For many fans who have already seen the tour,  yesterday’s webcast and today’s announcement only further excited and enticed, prompting us to begin making summer travel arrangements to coincide with the next legs of the tour. –Andrew William Smith, Editor

U2 360 TOUR 2010

Presented by BlackBerry

NORTH AMERICAN ITINERARY

6-June        Anaheim, CA         Angel Stadium            On sale soon

12-June       Denver, CO          Invesco Field            On sale Nov. 6

16-June       Oakland, CA         Oakland-Alameda          On sale Nov. 2

County Coliseum

20-June       Seattle, WA         Qwest Field              On sale soon

23-June       Edmonton, AB        Commonwealth Stadium     On sale Nov. 2

30-June       East Lansing, MI    Spartan Stadium          On sale soon

03-July       Toronto, ON         Rogers Centre            On sale Nov. 2

06-July       Chicago, IL         Solider Field            On sale soon

09-July       Miami, FL           Land Shark Stadium       On sale soon

12-July       Philadelphia        Lincoln Financial Field  On sale soon

16-July       Montreal, QC        Venue to be announced    On sale soon

19-July       New York            New Meadowlands Stadium  On sale soon

EUROPEAN TOUR ITINERARY

10-August     Frankfurt, Germany  Commerzbank-Arena        On sale now

12-August     Hannover, Germany   AWD Arena                On sale now

15-August     Horsens, Denmark    Casa Arena               SOLD OUT

16-August     Horsens, Denmark    Casa Arena               SOLD OUT

20-August     Helsinki, Finland   Olympiastadion           SOLD OUT

21-August     Helsinki, Finland   Olympiastadion           SOLD OUT

25-August     Moscow, Russia      Luzhniki                 On sale soon

30-August     Vienna, Austria     Ernst Happel Stadium     SOLD OUT

03-September  Athens, Greece      Olympic Stadium          On sale Nov. 2

06-September  Istanbul, Turkey    Ataturk Olympic Stadium  On sale Nov. 2

15-September  Munich, Germany     Olympiastadion           On sale now

18-September  Paris, France       Stade de France          SOLD OUT

22-September  Brussels, Belgium   Stade Roi Baudouin       SOLD OUT

23-September  Brussels, Belgium   Stade Roi Baudouin       SOLD OUT

29-September  Seville, Spain      Estadio Olimpico         On sale now

De La Cartuja

02-October    Coimbra, Portugal   Estadio Cidade Coimbra   SOLD OUT

03-October    Coimbra Portugal    Estadio Cidade Coimbra   SOLD OUT

Additional dates and cities to be confirmed. Itinerary subject to change.

For complete tour and ticket information, fan club memberships, merchandise

and more, visit: www.U2.com

More than 96,000 fans will see U2 perform their penultimate gig of 2009 on Sunday – a lot more. The group’s decision to webcast their show at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in California for free and in full via the video-sharing website YouTube was announced, of course in a video blog. It means that the site’s millions of users in selected countries – including the USA, the UK, Ireland (of course), Canada, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and beyond – will all be able to follow the band’s “360º Tour”.

Few fans are likely to complain that they now have the opportunity to watch a U2 gig for free. It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that this giveaway is also a giant advert: it’s partly taking place because the band wants to sell more tickets to next year’s live shows and more copies of their latest album, No Line on the Horizon. –Matt Warman

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6409470/Log-On-Watch-This-U2-Live.html

http://www.youtube.com/u2

On Friday night, some people might have gotten lit at an Irish Pub before getting loud at a film screening before getting literate on Saturday morning with a full day of panels and presentations on what may be one of the greatest rock bands of all time.

The first-ever U2 studies confenrence called the Hype and the Feedback is going full force on the beautiful campus of North Carolina Central University. Tonight, the conference attendees who are professors and preachers or activists and journalists will join together as fans, with many of us riding a chartered biodiesel tour bus to and from the show.

Last night, with  It Might Get Loud, we saw a film that takes liberties with archival footage and fresh interviews to compose pure rockumenary from loosely woven narratives of guitar god mythology.

Recording Al Gore’s grim declarations for an Inconvenient Truth might have sent filmmaker Davis Guggenheim searching for Dionysian celebrations inside the temples of rock history. But instead we go on intense pilgrimages to Mount Temple School, Headlee Grange, and Detroit’s southwest side.

Each axeman offered obligatory nods to various legends, to the seeds and roots and visions of their passions and appetites. Jack White bore witness to the claps and shouts of Son House. The Edge compared the cheesy crap he heard on the Top of the Pops to the way bands like The Jam, The Buzzcocks, The Clash, and The Ramones changed everything for him. With Page, we saw the influence of skiffle, a fast-grass British proto-rock that Jimmy described as a sort of breast-feeding that came before.

Edge talks about how Spinal Tap made him weep instead of cry. I wept at the stories from Detroit and Dublin. Edge shares an epic and beautiful backstory for “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”  We learn how Jack White’s took his peaceful weapon from Detroit rust to become a wild purveyor of rustic Tennessee blues. Back in Nashville, we read a review of the film in the local weekly called “It Might Get Awkard.” To put it mildly, I thought the reviewer created a false distance from the material, characterizing the flick as a “wankfest” where the icons of masculinity couldn’t quite get it up. Put mildly, we disagree. This great film is plenty masculine, but it is so much more about the magic and alchemy behind the music we adore.

This morning we heard an anecdotal, historical, personal, and speculative comments about the band from the brilliant rock critic and friend of Bono, Anthony de Curtis. We also took a video visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland where conference producer Scott Calhoun visited with writer and rock archivist Jim Henke.

With presenters here from across the planet, this will be the first U2 show for many, like Dr. Rene Rodriguez-Ramirez from the University of Puerto Rico.  Rodriguez-Ramirez spoke this morning about the “Poetics of Absence” in U2’s lyrics on the Joshua Tree, an album he discovered while learning English.

Even  though his poetic and emotional connection with the band goes back more than 20 years, tonight will be the first-ever concert for this scholar and fan. Rodriguez-Ramirez was one of a few really thoughtful lifelong fans who will be seeing their first U2 show tonight, like ethno-musicologist Ann Morrison Spinney, who only picked up her ticket from another conference attendee this afternnon or like the partners who run the Greenway Transit biodiesel bus service that is taking attenndees around all weekend and to the show tonight.

These conferences and concerts are most often about the connections we make with each other in the fan community, and it is a joy for the Interference webzine to celebrate this community with a wide view of some of the wisest voices in a place were fandom and scholarship meet.

Beyond the questions of where to sleep and where to eat while skipping work or school to trek around the continent this September and October, many of U2’s American faithful are asking if the football stadium is the best venue in which to see their favorite band. With my best U2 experiences to date occurring in arenas, I count myself among the core who are cautiously optimistic and anxious with anticipation about seeing the stadium tour this fall.

During the 2001 and 2005 Elevation and Vertigo circuits respectively, the band stuck to the basketball and hockey arenas that they’ve been transforming into crowded barrooms, storefront churches, or your poster-covered bedrooms since the second leg of the Unforgettable Fire tour in spring 1985.

At my first U2 concert at Detroit’s Fox Theatre in December 1984, I’m rather certain the fan enthusiasm almost broke the building. During tracks like “Pride” or “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” the balcony seats throbbed with throes of dancing kids, the vibrations threatening to collapse the vintage structure. By the first leg of the Joshua Tree tour in early 1987, the arena gigs exuded an intense excitement and ecstatic intimacy.

By summer 1987, though, the shows moved to stadiums, and my first taste of that epic leap at the Pontiac Silverdome north of Detroit was far from my most pleasant U2 experience to date. Put plainly, I felt like my favorite band was lost in the room, and that show marked a transition for me from serious to casual fandom that lasted until the release of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb in late 2004—with my longest lapse in seeing U2 live lasting from 1992 to 2001.

Today, with my fandom fully revived and my love of the new album running deep, I’m excited about giving stadiums another chance. I’ve seen and heard such mesmerizing performance and unifying sweetness in the YouTube videos and fan recordings from the first leg of the European tour. When Bono can pause and let the entire choir of thousands sing the song for him as he’s done on “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” a magical chemistry exists that might not be possible indoors or in smaller rooms.

But as the band mixes in its activism and spirituality, the rock concert as rally and revival could be redemptive or creepy, depending on your perspective. Since I’m not nearly as cynical about the sheer pretensions of the tour as others outside the U2 fan community, I remain entirely open to the possibilities for reaching magnificent plateaus, beyond any lines on any horizon, in my moment of surrender to the sheer spectacle of it all.

That said, my greatest fear about the four stadium shows I’ll see on this tour is whether or not the experience will “let me in the sound.” All in all, I think I can deal with whatever drawbacks that the sheer size of this thing might bring as long I can hear clearly and loudly the four men from Dublin doing what they do best. While I’m pretty confident that the enormous sparkling spaceship of a set will look great from the cheap seats, I remain terrified of not being able to absorb the sonic experience in my ears and body to the degree that I desire.

When we took a poll of the fans on Inteference, we discovered similarly mixed feelings concerning an arena’s tender intimacy versus a stadium’s mass unity. But if the hardcore fans were to have the final say, it looks like arenas remain the devoted fans’ venue of choice by a decisive margin.

A sample of the comments associated with the poll reveal strong preferences for both platforms, modulated by an even stronger willingness to see U2 anywhere, any place, any time.

“I don’t care where they play as long as they play, and I am there,” writes one fan.

According to some, the best part of stadium shows is that tickets are easier to score, so we can all go. “It’s all about the roar,” and “80,000 fans screaming the lyrics is way better than 25,000,” conclude others supporting stadiums.

An editor of another U2 fansite and a regular poster on Interference argues that there’s “No contest: the smaller the venue, the better.” A fan who goes “to hear the songs” and does not “care about the spectacle” will inevitably be happier in an arena.

Other proponents of arenas are quick to mention the “climate control” as an incontrovertible advantage. With U2 coming here as the season shifts, chances of cold and rain are inevitable. While the rain poncho may not be the most fashionable concert attire, if it worked at Red Rocks in 1983, it could necessarily work for us in fall 2009.

Will the claw distill awe in America? Let’s stay tuned and find out this weekend when the editorial staff and fan writers of Interference will be there to tell you all about it. You can follow us throughout the weekend as we “tweet” our Chicago experience, and if you check the forums and the homepage, you can see the reviews, photos, and other updates as they become availbale.

–Andrew William Smith, Editor

“Zoo Station,” U2

When my new book–We Get to Carry Each Other: The Gospel According to U2–came out, I knew that it entailed engaging the Christian and secular media-and what that might mean. I’ve done enough writing about religion and culture, been on enough local, national, and international shows, to know that first, there’s so much interest in the intersection of religion and culture from both the sacred and the secular media that I’d be spending a lot of time talking to reporters, producers, and radio hosts.

But second, I also knew that whether I was talking to mainstream or Christian media, I’d encounter some real curiosity and even some animosity about my approach, whether because it makes for a better story, or because (as I suspect) even those who intuit that something transcendent and beautiful lies at the heart of great art can’t always quite get their heads around the spiritual meaning of that.

I was telling people in a workshop in Anaheim at the Episcopal General Convention last week that one of our most important tasks when we approach a work of art or a popular culture text is to try to listen, watch, or read it with as few of our preconceptions and prejudices as possible. That is hard work, though: we “read” everything through filters based on who we are, what we have previously liked, what we believe. And where U2 and religion are concerned, I can tell you that one of the most active interpretive filters is simply this: faith or lack of faith make a huge difference in how people react to the proposition that U2 might be Christian in some shape or form.

Peewee Herman once sagely observed that everyone has a big but. In the Christian media-which is almost always conservative Catholic or evangelical, although some sources now can be considered culturally or theologically progressive-the big but has often been getting their heads around U2’s Christian practice (or perceived lack of it).

Christians, especially conservative Christians, are often nervous about certain aspects of popular culture that have had a tendency to demonize Christians. The big but of secular folks, especially rock music folks, also has to do with U2’s Christian practice. Secular folks are often suspicious of Christianity, which has had a tendency to demonize rock ‘n’ roll, those who play it, and those who love it. So, those are two big buts. But how do they play out in conversation?
In an interview about my U2 book on a British Christian radio network earlier this year, I heard the representative objections from the Christian side. Okay, my questioner said, I’ve heard members of U2 are Christian but: How can U2 be considered Christian when they live like rock stars? Say the “f” word? Are played on secular radio? Don’t belong to a church?

In an interview for San Francisco’s KFOG two weeks ago, the representative objections of secular listeners emerged. One host told me flat out, “I’m not religious. Why should I read your book?”

Here the big but comes down, essentially, to these questions: I’ve heard members of U2 are Christian but I’m not, so why should it matter? Does it have any effect on their music? Can’t I enjoy their music without sharing their faith? Why do we have to talk about that? Haven’t rock ‘n’ roll and religion always been at odds?

These are all good questions-I know, because I have lived decades in both worlds, the non-religious and the very religious-but I think all, ultimately, are answerable. To my Christian friends, I say that music and beauty are important to an understanding of Christian faith. Like Bono, who loves the Psalms, I talk about how secular and sacred music were both a part of my spiritual journey, and how U2 has been a part of the journeys of millions of people, Christian and otherwise. I talk about how their songs are about peace, love, community, and justice, and how they have modeled for the world a faithful Christian practice that is more about saving the world then it is about saving themselves. And I talk about how-in terms familiar from the Gospels-the fruits of a life are the ultimate test of that life: if U2’s fruits seem to be peace, justice, and compassion, then that is who they are.

For my secular friends, I remind them that art emerges from the artist’s deepest center, that it is made from their desires, needs, hopes-and that for at least three members of the band, including the chief lyricist and chief music writer, those artistic identities are faithful identities. That’s why their faith is worth noting. I tell them that knowing about U2’s faith will help them better understand the band’s intentions for the music; while intention is not the only thing, it certainly matters in a song like “Gloria” or “Magnificent.” I tell them that great art should not be-and is not-restricted by whether or not an artist and audience share the same beliefs, so if they love U2’s music and feel themselves transported by it, even though they are Muslim or Buddhist or nothing definable, that is as it should be. And I tell them that U2, in their music and their lives, is modeling a way of being that means something, a way of helping, loving, and being in community that all of us can emulate, even if we don’t ultimately share their faith.

I still sometimes get talked over by Christian media people who disagree with me; I still sometimes get hung up on by shock jocks who really hate Christians. And as a shy and quiet person, I find this like walking into Zoo Station, and it is my least favorite part of the job. I’m not always ready for the gridlock, for the push, for the crush.

But then there was last night, when I stood in a great Louisville bookstore in front of 60 people-some of whom were U2 insiders, some of whom were not, some of whom were Christians, some of whom were not-and got to tell very human stories about how U2 has affected my life and the lives of others, stories about the band that illustrate how very much there is to learn from them and their music. And people listened. –Greg Garrett

Greg Garrett is Professor of English at Baylor University and the author of a dozen critically-acclaimed books of fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and translation. His We Get to Carry Each Other: The Gospel according to U2 is now in stores. Other books on faith and culture include Stories from the Edge: A Theology of Grief; Holy Superheroes!; The Gospel according to Hollywood; and (with Chris Seay) The Gospel Reloaded.

Photo from the Interference forums.

To serious fans of Irish rock band U2, “I Will Follow” is more than just a song title. It’s a personal philosophy.

It’s also the title of a semi-autobiographical play by Barri Tsavaris that chronicles the U2 fan experience and hits the stage this weekend at the New York International Fringe Festival.

“I started writing the play three years ago, after many friends suggested I compile all of my U2 stories into some sort of larger piece, be it a book or a play or a film,” Tsavaris said.

Although she did a staged reading of the piece as a one-woman show at The Emerging Artists Theatre in New York City in 2007, she shelved the play for about a year shortly thereafter because “then my life fell apart,” Tsavaris said.

A divorce and a job lay-off later, she knew the time had come for her to revisit the play.

“I had a month until the application deadline for the Fringe Festival,” she said. “I spent the whole month rewriting and postmarked my application in the nick of time.”

Tsavaris learned in May that her work had paid off; I Will Follow had been accepted by FringeNYC, the largest multi-arts festival in North America. With more than 200 companies from all over the world performing for 16 days in more than 20 venues, FringeNYC presents more than 1,300 total performances.

“Then came the task of figuring out how to pay for it! We’ve had a few generous donors, but I’m paying for most of the show out of my own pocket, which isn’t too deep since I haven’t worked since January,” Tsavaris said.

She quickly was able to assemble a pro bono production team consisting of Director Steve Wargo, Producer Heather Gladis, and Public Relations Representative Joseph Hassan.

“From there, the four of us worked together to assemble the rest of the cast and crew,” she said. “We’re now a team of about 15 people, and we lovingly refer to ourselves as Team Bono.”

Writing and working on the play, however, is just one of many memorable experiences Tsavaris says she’s had as a U2 fan.

“I’ve had so many memorable U2 experiences over the years, but nothing is like [going to] your very first show,” she said. “Mine was Popmart Meadowlands. What a hilarious mess that night was!”

One of the two friends she went to the show with decided to rush the stage with her hand-made fan sign, got captured by security, and spent most of the show in a holding area, Tsavaris said.

“And of course, there was the first time I met Bono,” she continued, “but you’ll have to come to the play to find out how that went down!” –Tracey Hackett, Editor

I Will Follow will be presented at The Actors’ Playhouse, located at 100 Seventh Avenue S. in New York City.

The opening performance is set for 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 15. Four other performances are set for 3:15 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 16; 2 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 20; noon on Saturday, Aug. 22; and 5:15 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 28.

Tickets are $15 and still available but going fast. Ten percent of all ticket proceeds will be donated to The One Campaign for Africa. To purchase tickets or find out more, log on to www.fringenyc.org.

For more information about the play or to make donations for the production of I Will Follow, log on to it web site at www.iwillfollowtheplay.com.

]]> http://www.interference.com/10349-she-will-follow-ny-fringe-festival-play-chronicles-u2-fan-experience/feed/ 1 http://www.interference.com/10327-u2-producer-daniel-lanois-set-to-appear-at-soundedit-09/ http://www.interference.com/10327-u2-producer-daniel-lanois-set-to-appear-at-soundedit-09/#comments Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:43:53 +0000 admin http://www.interference.com/?p=10327 If you happen to be in Europe next month, and are bummed you can’t make the opening shows of U2’s North American leg, fear not.

The first International Music Producers Festival – Soundedit ‘09 will take place at the Wytwornia Club in the Polish city of Lodz on September 11th and 12th, and the special guest and featured producer is the one and only Daniel Lanois.

U2’s longtime collaborator, producer and friend will be the recipient of the first “Man With The Golden Ear” honorary award for the two-day event, before making his first live performance in Poland after the event on September 12.

The event will give the festival audience and participants a unique chance to participate with Lanois himself in an intimate workshop to discover the secrets of his artistic process.

Lanois, famously associated with some of U2’s most revered records, like The Unforgettable Fire and Achtung Baby – and co-producer of 2009’s No Line On the Horizon – has also worked with artists such as Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel and Scott Weiland. He has been on an intimate tour since last year that has garnered fantastic critical reception. Lanois will be accompanied on stage by members of his new music project Black Dub: Trixie Whithley and Brian Blade.

A limited amount of 500 tickets are on sale for the intimate gathering, and they are on sale here.

For more information on the festival, please visit www.soundedit.pl.

Online registration for the conference opens on Saturday, Aug. 1, and will remain active until it reaches capacity. It features a rolling rate schedule that offers benefits for early sign-ups, students, and one-day or opening-event only attendees.

In spite of the scholarly location and angle, however, the conference isn’t just for ‘academic types,’ says organizer Scott Calhoun. With more than 40 sessions, the event should provide something of interest to U2 fans from all walks of life.

“U2 fans are a bright bunch who put their hearts and heads into what they do. You don’t need a Ph.D. to enjoy U2 and talk to other fans about how the band’s music has influenced your life. I think everyone who comes is going to find ways to connect with fans. We’re all fans, really, and the whole weekend is about listening, sharing and learning from each other,” said Calhoun, who is also an English professor and a U2 academic.

The conference kicks off at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 2, with the showing of a new documentary film, Meet Me in the Sound, by first-time Melbourne filmmaker Natalie Baker, followed by a reception to welcome the featured speakers.

They include to date Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis; the United Kingdom’s Telegraph columnist Neil McCormick (pictured), who was also a schoolmate of the band members; Matt McGee, founder of @U2 and author of U2-A Diary; and Ugandan AIDS activist Agnes Nyamawaro, who has worked with Bono’s ONE Campaign.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Curator Jim Henke will speak via video.

“An international line-up of presenters will talk about topics … addressing U2’s influence in rock history, the entertainment industry, and on humanitarian and social justice initiatives,” Calhoun said.

Titles of some of the conference’s topics include:

• U2, Salman Rushdie and the Political Frontiers of Artistic Collaboration
• Pro Bono: Translating and Transforming Africa for the Consumerist West
• Common Aspirations: Media Theory and U2’s Zoo TV Tour
• The Meme of Surrender: Bono’s Lyrics of Recovery and Revelation

With NCCU celebrating its centennial anniversary in the fall as a historically black university, the campus and the conference seemed to be a perfect fit, said Calhoun.

“[The university has] a rich heritage as the nation’s first state supported liberal arts college founded for African Americans, and [it has served the] Durham community for many years in highlighting the role[s] art and music play in our lives,” he continued.

“In that respect, the institution closely parallels U2’s history, which has been to create music that inspires everyone and honors the overlooked, the oppressed and the champions of freedom for all people, from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Central America’s Mothers of the Disappeared, and more recently from Nelson Mandela to Aung San Suu Kyi. I’m thrilled that the music and work of U2 will be a topic of exploration on the campus this fall,” Calhoun concluded.

Early bird registration fees, which run from Aug. 1 through Sept. 7, are $129 for students with active identifications and $179 for the public. Standard registration fees, which run from Sept. 8 until the conference reaches capacity, are $149 for students and $209 for the public. Both early and standard conference registrations include costs for a reception on Friday and lunch on Saturday and Sunday.

One-day registrations, for either Saturday or Sunday and includes lunch for that day, is $89 for students and $129 for the public. A ticket for the Friday evening kick-off event and reception only is $25.

Conference registration does not include the cost of lodging or purchase of a ticket to U2’s Raleigh concert.

The cost of registering for the conference can be paid for by check, PayPal account, or credit card via PayPal.

For more information and registration for the conference, log onto its web site at www.U2conference.com.

–Tracey Hackett, Editor

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will celebrate its 25th anniversary in style on October 29 and 30 with a pair of all-star shows at Madison Square Garden.

On the bill for the first night are Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band; Simon & Garfunkel; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Friends; Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder. The next night will feature sets from Metallica, U2, Eric Clapton and Aretha Franklin, plus more performers to be announced in the coming weeks.

All the acts on the bill are Rock Hall inductees, and the announcement of the show promises that the “music legends and their special guests will be your guides through 60 years of rock and roll history.”

Net proceeds from the show will go to create a permanent endowment for the Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland. A highlight special from the two-night show will be screened on HBO. General-public tickets will go on sale August 3, but title sponsor American Express is offering cardholders a presale from July 27 to August 2 that features VIP packages priced from $750 to $100,000.

Rolling Stone magazine reported that the shows will feature a number of collaborations, including CSN sharing the stage with other California-based artists, Metallica leading a hard-rock jam, and Wonder and Franklin fronting a soul revue backed by Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra.

As noted in The New York Times, the math on the anniversary date is a bit fuzzy, as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation was founded in 1983 and the first induction ceremony was in January 1986. Among the creative consultants on the show are actor Tom Hanks, filmmaker Cameron Crowe, rock icon Robbie Robertson and Rolling Stone magazine boss and Hall chairman Jann Wenner.

Event executive producer Wenner said in a statement, “Twenty-five years ago … Ahmet Ertegun created this foundation to recognize and celebrate the music and careers of artists whose music helped shape and define our generation. These once-in-a-lifetime concerts are designed to celebrate the artists and their music.”

By Gil Kaufman, MTV.com

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1616781/20090723/metallica.jhtml

As Larry’s always chilling drumbeats announce the fiery hymn of peace, a fragment in Persian of Rumi’s poem known as “Song of the Reed Flute” scrolls down the Claw’s colossal screens. As one translation suggests, words like “Listen to the reeds as they sway apart/hear them speak of lost friends” could easily speak to the recent protests.

Rumi’s poetry reflects the mood of No Line On the Horizon, with its North African and Middle-Eastern influences. When the album came out, critic Cathleen Falsani noted, “The ecstatic language and imagery Bono evokes throughout could have been penned by the Hebrew King David or Sufi Muslim poets Rumi or Hafez, as much as by a latter-day Christ-follower from Dublin.”

In 2007, the members of U2 attended a performance of Rumi’s poems in Fez, Morocco at the Festival of Sacred Music that honored the poet’s 800^th birthday. At the time, National Geographic reported, “Iranian singer Parissa celebrated Rumi’s memory with a spellbinding set of his poems, set to music in the Persian classical style by the impressive Dastan Ensemble. Parissa’s crystal-clear voice and emotional delivery breathed new life into Rumi’s venerable verses-even for those who couldn’t speak Farsi. Among those enthralled by Parissa’s performance were U2’s Bono and the Queen of Jordan.”

Like Bono’s lyrics, Rumi’s poems blend the spiritual and the sexual in a manner that honors both. A society that honors both might be the more peaceful place that U2’s songs and Rumi’s poems have always dreamed possible. -Andrew William Smith, Editor

Photo by Martin Stieglmayer of U2gigs.com