge's Larry-abetted riff could be written up in Guns & Ammo. Bono, meanwhile, progresses from indicting notorious John Lennon biographer Albert Goldman ("his type like a curse") to confronting his own hypocrisy ("Don't believe in forced entry, don't believe in rape/ But every time she passes by, wild thoughts escape") to axioms about truth and rock and roll ("We glorify the past when the future dries up") that neither U2's fans or detractors were ready for in 1988, and probably still aren't today.



"Spanish Eyes" (B-side, Joshua Tree sessions, 1986-87): Rocks Off almost didn't include this because it's a B-side, but it's also the last word on one of his favorite subjects: his wife Ali Hewson's bewitching brown eyes. After Edge's swirly introduction, "Spanish Eyes" kicks into gear with one of Larry's cymbal crashes and doesn't let up until the end. And like all of Bono's love songs, it's a little masochistic: "I love the way you talk to me, and I love the way you walk on me/ And I need you more than you need me."

Honorable Mention: "Crumbs from Your Table" (How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, 2004); "Seconds" (War, 1983); "Stay (Faraway, So Close)" (Zooropa, 1993); "A Sort of Homecoming" (The Unforgettable Fire, 1984); "Electrical Storm" (The Best of 1990-2000, 2002)

houstonpress

U2 Exclusive: The Edge's stage setup revealed
Guitars, amps, FX - they're all here!

Joe Bosso, Wed 14 Oct 2009, 1:42 pm BST



Bono and The Edge onstage on U2's current 360° Tour (© A3464 Rainer Jensen/dpa/Corbis)


U2's 360° Tour is a massive operation alright, and it wouldn't be an understatement to call it The Biggest Show On Earth - or anywhere else for that matter.

Named after a stage configuration called The Claw - a towering, robotic-looking structure said to be the largest (and costliest) concert setting in rock 'n' roll history, one that offers stadium audiences a panoramic view of the band - it's a long way from "three chords and the truth."

It's five hours before showtime inside the vast Giants Stadium. The field and seats of the 80,000 capacity venue are empty, but I'm suddenly jolted by an overwhelming blast of music produced by three musicians on stage who proceed to pump out the second-best version of City Of Blinding Lights I've ever heard.

Were they The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr, they might take their rendition all the way home, but the trio I'm listening to are their techs, Dallas Schoo, Stuart Morgan and Sam O' Sullivan, respectively.

Still, it's uncanny how much they sound like their bosses. Schoo switches guitars and tweaks some settings on Edge's pedalboard. A few more guitar changes - a Rickenbacker, a Music Rising Les Paul, a black Stratocaster - and song snatches follow (bits of Ticket To Ride, The Rolling Stones' Angie and - WTF? - Stairway To Heaven).

Then Schoo sees me and waves me up on stage. The affable Kentucky native greets me warmly as I tell him he and his fellow techs could form the greatest U2 tribute band around. Schoo laughs heartily. When I ask him if U2 are going to attempt to cover Zeppelin tonight, he laughs again and says, "No, no, no. That's just us having fun. We're testing sounds, but we get to play rock star while we work."

With 43 guitars and a truckload of electronic gear (for the complete, definitive list, see the end of this article) to look after, Schoo just might be the hardest working man in the business. While it's The Edge's job to make sonic magic happen nightly, Schoo is up at dawn, mapping out the agenda for each performance, plotting guitar changes and keeping score of ever-changing effect presets.

Oh, and don't forget changing strings on those guitars - on any given day, he's personally stringing 20 of them. "Most are a breeze," he says. "It only starts to feel like a chore when I'm working on a 12-string."



Dallas Schoo with The Edge's pedalboard, Giants Stadium, New Jersey. Photo: Joe Bosso


Schoo has been Edge's right-hand man since 1986. Having worked with everyone from Hall & Oates to James Taylor, he got a call to meet with U2 while they were finishing The Joshua Tree. But the offer to go on the road with the Irish band was a difficult one to accept. Schoo asked the iconic concert promoter Bill Graham for advice. Graham, who knew stars when he saw them, told Schoo, "These kids are going to be mega."


Twenty-three years later, Schoo is now not only Edge's guitar tech and full-time employee, but a trusted confidante, staying by the guitarist's side at every single concert and recording session. "That's the most amazing thing about Edge and the band," he says, "the amount of faith they'll have in you if you prove your worth. I still pinch myself when Edge or Bono ask me for ideas in the studio. I think to myself, Hey, you're the geniuses. You wrote the song, you play it - I'm just the hired hand here."

Schoo talks into his two-way that he's going to need "an hour or so," and after receiving confirmation from a production staffer that the time is clear, he takes me on a guided tour of the mind-boggling array of amps, effects and guitars that make up The Edge's sound.

I'm still finding it strange to be standing under an enormous claw, Dallas.

[laughs] "It does take a couple of minutes to get acclimated. But you forget pretty fast. It does look pretty awesome at night with all the lights and the video screen."

How is it different for The Edge to work on this kind of stage? There's a lot more room for him to move; everything's a lot cleaner.

"That's true. There's more real estate for him to deal with. He isn't as tied to one little area and he doesn't stand next to his pedalboard as much as he used to. That's great in one way because it gives the crowd a very lively show, but it presents sound issues he and I had to figure out.

"During our production rehearsals in Barcelona, when we saw the stage for the first time and the band started getting familiar with it, Edge asked me if I could handle most of the show - meaning, could I man the switching of effects but keep up with the guitars?

"Edge is very guitar-specific. Last night he used 21 different guitars for 24 songs. He's more tuned into the sound of each guitar than he ever was on any other tour. So I've got to stay focused every second. I have to always be ready with a new guitar, and I have to be ready for all of the effects cues."

[Pointing to the large Skrydstrup switching system] But he does have his own pedalboard. He is working his own effects some of the time, right?

"Yes, he is, but every time he walks away from the pedalboard, which is often, it's all on me. And let me tell you, this tour has been a challenge in that respect. During a show, when I'm down there [he points to the stairs that lead underneath the stage], all I have is a six-inch window to look up at him through."

A six-inch window? How can you see him all the time?

[laughs] "I can't. Not all the time. It isn't easy. And what makes it even more difficult is, for the first time ever, Edge has a wireless headset mic so he can sing and work the stage. In the past, he could back off the mic and give me cues. Now he has to try to put his hand over his mic and give me directions, or he tries to do it with certain facial expressions."


How long does it take for you and Edge to be in sync? How long is the rehearsal process between the two of you?

"It can take several weeks. And things change while we're on tour. Certain songs come and go. The good thing is, I've been with him for so long, so there's a history between us. We have a shorthand."

Take me through the amp setup you have here.

"Well, of course we have the main AC30 from '64. Can't do a show without that. Then we have a '58 Fender Deluxe with a Vox speaker and a '57 Deluxe with a Jensen speaker. From there we go to a mid-'50s Fender Harvard - a very rare amp, by the way, and it sounds fantastic - and I put a Vox speaker in that. Plus, we have some early '70s Vox amps as backups."



The heartbeat of Edge's sound, his 1964 Vox AC30TB. Photo: Joe Bosso


But the main star amp-wise is the '64 AC30.

"Absolutely. It's the basis for The Edge's sound, live and in the studio - well, aside from what's in his head and his hands and just the magic he brings to what he does."

Let's go through some specifics of the amp. It's what's known as an 'AC30TB.'

"That's right, it's a 'Top Boost.' The chassis is 1964 but it's housed in a 1970s cabinet - this I how the amp came when Edge originally purchased it. The speakers are a Jensen Blue Alnico 12" from the '60s and a Silver Jensen Alnico 12". I replaced a Blue Alnico in early 1986 for the Silver Jensen because the blue one blew out and that's what I had in the U2 Dublin storage as a replacement."

Could Edge tell the difference between the two speakers?

"Totally. He knows any kind of change I make to that amp. Nothing gets by him. Luckily, he likes the speaker combination, so we stuck with it."
...

...
Still, you've had to make some other changes to it over the years. It's certainly not stock.

"It's not stock at all. I have Marshall capacitors in there, Fender capacitors and resistors. It's totally one-of-a-kind, a real Frankenstein. Edge loves that amp so much and he really relies on it. It's probably more important to him than any guitar."

Have you ever had any serious mishaps with it during a show?

"Only a few, thank goodness. But any time something happens, it's serious. The worst time was during the Vertigo tour. The audio just stopped - the power stayed on, but there was no output. Nothing."

That sounds like trouble.

"Oh, you know it. Not only is Edge completely comfortable with that sound, but 95 percent of the presets are going through that amp.

"I quickly got a replacement Vox amp on stage, but even so, it was one of the worst shows ever - I just mean for Edge on a personal level. The crowd had no idea anything was wrong, but he was just so disappointed. When you're up there and you're giving your all but you're not getting the kind of sound you want, it's very dispiriting. I could tell he was frustrated the entire time."

The replacement amp, is it wired the same as the main AC30?

"Pretty much. Of the 14 Vox amps we own, it's the closest to the main AC30, but it just doesn't have the same compression. You can't introduce compression with speakers that don't have mileage on them. Edge calls it 'sparkle' - toppiness.

"Think about the sound he gets from his Strat on Where The Streets Have No Name, that crystal-like sound. That's what 'sparkle' is. It's a special sound you can get from a speaker, and the only way to get it, if the speaker's right, is when it has some mileage on it, when it's been used."

I guess it goes without saying that Edge's AC30 is akin to Clapton's Blackie.

"Oh, it's priceless. If he auctioned it off, I don't know how much it would fetch. I know I take such good care of it. I've taken it on flights and sat it right down next to me in its own first-class seat - there's no way I'd let that thing out of my sight."


Let's talk about delay. I noticed that when you guys played City Of Blinding Lights there was that unique delay to the guitar sound, even in an empty stadium. Do you still have the delays set to 3/16ths?

"No. We have new tempos in the show. I would say that 80 percent of the echoes of the show, Edge is still using his own Korg SDDs 2000s, which have to be manually bumped up. You have to go through them to get the right settings. And you can't go down, you have to go up. So you have to go 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and so on to get to 4. Pride, With Or Without You, Streets - I know what number he wants and I have to change the settings manually. But sometimes the tempos do change, so I have to have it all written down."

And I see that there's no monitors on the stage - is Edge hearing his guitar sound through his earphones?

"Yep. Through his phones and what's coming from behind him. I don't want to say it's a compromise, but it's something he's still getting used to. What's funny is, the sound has been remarkably consistent. From what Edge hears on stage and from what the audience hears way out there, there's no bouncing around of sound."

Let's talk about some of guitars Edge uses on tour. You have a veritable guitar shop you bring around with you.

[laughs] "We do bring a lot, yes. I should be stringing guitars right now, in fact. C'mon, let's go downstairs."



Edge's '75 Les Paul? No, just an incredible re-creation. Photo: Joe Bosso


We take the stairs down to Dallas's cramped work area, filled with electronic gear and lined with guitars hanging from racks.


My word! How many of these do you string each day?

"Generally, about 18 or 19. Last night was 21. I have a system: the guitars are unloaded off the band truck around 9:30 or 10am, which is when I begin to string and stretch. I can usually have 14 guitars finished by the time the band comes in for soundcheck. Then I try to get another four done right up to when the support band goes on.

"While that's happening, I have almost an hour to get in the last string stretching and tuning on each show guitar. I have a pretty good procedure and rhythm for all of this, but meals often take a back seat or passed on altogether if there additional guitar repairs."

So Edge wants fresh strings every day? He doesn't like a little grit on the strings?

"Nope. And he'll even ask me while he's soundchecking - 'Dallas, are these strings new?' He can tell."

[Pointing to some Gibson Explorers] These guitars here…is one of these the famous '76 Explorer?

"No, we finally retired it. It's such an important guitar for recording that I finally convinced him to leave it home. Nothing serious ever happened to it, but it's spent years in the sun, getting rained on - outdoor shows do that. I wanted to nip things in the bud while I could.

"It's a bright-sounding guitar, very toppy - like the AC30, it's one of the most important components of his sound. So I told him, 'Let me look around. I'll find some amazing replacements,' and I came up with three 1976 Explorers, all with the natural finish.

"The right ones are hard to find because Gibson had two different Explorers in production that year. The ones that were produced from June through December had a thin neck, but the models that were produced during the first part of that year had a thick baseball bat neck. Those are the ones Edge prefers. Gibson didn't make many of them, only about 1800 of them or so, and people hang on to them. Finding a few of them that were just right took some detective work."

[Seeing a faded Alpine White Les Paul] Now, I know Edge auctioned his '75 Les Paul a few years ago…What's this?

[Takes the guitar out of the rack] "Let me tell you a story, Joe. This is the most amazing thing. Yes, The Edge did auction his Les Paul off for Music Rising - it made a phenomenal amount of money. [Ed. Note: final price $288, 000] It was hard for him to part with it."


I can imagine. He used it on New Years Day, Love Comes To Town…

"So many classic songs. It's a crucial guitar for him. But it was a great cause, so he couldn't say no. Anyway, it was Christmas time, and I'm home in Colorado, and this huge UPS package arrives at my door. I open it up and it's a brand-new Gibson case. I'm like, 'OK, what's this?' I flipped the locks on the case and took a look inside and I thought I was seeing things…it was The Edge's '75 Les Paul!"

Wait…Gibson bought it back? I thought it was part of Guitar Center's Legends Collection.

"It is. The second I got this guitar, I started checking it out. Look at this [he flips it over, shows me belt scratches and dings]… it was eerie. I thought somebody made some sort of mistake at first. Did they send me the auctioned guitar to be authenticated or something?"



Gibson re-created every scratch and dent on a copy of Edge's '75 Les Paul. Photo: Joe Bosso


"So I called Edge and said, 'Do you know anything about this?' And he was like, 'No. What are they doing sending it back to you?' Which wouldn't have made any sense: you wouldn't send a guitar like that by UPS; you'd hand deliver it. Edge didn't know what was happening.

"By now, my wheels are really turning. So I unscrewed the back plate…brand-new wiring. Brand-new pots, everything. I keep checking - a brand-new switcher. I take the pickups out…brand-new wood inside."

Gibson made a replica of the '75 Les Paul?

"Yep. They made an exact replica. Gibson wanted Edge to have the guitar even though he'd auctioned it off. I still remember when he plugged it in for the first time and played it; he was like, 'This is it! It's the same guitar.' We couldn't believe it.

[He admires the back of the instrument, runs his fingers over the "2" decal] "I mean, look at this. They even got the same decal and faded it just like the original. It's scary! The weight, everything. I mean, how can you get the same weight of the wood - new wood is going to be different than older wood. Totally amazing. Edge used this on No Line On The Horizon, he loved it that much."
...

How about the '73 black Strat…where is that?

"We've got that one. [He picks a black Stratocaster out of its rack, shows it off.] This is the Where The Streets Have No Name Strat. He also plays Bad and Still Haven't Found with it. It's a beautiful guitar. What I really like about it is the way it returns to pitch even with the standard tremolo system. This was actually his second most important guitar after he got the Explorer. Lot of history on this baby.

"The maple neck on this guitar is so bright. This guitar through the AC30 with an old analog delay - that's a magical combination. You give Edge those tools and he'll take you places with them."

Any new guitars that you're dealing with?

"Mmmm…There's this '64 Epiphone Casino that he uses on the opening song Breathe; that sounds pretty nice. Then there's a Fernandes Sustainer that he uses on a new version of Ultra-Violet."



Dallas with Edge's '73 'Where The Streets Have No Name' Stratocaster. Photo: Joe Bosso


I remember you were trying to get them to play that song again for the longest time.

[laughs] "Yes, I love that song! For years I've been asking them to do it again. Of course I don't know if I can claim credit for them putting it back in the set or whether they just figured it was time. But they are, and the Fernandes sounds incredible on it."

Edge started going wireless on this tour, didn't he?

"He did. He wanted to move around more and work the stage - it's that kind of show. But as of three nights ago, we went back to wires; we're plugged in again. The reason is pretty obvious: the signal is direct and true. Wireless, it was fine. But there's no comparison."


How are the Death By Audio pedals working out?

"Oh, they're great! We're using the Supersonic Fuzz Gun and the Harmonic Transformer. This guy, Ben Curtis - great guy - he makes these different distortion pedals and he turned us on to them.

"At first, I didn't know if Edge was going to be able to use them. They sounded a bit like white noise to me - white noise with some parameters. But Edge heard them and he was like, 'No, no, there's something there.' And he started hooking them up to his echoes, and viola! he started making music.

"The Fuzz Gun is on No Line On The Horizon, that big intro sound. It's on Ultra-Violet, too - it's fantastic. The guy is always looking for something new that can create music, and he'll tinker with a pedal or a device for days until he can make it do something he wants."

In addition to working with The Edge on tour, you're also with him in the studio - you're a full-time employee.

"That's right. Edge and I have a great relationship and his trust in me is very gratifying, so yes, I do work with the band in the studio. Any time guitars and amps need set up for recording, I'm there - wherever that is!" [laughs]

On the new album, were there any times that you helped Edge out with a guitar sound, if there was something he was stuck on?

"There was an instance on the new record where something like that occurred. It's usually Bono who will say to me, 'I'm having trouble on such-and-such a song, Dallas. I need the right attitude, I need some inspiration. Before Edge gets here, can you work on some things, come up with a guitar or effects?' And of course, it's extremely flattering when he does that.

"There was a song called Stand Up, that… the guys were in a bit of a rut. It was good, but they were frustrated. They didn't feel it was going to that next level. We were in Olympic Studios. Bono was sitting on the couch writing lyrics. Steve Lillywhite came in and said, 'There's no juice to the song. The middle-eight isn't happening. There's no inspirational sound to it. I think we should just cut it from the record and move on.' Danny Lanois and Brian Eno were in total agreement.

"Now, I'm thinking, The Edge is the best guitar player in the world. I know he can make this song work. So Bono said to me, 'Dallas, this song can fly. Can you go into the studio and think of something?'

"So I went in and I turned on three distortion pedals and an analog echo. I plugged in the Explorer and I came up with this really offensive distortion sound. But then I did something: I turned the volume on the guitar off, hit a chord and then I cranked the volume knob."

You worked it like a volume pedal.

"Yeah! It created this incredible siren-like sound. All of a sudden, every face in the studio lit up and Bono was like, 'Edge, get in there! That's it!' Edge raced in, took the guitar from me, and at that point it was all in his hands; he found the right note patterns, the right places to play, and he totally turned the song around and made it a winner."

till, it wouldn't have happened without you.

[He shrugs modestly] "Ah, you get lucky sometimes."


The Definitive guide to The Edge's live equipment
Special thanks to Dallas for providing us with the following, comprehensive list of The Edge's live setup on the 360° Tour. From guitars and amps right down to strings, slides and straps, it's all detailed here for the first time:

The Edge's under-stage effects rack:

1. Furman Pro Rack Power (110V)
2. KORG SDD Digital Delay (VOX) (240V)
3. Korg SDD 3000 Digital Delay (240V)
4. Line 6 DM4 Pro(A) Custom made rack device
5. Line 6 DM4 Pro (B) Custom made rack device
6. TC 2290 Digital Delay ("A") (240V )
7. TC 2290 Digital Delay "(B") (240V)
8. Line 6 Pod Pro(110V) (A)
9. Line 6 Pod Pro (110V) (B)
10. Korg A3 Multi Effects (240V)
11. TC 2290 Digital Delay (C)
12. TC 2290 Digital Delay (D)
9b. KORG A3 Rack Multi Effects Unit (110V) (B)
13. Furman Pro Rack Power #2
14. Eventide H3000 Harmonizer
15. Lexicon PCM80 Digital Effects Processor
16. Lexicon PCM70 Digital Effects Pro
17. Custom Audio Elec AMS Interface
18. AMS SDMX Digital Delay (A)
19. AMS SDMX Digit Delay (B)
20. Custom Audio Elec Remote Wah
21. Custom Audio Elec Dual Stereo Mixer
22. Rocktron Bradshaw DVC Pedal VCA
23. Custom Audio Amp Selector
24.Custom Audio Patch Point (110V)
25. Skrydstrup MR9 Loop System (A)
26. Skrydstrup MR9 Loop System (B)
27. Skrydstrup MR9 Loop System (C)
28. Skyrdstrup System Interface
29. Electrix "Filter Factory"

The Edge's outboard effects pedals:

30. Durham Electronics "SexDrive" Dist pedal
31. BOSS CS-3 Compressor Sustain pedal
32. DIGITECH "Synth Wah" Pedal
33. Death By Audio "HARMONIC TRANSFORMER" Dist Pedal
34. Death By Audio "FUZZ GUN"
35. Electro Harmonix " POG" pedal
36. Line6 DM4 Distortion pedal
37. Death By Audio "Soundwave Breakdown"
38. Boss Noise Suppressor NS-2
39. Boss EQ GE-7 pedal
40. Skrydstrup "Bufferooster" pedal
41. Boss FET FA-1 Amplifier
42. Drive Breaker Distortion pedal

The Edge's main onstage pedalboard:

Skrydstrup SC1 + SC1 Extensions + Extension Plus Controller + Dunlop Crybaby Rack Wah Controller, Digitech WH1 Whammy Pedal,
Peterson V-SAM Tuner

Dallas' offstage pedalboard:

Skrydstrup SC1 + SC1 Extension+ Extension Plus

The Edge's onstage amplifiers:

1964 VOX AC30TB Grey Panel
1970's VOX AC30TB Grey Panel
1972 VOX AC30TB Grey Panel
1957 Fender Tweed Deluxe
1958 Fender Tweed Deluxe
1959 Fender Tweed Deluxe
1956 Fender Harvard

The Edge's offstage amplifiers:

1974 VOX AC30TB Red Panel
2008 Marshall 50Watt 1987X Amp Head
1966 4 X 12" Closed Back Cabinet w/Celestion Vintage Speakers (Mick Ralphs owned)

The Edge's wireless guitar system:

(8) SHURE U4RS Dual Receivers
(13) SHURE UR1-J5 Beltpacks (Individually Set/dedicated gain Structures to Each Show Guitar)
"Rab Tronix" (6) Way Selector Box


The Edge's tour guitars:

Gibson 2005 "Music Rising" Les Paul
Gibson 2006 "Music Rising" Les Paul
Gibson 1976 Natural Explorer
Gibson 1976 Natural Explorer (spare)
Epiphone 1962 Sunburst Casino
Epiphone 1964 Sunburst Casino w/Bigsby
Fernandes 2003 Native Sustain Guitar
Fernandes 2009 Retro Rocket Sustain Guitar
Fender 1975 Brown Custom Telecaster
Fender 1966 Cream Telecaster w/Maple Neck
Fender 1969 Cream Telecaster w/Maple Neck
Gretsch 1963 Chet Atkins Walnut Country Gentleman
Gretsch 1968 Chet Atkins Walnut Country Gentleman
Gretsch 2009 Chet Atkins Walnut Country Gentleman w/Piezo Fishman Acoustic System
Gretsch 1959 Sunburst 6101 Country Club
Gibson 1966 Cherry SG Les Paul Standard
Gibson 1965 Pelham Blue SG Les Paul Standard
Fender 1968 Tobacco Stratocaster w/Rosewood Neck
Fender 1973 Cream Stratocaster w/Maple Neck
Fender 1975 BlondeTelecaster w/Rosewood Neck
Fender 1974 Black Telecaster w/Maple Neck
Gibson 1973 Cream Les Paul Custom
Gibson 2008 Cream Replicated Les Paul
Fender 1973 Black Stratocaster w/Maple Neck
Fender 1976 Black Stratocaster w/Maple Neck
Fender 1974 Black Stratocaster w/Maple Neck
Rickenbacker 1966 Fireglo 330-12
Rickenbacker 1966 Fireglo 330-12(Spare)
Rickenbacker 1967 Maple Rickenbacker 330-12
Rickenbacker 1967 Maple Rickenbacker 330-12(Spare)
Rickenbacker 1968 Black 325
Gibson 2008 Sunburst SJ-200 Acoustic/Electric
Gibson 2006 Blonde "Pete Townshend" SJ-200 Acoustic/Electric
Gibson 2008 Blonde SJ-200 Acoustic/Electric
Gibson 2005 Sunburst J-45 Acoustic Electric
Martin 1972 Natural D12-28 Acoustic/Electric
Martin 2009 Natural D12-28 Acoustic/Electric
Epiphone 1966 Sunburst Texan Acoustic/Electric
Fender 1994 Arctic White Telecaster(Japanese)
Line 6 2005 Red/Black "Variax" Modelling Guitar
Gretsch 2009 Black G6136 Falcon w/Fishman Piezo Acoustic System
Fender 2009 Sunburst American Vintage '52 Telecaster w/Piezo Acoustic System
MOOG 2009 MG-001 Tobacco Sunburst Sustain Guitar

The Edge's guitar strings:

D'Addario EXL110 XL Reg Lite .10-.46
D'Addario EXL115 XL Blues Jazz .11-.49
D'Addario EXL116 XL Medium Top Heavy .11-.52
D'Addario EXL 140 Light Top/Heavy Bottom .10-.52
D'Addario EXL 150 Light Elec 12 String .10-.46
D'Addario Phosphor Bronze Wound EJ15 Extra Light .10-.47
D'Addario Phosphor Bronze Wound EJ26 Custom Light .11-.52
Martin MSP 400 Bronze .10-.47
Martin MSP 4050 Bronze Custom Light .11-.52
Martin M500 Extra Light Acoustic Bronze 12 String .10-.47
Ernie Ball P02233 12 String Electric .009-.046

The Edge's additional instruments and show accessories:

YAMAHA CP80 Electric Piano + Roland JC 120 Combo Amplifier
EBOW hand held Sustain Chrome and Plastic Electronic Bow
D'andrea medium Nylon Picks
Herdim German Medium Nylon Picks
Datum Machining/Dallas Schoo Custom Machined Finger Brass Slides
Dunlop Brass Full Slides
Levy Leather Guitar Straps

Dallas Schoo Uses Peterson VS-R Strobo Rack Tuner, Peterson V-Sam Tuner, Peterson VS-Strobo Flip, Boss TU12 Guitar Tuner

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