I Don't Know if I love u2 this Much

IF I hadn't called my ex-husband the last time a Beatle died, I wouldn't have had to do anything. But I did track him down after George Harrison died in November 2001, which is when he learned that I was living in New York, which is when he asked me to take a letter to Strawberry Fields in Central Park and place it there with a single candle.

"How am I going to get the letter?" I asked.

"I'll e-mail it to you," he responded.

BBC Critisized for Promoting U2 and Coldplay

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January 14, 2010

A BBC editorial watchdog body criticised the British broadcaster Thursday for breaching its own guidelines by appearing to promote the bands U2 and Coldplay in its coverage of them.

The BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit slammed an on-screen slogan "U2=BBC" used during its coverage of U2's last album as "inappropriate," while a "Radio 1 presents Coldplay" website broke guidelines about links to external sites.

The findings came after RadioCentre, the trade body for commercial radio firms in Britain, complained about the BBC's coverage of a Coldplay tour and U2's launch of its "No Line On The Horizon."

The U2 coverage last February included a performance by the band on the rooftop of the BBC's Broadcasting House head office in central London which briefly brought traffic to a standstill.

Three criticisms of the BBC were upheld. They were that:

- a "Radio 1 presents Coldplay" website included links to the websites of ticket agents. "This was not in keeping with the BBC's guidelines on links to external websites.

- the use of the mathematical symbol for identity in the graphic "U2=BBC" "gave an inappropriate impression of endorsement."

- a pre-recorded interview with U2 frontman Bono was mostly alright, but a reference to Radio 1 being "part of launching this new album" was not.

Complaints about a radio show and a BBC news report about the rooftop concert were not upheld, said the watchdog.

Running Pic of the Day

Paranoid Visions Vows Revenge

April 17, 2015

The old punk rivals of U2 have re-ignited their feud after legal busy-bodies had one of their videos taken down off Youtube.

Now Paranoid Visions say they are going to spam Bono's band with their album on repeat to teach them a lesson for infiltrating people's iTunes with their latest dirges.

An Early Demo

The Blind Leading the Blonde

The Pay-Per-View Zoomerang

November 27, 1993

It's television, so expect Bono to come in character.

It's a dirty business dreaming

--

Scroll ahead to the 3:50 mark.

Edge goes all Quentin Tarantino on us.

This album isn’t uninterrupted brilliance.

But it’s damn good, with moments of brilliance.

U2: Back to the Basics

November 02, 2000

A glance at the cover of U2's new album, All That You Can't Leave Behind, makes it clear that the Irish supergroup is ushering in an era of refrain.

Somebody in a Body

Looking for to Fill That God-Shaped Hole

August 4, 2006

Rock music has always been best when dedicated to ideas of individualism, the questioning of authority, the marriage of the intellectual, spiritual and physical, and the positing of new notions concerning freedom and responsibility. That's why the concept of Christian rock is troubling for so many. Rock music has so long been the voice of the exile that to see it joining a club with predescribed notions of morality and spirituality seems deeply contradictory.

Angel or Devil?

Bono has a Few Agendas

October 21, 2005

All Bono expects out a of U2 concert these days is to feed the starving, eradicate malaria, guarantee human rights to all and cement his band's status as rock's standard bearer for another generation.

Darned if the lead-singer-cum-activist didn't do the latter Wednesday at the first of two sold-out shows at the MCI Center, and he made more headway on the rest than any rock star has a right to do.

Like it, Like it, Yes, I do

Bono Seeks Answers

If U2 had resolved some of its questions about God and rock 'n' roll differently, fans wouldn't be lining up to buy tickets to their concerts.

Early in the band's career, singer Bono, guitarist The Edge and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. wondered whether they could reconcile rock 'n' roll and Christianity at all.

u2 Kicks Off PopMart

APRIL 28, 1997

U2 vocalist Bono looked out on the crowd at the first of his hundred stadiums.

His hair cut to the scalp, Bono saw 38,000 fans filling the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl on Friday for the debut of the PopMart tour, a trek that will take the band around the world in 40 weeks in what has been touted as potentially the biggest rock tour ever.

Goodbye, Katilce

Aligning Himself with the Big Fella

"I just go where the life is, you know? Where I feel the Holy Spirit," Bono told Christianity Today. "If it's in the back of a Roman Catholic cathedral, in the quietness and the incense, which suggest the mystery of God, of God's presence, or in the bright lights of the revival tent, I just go where I find life. I don't see denomination. I generally think religion gets in the way of God.

"I am just trying to figure it out. Everybody wants to make an impact with their life, whether it's small scale with friends or family—that's really big, is the truth—or whether it's on a grand scale, in changing their communities and beyond. I just want to realize my potential." He recalled one pastor's recent advice: Stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Find out what God's doing. It's already blessed. "That's what I want," Bono said. "I want to align my life with that."

U2 Channels its Inner Jesus Christ Superstar

u2's Never Been Afraid to Invoke the Big Fella

February 10, 2002

More taboo than drugs or sex, God is a most unwelcome guest in the world of rock 'n' roll. But that's precisely why Bono, lead singer of U2, finds God to be such a powerful and provocative subject for the band's songs.

Ali

Joshua Tree: Is It a Masterpiece?

March 12, 1987

THE term artist is used too loosely in describing rock music. Often it's used on acts which churn out a record every year to keep their name in the charts. The term should be reserved to identify true creative geniuses such as U2.

The modest Irish quartet is one of the few rock acts which continues to bloom, simply because it has the patience and grace to nurture its music until an offering of great worth and brilliance can be issued.

So it is with The Joshua Tree, a magnificent collection of 11 songs which surpass all of the band's previous efforts in quality and consistency. Each piece conveys a particularly poignant sentiment - Bono's poetic lyrics are even more passionate and evocative - and stand as integral parts of the album.

Musically, the work is superb. It follows on from the developments catalogued on The Unforgettable Fire, with a silken production uniting the rich textures of pulsing Celtic rhythm patterns, warm guitar melodies and gently sweeping keyboard embellishment as a sympathetic foundation for Bono's emotional vocal delivery.

Even though The Joshua Tree is stalwart as a complete body of work, there are exquisite highlights - the searing emotion of One Tree Hill, the passion of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, the misty romanticism of With Or Without You  and the foreboding tone of Bullet The Blue Sky.

Even the harshest critic of modern rock music could not help but be seduced and excited by the sheer power and beauty of this album.

It is a masterpiece.

Joshua Tree: An Early Review

March 11, 1987

   With none of the ballyhoo that usually heralds the arrival of Really Important Rock Records, Irish quartet U2 today quietly released The Joshua Tree, its fourth (fifth, if you count 1984's live set, Under A Blood Red Sky) and by far most accomplished album.

Bono and the Edge Discuss Drug Use

March 1, 1997

"They make you think everything is great," Bono chimes in. "I don't think it's a big part of our music to be drunk, or out of it. We're out there enough as it is. Drugs only offer junk food transcendence. I wouldn't knock someone who uses them responsibly but I don't like to see people be a slave to anything. I'm in favour of the legalisation of all drugs except those which are chronically addictive, like heroin." 

"It all boils down to whether you can use drugs responsibly," says the Edge. "I don't know. 'Don't touch them' is the only way to avoid risk, but a government policy based on lies and shock tactics isn't working. Your generation was told that if you smoked a joint you would spontaneously combust. Everyone, including Clinton, found out that was not true. You must tell the truth, to be even allowed into the consciousness of a generation that is making up its own mind."

U2 Talks Pop

March 1, 1997

THE four members of U2 are caught between two worlds at the moment, and it's not a place they particularly like to be. The first world was the private, inward-looking process of making their 11th album, Pop, which was finished, several months late, last November, and goes into the shops on Monday. The second will be the public, fiercely exposed world of Popmart, the global tour of that album, which begins in just seven weeks' time in Las Vegas.