U2 Rehearses & Fansites Speculate As Tour Resumes in Italy

With the 360 tour resuming at the end of the week in Italy, with fans camped out and creating YouTube videos with scratchy audio from each day’s rehearsal, anticipation and speculation are reaching a fever pitch.

The focus of fan fever on the ground might involve meeting bandmembers before or after hearing rehearsals; but for the rest of the base around the world, we want to know what’s going to be in the setlist.

At least two new songs have earned regular rehearsal space, confirming previous hints from manager McGuiness and guitarist Edge that this might be the tour where the next U2 album gets debuted and tested.

Some songs from the back catalog that did not get much play on the first 360 legs and have been soundchecked, rehearsed, or rumored include “Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World,” “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me,” “Miss Sarajevo,” and “Gloria.”

U2 Gigs is posting detailed rehearsal reports and is a great place to go to get some scoop.

Showing the importance of the fansite movement that includes this one and many others, Rolling Stone magazine created a report culled entirely from fansites.

Rehearsals have replaced Bono’s recovery as the big news. Once the tour resumes this weekend, though, that’s the real news until we’re well into October.

With the rest of the world, we await the new shows.