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U2

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U2: Boy

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 25 October 1980

I LOVE U2. I worry about U2. Hearing their debut single 'Out Of Control' and seeing them play in Ireland, I fell for their undismayed ...

U2: A Perspective

Essay by Mark Cooper, Q, 1991

WHEN U2's recent Number 1 single 'The Fly' first came on the radio, it sounded like a confused mess, an irritating jangle of throbbing guitars ...

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U2 et al: Coming up for Eire

Report by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 15 September 1979

DAVE McCULLOUGH GOES STRICTLY DUBLIN-WISE AND UNEARTHS A BUNCH OF EXCITING NEW SOUTHERN IRISH ACTS ...

U2: Moonlight Club, London

Live Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 8 December 1979

Honesty goes out of control ...

U2, Idiot Dance: Bridge House; Splodgenessabounds: Woolich Tramshed, London

Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 29 December 1979

Bottoms of the bill ...

U2/Soul Boys: Moonlight Club, London

Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 1980

TWO NEWCOMERS playing in NW6 either side of the Xmas go slow. Plenty of gaps in the gathering for the U2 show, but of the ...

U2 Can Have A Body Like Mine

Profile and Interview by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 12 January 1980

LIKE HEY! What is going on around me? ...

U2 Can Make it in the Rock Business

Report and Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 22 March 1980

"BUT CAN YOU trust it?!" Bono, the insurgent, irrepressible singer for Dublin quartet U2, finishes making a hard point using a typically animated gesture. I ...

U2, Berlin, Virgin Prunes: Acklam Hall, London

Live Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 29 March 1980

ITS ENERGY spent, its citizens content to lapse into style, to consume and give tacit consent, its insatiable media meanwhile ever needing fresh supplies, London ...

Siouxsie & the Banshees, Robert Fripp, Echo & the Bunnymen, U2, Altered Images, Clock DVA, Soft Cell: Futurama Festival, Queens Hall, Leeds

Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980

The squalor show goes on ...

Echo & Bunnymen, U2, Delta 5: The Lyceum, London

Live Review by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 27 September 1980

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN dwell in the magical land between life and art that is the territory of great rock'n'roll. Making music alone isn't enough ...

U2: Kings of the Celtic Fringe

Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 14 February 1981

BONO VOX, a.k.a. Paul Houston, the frontman and driving force behind U2 is huddled in the back of a small van, wrapped in a fur ...

U2: Friars, Aylesbury

Live Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 13 June 1981

THEY'D JUST FLOWN IN from the States, seen Springsteen the previous night, and gave Aylesbury a taste of what it's like to be totally wired ...

U2: Uncle Sam's, Minneapolis MN

Live Review by Laura Fissinger, Musician, July 1981

PRAISE FOR Ireland's U2 first spread through the U.K. press like head colds in autumn. Now with the American release of their debut LP, Boy, ...

U2: October

Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 10 October 1981

WHEN U2 first hit England in the twilight of 1980, a dull cry of relief rose up from rock's murky depths. U2 were "just what ...

U2: October (Island ILPS 9680)

Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 17 October 1981

PURGATORY IN MOTION ...

U2: October (Island ILPS9680).

Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 1 November 1981

U2 FOLLOW-UP STALLS OUT ...

U2: October (Island ILPS9680)

Review by Jim Green, Trouser Press, February 1982

IT'S EASY to criticize October; just call it "Son of Boy" and trash the band. What this line of thought fails to consider is that ...

U2: October (Island)

Review by Laura Fissinger, Creem, February 1982

U2'S LIFE DURING WARTIME ...

U2: October (Island)

Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, February 1982

LIKE ALL good Irishmen, I enjoy nothing better than a good talker. At the same time, I share the instinctive Irish mistrust of anyone for ...

U2: A Dreamboat Named Desire

Report and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 February 1982

"THEY WENT right through it. Took out every sock. Squeezed every tube of toothpaste. Then this guy says to me 'You – come with me. ...

U2: Pluck Of The Irish

Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, 1 March 1982

PEOPLE HAVEN'T asked U2 if they're the future of rock. They've told them. ...

U2: War

Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 26 February 1983

"If people come along expecting the world from U2 then they're gonna get it. I'm not afraid we won't be able to give it to ...

U2: War (Island)

Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, May 1983

JERRY MATHERS' days as TV's beloved Beaver were numbered the second his voice began to crack and change, and U2's new War may force similar ...

U2: Small Victories in a Rock and Roll Struggle of Sound and Emotion

Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, May 1983

STUMPY, PRINCELY Bono Vox drives along Dublin Bay, left arm grasping the wheel of his humble sedan while he uses the right – temporarily game ...

Echo & the Bunnymen: Porcupine (Sire 23770); U2: War (Island 90067)

Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, June 1983

THERE AREN'T too many English bands that can buck the current vogue for synthesizers and funk/dance rhythms, remain musically adventurous and still be commercially viable ...

U2/Simple Minds/Eurythmics/Steel Pulse/Perfect Crime/Big Country: Phoenix Park, Dublin

Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 20 August 1983

DATELINE DUBLIN: 3.30am Monday. There will no doubt be some measured reports of U2's home-coming gig. But I really hate measured reports. ...

U2, Simple Minds, Eurythmics, Big Country, Steel Pulse: A Day At The Racecourse

Report by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 1 September 1983

A long, hot, emotional day it was too. Dublin's Phoenix Park throws open its gates to U2, Simple Minds, Eurythmics, Big Country and about 20,000 ...

U2: Under A Blood Red Sky (Island Mini LP IMA3)

Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 26 November 1983

IT WAS only a matter of time before U2 released a live disc of some sort, since gruelling road-work has earned them a firm base ...

Songs Of Praise: Fire and Fervour from Ireland’s U2

Profile by Steve Turner, The History of Rock, 1984

U2, ONE OF IRELAND'S MOST SUCCESSFUL rock bands ever, seemed something of an anachronism when they arrived on the scene in 1980. The group had ...

The Life of Brian

Interview by Helen Fitzgerald, Melody Maker, 29 September 1984

Helen FitzGerald, the Emerald Isle's most astonishing export, gets all mysterious with ambient whizz-kid BRIAN ENO, who talks about life after the bush of ghosts, ...

U2: The Pride of Lions

Report and Interview by Tony Fletcher, Jamming!, 1 October 1984

Excepting live albums and video, U2 have been silent, both on record and in the media, for a year and a half. Now back with ...

U2: The Unforgettable Fire (Island U25)

Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 6 October 1984

AT THE HOMECOMING ...

U2: Call Us Unforgettable

Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 27 October 1984

EARLIER THIS year one of rock's newest messiahs U2's Bono appeared onstage alongside one of its oldest, Bob Dylan at an outdoor Dublin festival in ...

U2: The Unforgettable Fire (Island)

Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, November 1984

Turning Point: U2 mixes textural growth with thematic ambiguity in a view of Mythical America. ...

Epic Affirmation: U2 and Big Country

Essay by Barney Hoskyns, New Statesman, 9 November 1984

WITH ALL THE hype of chart pop proving more contagious that ever, what chance does the passionate old dream of rock now stand? If Jon ...

U2: Brixton Academy, London

Live Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 10 November 1984

THE MOST boring band in the world. There can now be no question of U2 avoiding such a title. There may be groups equally as ...

At The Homecoming: U2’s Unforgettable Fire

Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 1985

THIS HAS BEEN a long time coming, and there have been signs of strain. War, U2's last album of new material, was released more than ...

U2: The Only Flame In Town

Report and Interview by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 5 January 1985

When Adam Sweeting interviewed U2 in France in November, BONO felt he'd left a few things unsaid. So he suggested a rematch in America during ...

Brian Eno: Music Without Compromise

Interview by John Hutchinson, Mix, February 1985

BRIAN ENO IS something of a paradox. He is at once associated with the avant-garde and an artist/producer who has actually had his share of ...

Flags And Penance: U2'S American Dream

Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 22 June 1985

IT IS SOME WAY into a U2 set at the vast Veterans' Coliseum in Hartford, Connecticut, and the place is strewn and bedecked with the ...

R.E.M., U2, The Ramones etal: Milton Keynes Bowl, Buckinghamshire

Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 29 June 1985

THE LONGEST DAY ...

U2, Sting et al: Amnesty International, Conspiracy of Hope Benefit, Cow Palace, San Francisco CA

Live Review by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 17 July 1986

Amnesty's rock & roll roadshow All-star lineup gives America the message ...

U2's Leading Edge

Interview by John Hutchinson, Musician, September 1986

"I DON'T REALLY see myself as a guitar player," says U2's Edge. "I'm more of a songwriter or composer. In looking for a new way ...

Daniel Lanois: The Producer as Conscience

Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, December 1986

"THERE'S A lot of pollution out there," says Daniel Lanois, drinking tea in the gazebo of his Santa Monica hotel one September morning, before continuing ...

U2: The Joshua Tree (Island)

Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 14 March 1987

OUT OF LITTLE ACORNS... ...

U2: The Joshua Tree (Island)

Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 14 March 1987

WHEN I THINK of U2, I don't think of America, I don't think of stadia, sweat, pumping fists, auxiliary hair. I think of fresh air, ...

U2: Prophet Incentive

Profile and Interview by Robin Eggar, The Observer, 5 April 1987

In Dublin they joke that Bono, lead singer of the rock band U2, has God's phone number. Not for U2 groupies, drugs or a limo ...

U2: Luminous Times

Interview by John Hutchinson, Musician, May 1987

U2 Wrestle With Their Moment Of Glory ...

U2: Glory Days

Interview by Colin Irwin, Spin, June 1987

With a platinum-bound LP and sell-out tour, U2 have finally conquered America. But first they had to conquer the problem of being a political band ...

U2: The Band of Holy Joy

Profile and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 6 June 1987

Riots greet U2 in Italy! Bono is bigger than Il Papa! Rock is not dead! Sean O'Hagan gets an audience with the holy man of ...

U2: Another Day, Another Dollar

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Q, July 1987

WHEN U2 FIRST played Chicago, in the spring of 1981, it was as part of a loss-making tour. They played one club and a university ...

The Roots of U2

Retrospective and Interview by Karen Schlosberg, Creem, August 1987

SHERMAN, INTO the Wayback Machine. The year: 1981. A young Irish quartet called U2 is promoting its debut album, Boy. Its lead singer is simply ...

The Unforgettable Band: A U2 Overview

Overview by Kris Needs, Creem, August 1987

MAY 1, 1980, AND I'm sitting on a plane bound for Dublin. Next to me, the Island Records publicity man is telling me about the ...

U2: The Joshua Tree (Island 90581-1)

Review by Gene Santoro, Downbeat, August 1987

YOU CAN'T say they don't tell you what they feel. And in fact, what they've been feeling over the last couple of years has become ...

U2: Time Has Come Today

Live Review by Roy Trakin, Creem, August 1987

U2: Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 17-22, 1987 ...

Elvis: The Million Dollar Bonanza

Report by Mat Snow, Sounds, 15 August 1987

On the tenth anniversary of ELVIS PRESLEY's death, MAT SNOW makes a pilgrimage to Graceland and reports on the thriving industry at rock 'n' roll's ...

The Second Coming of Robbie Robertson

Special Feature by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 19 November 1987

Eleven, years ago, the enigmatic leader of the Band walked away from the rock world. Now, after some years of wild living, he's joined with ...

The Major Rock Stars Who Make My Life Miserable

Comment by Danny (Shredder) Weizmann, L.A. Weekly, 4 March 1988

MUSIC, THEY say, is all a matter of mathematics. Numbers combine, add up, subtract or divide to make tones, chords, harmonies, etc., etc. Music criticism, ...

Memphis: A Legendary Music City is on the Rebound

Report by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 8 September 1988

Keith Richards, U2 and R.E.M. have recorded there, but the city's future hinges on its home-grown talent ...

U2's Journey Through The Past: Rattle and Hum

Review by Geoffrey Himes, The Washington Post, 12 October 1988

BY THEIR OWN admission, the members of U2 had little sense of history when they started making music. Like so many of their generation, the ...

U2: Rattle And Hum (Island)

Review by David Stubbs, Melody Maker, 15 October 1988

THE LORD'S PRAYER ...

U2: The Rock of the Irish

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Sunday Express Magazine, 16 October 1988

Until the huge international impact of U2, the upper rungs of rock’n’roll had been almost totally dominated by musicians from Britain and America. For a ...

U2: 'In Ireland People Are Scared of Success...'

Interview by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 20 October 1988

THE FULFILLMENT of any U2 project will always set tongues a-wagging in Dublin. Aside from being one of the country's major industries, the quartet are ...

U2 Reborn in the USA

Report and Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 23 October 1988

FOR HOURS, the same shot repeats over and over on a massive screen in a high-ceilinged editing room in Studio City, just a traffic jam ...

Band of Gold: U2 Rattle and Hum

Report and Interview by David Rensin, Premiere, November 1988

AGAINST A BLOOD-RED backdrop, four silhouetted figures file onstage to the pomp of a prerecorded organ. Dry ice smoke billows, and sparks crackle from lightning ...

The Face Interview: Bono

Interview by Max Bell, The Face, December 1988

For many he's a rock messiah, a man with a message and all the answers. Perhaps that's why BONO did no interviews to promote what has become Britain's fastest-selling album ...

Interview: Island Records' Chris Blackwell (1989) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 1989

This is a transcript of John Tobler's 1989 audio interview. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...

U2: Rockin' in the Not So Free World (Part 1)

Report by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 16 December 1989

Yen will I see you again?!!...In the first of an exclusive two part report on the band that more than any other has found a ...

U2: Rockin' in the Not So Free World (Part 2)

Report by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 23 December 1989

BONO'S OSAKA Plaza hotel room is littered with the ephemera of a rock 'n' roll traveler. There are Japanese picture books for his baby daughter ...

Daniel Lanois: Let the music speak

Interview by David Toop, The Times, 2 February 1990

David Toop meets Daniel Lanois, the hit producer of albums for U2, Peter Gabriel and Bob Dylan, now a performer himself on record and visiting ...

The Irishness on the Inside of Bono and U2

Essay by Steve Turner, The Independent, 20 April 1991

Steve Turner tours Dublin who, despite huge success, can still drink quietlt at home ...

Achtung! Saint Bono

Profile by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 7 November 1991

All but canonised in Ireland, U2's lead singer preaches redemption through rock 'n' roll. But now he's learning to write about girls. Sean O'Hagan profiles ...

U2: Achtung! Saint Bono

Profile by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 7 November 1991

All but canonised in Ireland, U2's lead singer preaches redemption through rock 'n' roll. But now he's learning to write about girls. Sean O'Hagan profiles ...

Daniel Lanois and U2: Five Men and Achtung Baby

Interview by Max Bell, Vox, December 1991

The new U2 album — released on November 18 — is "rougher and harder-hitting than anything we've done before" …Producer Daniel Lanois talks to Max ...

U2: Achtung Baby

Review by Max Bell, Vox, December 1991

BONO VOX once mentioned in passing that if and when he ever published a volume of his poetry, the title of said tome would be ...

U2: Achtung Baby

Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1991

WITH EACH NEW U2 album there has been a growing buzz of anticipation, a sense of event stoked by the way the band has stamped ...

U2: Achtung Baby

Review by David Cavanagh, Select, January 1992

CONFUSION REIGNS. What Is their trip? Achtung Baby sounds very 1991, but only as the most tangential of bulletins from four musicians who've been holed ...

U2: Re-issues

Review by Mark Cooper, Q, January 1992

WHEN U2'S RECENT NUMBER 1 single 'The Fly' first came on the radio, it sounded like a confused mess, an irritating jangle of throbbing guitars ...

U2: Saint Bono Defrocked

Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Face, 1 April 1992

IT'S EARLY evening in a Russian restaurant somewhere in west London, a place that specializes in vodka – chili vodka, lemon vodka, brandy vodka, even ...

U2: Flying High With a Jet Set

Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 31 May 1992

HAVING, BY his own account, spent most of the 1980s "trying to dodge being a rock star," Bono aka Paul Hewson, the singer and most ...

Fatima Mansions: Putting the Catalan among the pigeons

Report and Interview by Andrew Mueller, Melody Maker, 6 June 1992

What can CATHAL COUGHLAN and BONO possibly have in common? ANDREW MUELLER flew to Barcelona to discover why the acerbic lead singer decided to support ...

Let There Be Satellite: U2: Earl's Court, London

Live Review by Jon Wilde, Melody Maker, 6 June 1992

THE ROOM IS SPINNING. U2 are detonating 'Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World'. Bono, doing a passable imitation of the Lord's Anointed, swanks ...

U2 Anew

Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, Details, 1 September 1992

With Achtung Babyand their Zoo TV tour, U2 have found a way to be the biggest band in the world and still have fun. Sean ...

Public Enemy and U2: The Chuck and Bono Show

Interview by Max Bell, Vox, December 1992

When U2's tour brought Public Enemy to the Deep South, where segregation is still an issue, Chuck D did his best to pour napalm on ...

Ground Control To Major Labels

Report and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 30 January 1993

Unattached, paranoid, fancy working your ass off and seeing five gigs a night, listening to 400 tapes a week and shouldering the blame when the ...

Negativland: A Fistful Of Lawsuits

Report and Interview by Tony Fletcher, Creem, April 1993

"I don't think there are any record companies right now in the real sense of the word. We're all in the fashion business. You used ...

Stereo MCs: Zooropean Sons

Report and Interview by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 26 June 1993

Stereo MCs are already one of the biggest (dance) bands in Britain. By the end of the summer, after touring Europe with U2, unarguably the ...

Animal Lightweight: U2: Zooropa (Island)

Review by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 3 July 1993

SO THE intergalactic rock megastar reclines on his Virtual Reality waterbed at the Hotel Zooropa with multiple TV screens blasting 24-hour infotainment from every wall. ...

U2: Zooropa (Island Records)

Review by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 July 1993

U2 Flies Off on a Tangent: Group's new album Zooropa is slow and plodding ...

U2: Zooropa

Review by Max Bell, Vox, August 1993

WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE in exchange for your soul? U2 bartered their time for a new album, made quickly. What started out as an impromptu ...

Welcome to Empty-V: U2's Zoo(ropa TV)

Comment by Stephen Dalton, Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 21 August 1993

Is Zoo(ropa/TV) a subversive, ironic multi-media bombardment and situationist statement or a two-hour post-modernist Pot Noodle advert made by politically naive, culturally unaware squares with ...

U2: I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night

Report and Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, September 1993

It seemed like such a good idea at the time: serenading Axl Rose; sleeping in an igloo; drinking the swimming pool; licking the promoter; blowing ...

U2: Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Cork

Live Review by Andrew Mueller, Melody Maker, 11 September 1993

THE BRITISH Royal Family would need to perish en masse in a satanic suicide pact to generate half the press that Zoo TV's long-awaited Irish ...

U2: Pop

Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, March 1997

U2 have a fine sense of event and how to tweak it. Preceded by advance publicity suggesting more than enough stylistic innovation to maintain the ...

U2 Part One: 'Only Now Do We Look Cool'

Report and Interview by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 8 March 1997

But that's not all that's changed. Yes, you read it here first...U2, those hoary old rock behemoths, have gone dance! Sort of! ...

U2 Part Two: 'I Feel Caught Between the Bootboy and the Ponce'

Report and Interview by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 15 March 1997

Ah, the problems of being the biggest band in the world. In the second of a two-part special, Keith Cameron keeps up with U2 as ...

U2: Pop

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, 20 March 1997

IT IS HARD to believe we’re a whole decade away from The Joshua Tree – U2’s very own Born In The USA, its Purple Rain, ...

U2: Pop (Island)

Review by James Hunter, Spin, April 1997

WITH BRITISH soul sage Howie B. dispensing '90s groove advice and a thousand rhythm tracks bulldogging throughout this exhilaratingly complex album, Pop could get slotted as U2's ...

U2: Sam Boyd Stadium, Las Vegas

Live Review by Robin Bresnark, Melody Maker, 3 May 1997

SLOW DEATH IN VEGAS ...

U2: Pop Smart

Comment by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 13 June 1997

U2 are that rarity, a clever rock band. So why do the English press hate them? By Sean O'Hagan ...

U2, Oasis: Oakland Coliseum, Oakland CA

Live Review by Barbara Ellen, The Observer, 22 June 1997

Last week, Oasis played to a stadium of American U2 fans. There's dedication... ...

U2: Wembley Stadium, London

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 23 August 1997

Bono and Co go big, only to come up with a lemon ...

U2: Wembley Stadium, London

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 6 September 1997

Mart For Art's Sake ...

U2: The Year of Living Dangerously

Report and Interview by Andrew Mueller, The Irish Independent, 30 December 1997

U2 started '97 badly, but their annus horribilis has undergone a miraculous recovery. Interview: Andrew Mueller ...

U2 and Ash: I was there, helping to make history. (I just wish I hadn't been scratching my chin)

Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 24 May 1998

THE PHONE rings at 10.30 on a Monday night. It is Bono. "We're going to Belfast tomorrow night," he says, "and we're trying to come ...

U2: Boys To Men

Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1998

It is the '80s, and the decade is full of one Irish band and their guitarist's exotic millinary. So, follow Edge through the first ever ...

Chris Blackwell: A Man of Wealth & Taste

Profile and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 18 February 1999

For forty years, CHRIS BLACKWELL has survived on killer instincts, killer bud and tough business tactics. Along the way, he's changed the course of pop ...

U2: In the Name of Love

Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, December 1999

Twenty years ago next month, four teenagers from Dublin played their first British date in a north London pub, in front of less than a ...

U2: Billion-Dollar Dreams (Part 1)

Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 4 March 2000

German TV interviewer: "You own a hotel. Now, you've made a film about a hotel. Why hotels?" Bono: "Rock bands tend to know a ...

Bono: The Million Dollar Man

Report and Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 29 March 2000

IF IT'S PARIS it must be Spring. Bono's been out roaming the city of light with Miles' 1957 opus L'Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaudon the headphones, feeling ...

U2: Achtung Baby

Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2000

WITH EACH new U2 album there has been a growing buzz of anticipation, a sense of event stoked by the way the band has stamped ...

U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind; PJ Harvey: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 25 October 2000

I'VE PLAYED the Radiohead album about a dozen times, pushed my way in to see them live, and yes, there is a certain pleasure to ...

U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind

Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 26 October 2000

U2'S TENTH STUDIO album and third masterpiece, All That You Can't Leave Behind, is all about the simple melding of craft and song. Their first ...

U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind

Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 October 2000

HAVING SPENT the majority of the past decade searching for ways to rejuvenate the jaded stadium-rock formula — as much for their own benefit as ...

U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind

Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 27 October 2000

PRISING THEMSELVES free from their mid-'90s fixations with irony and Las Vegas glitz, U2 have circled back to what they've always done best. That means ...

Interview wth Wim Wenders

Interview by Jeff Apter, Rolling Stone (Australia), November 2000

This interview was held in conjunction with the theatrical release of The Million Dollar Hotel in Australia. ...

U2: All That You Can’t Leave Behind Richard Ashcroft: Alone with Everybody

Review by The Rev. Al Friston, Rock's Backpages, December 2000

WE WERE assured that Dublin’s finest would be going back to basics on All That You Can’t Leave Behind; that they’d dispensed with the electro-trappings ...

U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind

Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 2000

Corn without authenticity. Bono and Co rediscover the importance of being earnest ...

U2: MEN Arena, Manchester

Live Review by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, 19 August 2001

BONO DOESN'T know what to do. Midway through 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', that most troublesome of U2 songs, someone – someone wearing a Celtic shirt – ...

Bono’s Dosh: U2 and Money

Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Payday, March 2002

"WE'RE NOT GOING to let people rip us off, we want the money!" That's what Bono said in 1979 when Dublin's teenaged hopefuls U2 were ...

Various Artists: America: A Tribute To Heroes

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, March 2002

Star-Spangled Bummer:  Record of benefit concert/telethon for victims of September 11 ...

Eyewitness: U2 Conquer London

Retrospective by Johnny Black, Q, July 2002

WHEN U2 visited the capital in the summer of 1980, their intention was to play a handful of low-key club shows. Three months, a Marquee ...

Another Time: The inside story of U2's very first record

Retrospective and Interview by Chas de Whalley, Record Collector, 1 September 2004

I FIRST MET U2's manager Paul McGuiness sometime in February 1979. He was on a trip to London doing the rounds of the record companies ...

U2 and the Making of Achtung Baby

Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, November 2004

TOYKO, LATE 1993, somewhere in the fast-forward blur of the dying 20th century. As the biggest, loudest, most expensive and technically ambitious rock tour in ...

U2: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

Review by Nick Southall, Stylus, 23 November 2004

AH, U2, ONCE AGAIN PERCHED at the apex of world rock cool as they prepare to release (or is that unleash?) their umpteenth album. Mullets, ...

U2: City of Manchester Stadium

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 16 June 2005

STILL THRILLING huge audiences more than 25 years into their career, U2 become ever more impressive in their longevity, integrity, capacity for reinvention and willingness ...

U2

Interview by Paul Morley, Observer Music Monthly, December 2005

1: IN A VAST penthouse suite on top of a hotel that could be anywhere in the world overlooking a city that seems to shimmer ...

Daniel Lanois: The Compromise You Make For Some

Interview by Scott McLennan, Rip It Up (Australia), March 2006

The "Fifth Beatle" moniker has been bandied about numerous times over the years in reference to everyone from George Martin to Pete Best, but if ...

U2 3D (Dir. Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington)

Film/DVD/TV Review by John Lewis, Sight & Sound, December 2007

Live concert show filmed on the South American leg of U2's Vertigo Tour of 2005/2006. The film has been edited from footage of several different ...

U2: The Joshua Tree – remastered edition

Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, January 2008

20th anniversary reissue of an oft-maligned masterpiece. IT IS VEXINGLY DIFFICULT to improve upon the summation of The Joshua Tree offered by longtime U2 confidant Bill ...

U2: The Joshua Tree (remastered edition)

Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, January 2008

20th anniversary reissue of an oft-maligned masterpiece ...

U2: No Line On The Horizon

Review by Stephen Dalton, The National, February 2009

THE LAUNCH OF a U2 album always feels bigger than a mere musical event and inevitably stirs up fierce critical friction. ...

How I Learned To Love U2 (Almost)

Comment by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 14 February 2009

LIKE MOST right-thinking people, I grew up hating U2. ...

Will U2 be the saviours of the music industry?

Report by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 February 2009

Five years on from their last record, U2 have hauled Bono away from his saving-the-world duties long enough to finish their twelth studio album. But ...

U2: No Line On The Horizon

Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, April 2009

Rock juggernauts' 12th studio album is a grower, says Andrew Mueller ...

Empire of the Sun: Island at 50

Retrospective and Interview by Tom Doyle, Q, June 2009

The grand scheme of a gambler with a taste for chicken blood, Jamaican label Island Records introduced Bob Marley and U2 to the world. On ...

U2: Remembering The Unforgettable Fire

Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, June 2009

YOU TOO COULD love U2, if you could only transport yourself back to a time when their fundamental pomposity and crusading bad faith weren't such ...

Ego Warriors: U2 Speak Out On Rock-Star Hypocrisy

Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 30 July 2009

Over the years, U2 have taken many a kicking. But the band believe they're unjustly maligned for their unique brand of "stadium activism" ...

U2: Wembley Stadium

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, August 2009

WRITING ABOUT pop music, as some wag once famously remarked, is like dancing about architecture. Maybe so, but U2 spent more than two hours dancing ...

U2: Wembley Stadium, London

Live Review by Chris Roberts, The Quietus, 17 August 2009

U2 Live Under A Slate Grey Claw. Chris Roberts reports from Wembley ...

Glastonbury: Coldplay and U2 almost spoil the party

Report by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 28 June 2011

The headliners split the crowds, but this year's Glastonbury showed that the '70s dream lives on at Worthy Farm. ...

"Fifth member" of U2 Paul McGuinness to Walk On after 35 years

Report by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 15 November 2013

"WE'RE NOT GOING to let people rip us off, we want the money," Bono, the singer for the penniless and unknown band U2 proclaimed in ...

A World Of Dreaded Fear: Band Aid's Unforgivable Crimes

Retrospective by Wyndham Wallace, The Quietus, 10 December 2013

Band Aid raised awareness of a disastrous famine, as well as huge sums of money to try ease it. But, one year ahead of its ...

Songs Of Innocence: On U2, Tax & Hypocrisy 


Comment by John Doran, The Quietus, 10 September 2014

John Doran is singularly unimpressed by U2's invocation of William Blake's Songs Of Innocence. Shouldn't they stop cosying up to morally bankrupt corporations, banks, philosophers, ...

U2: Songs of Innocence

Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 September 2014

Originality loses out as Bono's boys retreat to comfort zone ...

U2: "It's the job of art to be divisive"

Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Observer, 12 October 2014

Thirty years after becoming the biggest band in the world, Bono and co still polarise opinion. Here, taking a break in the Côte d'Azur, they ...

Dennis Sheehan Talks About Led Zeppelin (and a little bit about U2)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, May 2015

NOTE: This is a transcription of an April 2010 phone interview with Dennis Sheehan – then tour manager for U2 –  for my oral history ...

U2: O2 Arena, London

Live Review by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 26 October 2015

The cathartic nature of the band's 13th studio album, Songs of Innocence, is sensitively reflected in this tour, which melds the personal and the political. ...

In Trump's country: U2 takes Joshua Tree politics back on the road

Live Review by Caryn Rose, salon.com, 16 May 2017

30 years after their blisteringly political album and tour, U2 opts for subtle anti-Trump imagery over big speeches. ...

Another view: The thing with Bono and Apple...

Comment by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 24 November 2017

I HEAR THAT U2 have a new album coming out. I know this not because I have received a press release (though I have) but ...

How do U2 fill the O2? They send for Stufish

Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 15 October 2018

Stufish Entertainment Architects has made spectacular sets for the rock band, as well as Elton and Beyoncé. Stephen Dalton sees how ...

The 30 best live concert albums of all time

Guide by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 22 April 2020

LAST WEEK, A STORY appeared in the New York Times that predicted that live music would not return to the world's stages until the autumn ...

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