U2 need to communicate more with their fans...

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Folkelig said:
I think U2 should do what Peter Gabriel is doing. Every month there is a short video clip where PG is letting the fans know whats going on. Sometimes it's about how things are going with the new record, and sometimes it's just about anything else really.. As a PG fan, it's a great!
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Yes, and in 20 years, PG has put out 3 studio albums.

That's accurate, not an exaggeration. 20 years, 3 albums.

Yeah, there's Passion, Ovo and Rabbit Proof Fence etc. but they don't really count as studio albums. But Passion is awesome, shit.
 
I'm against it. I think there should still be some secrets, mystery. I wouldn't want to read, see and know everything. I believe these guys need some time off to be creative, without having to justify every step they are taking.
 
Adam's blog.

On the drive from Austin to San Antonio we stopped off at a snake farm/amateur zoo. It was very depressing. Lots of caged animals not looking very healthy. The high point was a mad monkey which had epileptic fits accompanied by blood-chilling shrieks. It was really quite a scream because Bono started singing. This infuriated the creature even further -- its shrieks grew louder. Bono matched its volume until the deranged creature started to beat his head against the wall. Eventually a very brusque woman ran over and dismissed us, complaining how cruel it was to drink sodas in front of our friend as there was nothing it liked more than a glass of Coke.

On to the gig. During the show, Bono handed out flowers to girls. Wish I'd done that. He's got friends for life. Afterwards we spent a long time with the punters. The Texans are a nice simple people, consequently conversation lasted long. 3.15 a.m. back to the hotel via the Alamo, which received the dubious accolade of consecration with Ozzy Osbourne's urine.

Fort Apache, The Bronx was on the HBO cable. Great film and Paul Newman's best performance in years.

Friday

Up too early with everyone looking wrecked. Arrive in Denver and Edge discovers a ski resort 50 miles up country. The four of us head off. It had to be hushed up as a broken leg at this stage of the tour would not be welcome. Stories were fabricated and changed so that no one had any idea where we were. It was a lovely drive through the Rockies to the resort. Once there, Edge organises the activities, as he is the experienced amateur. We get our skis on and Bono falls over immediately. We potter about on the nursery slopes under Edge's instructions. I eventually feel confident enough to try my luck on the mountain. I wish I hadn't. I've never been so frightened in all my life. To reach the top of the mountain we have to hang on chair lift, hundreds of feet above the ground with no safety bar. I was so hysterical I would have gladly thrown myself off had Edge not kept me talking.

At the top it soon becomes obvious that I had been over optimistic. I tell Edge to go off and enjoy himself, I'll walk down. The mountain very nearly claimed me. Edge goes up and down twice in the time it takes me to walk. Then he did a black slope. As you might know black slopes are very serious. And then some, like black holes and black belts. We retire to the bar for the only bit of ski I like -- apres ski and Gluewein. We make the mistake of ordering Irish Coffees, which are barely coffee and certainly not Irish. The cream comes from one of those aerosol jobs and there's a nasty green mint liqueur to boot. Once back in the hotel we decide to go and see Reds. It's a good film but I felt it lost its punch in places, but maybe that's because I was so tired.



P.S. this is actually real, albeit from a number of years ago.
 
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Edge's blog, Day 1
Just got into Florida today where NASA had me fly in last minute to do some work on the space shuttle. These NASA scientists always crack me up. With all this accumulated knowledge, when will they learn that the only way to properly calibrate a neodilithium transpositer is to cross the flux capacitor with the warp nacelle chamber and then crosswire the shotbaker compartment with the jobnemy defibbrilator? It wasn't a big deal. The space shuttle launched three hours later. All in a day's work.

Now off to remix every U2 album!
 
Edge's Blog, Day 2
Scientists are a laugh riot. I had no idea they could be so funny! This one guy was telling a joke today while I was curing cancer, and it was so hysterical milk shot out my nose. Then I cured Parkinson's.
 
Bono's Blog 8/1/06

I came into Eze today to do some recording, and while on the way there, I stopped and bought a newspaper. It was in French. This was disappointing. If Wikipedia was accurate, I'd be able to read it.

We recorded a song today. I don't remember what we called it.

I looked out the window and saw a bunch of people with recording things. I decided to play a neat trick, and I put a Coldplay B-side on the stereo. They won't ever figure it out.

I went to the bar afterwards, and it was extraordinary! They had my favorite drinks: alcohol. Extraordinary! I ran into this guy, and he looked like someone I knew. He had a scientist coat on. I decided to pretend he was Edge because Edge is a scientist. Extraordinary! He walked away after that. I got a cab, and the guy driving it sort of reminded me of this guy I met in Spain. Isn't that just extraordinary?!
 
phillyfan26 said:
Bono's Blog 8/1/06

I came into Eze today to do some recording, and while on the way there, I stopped and bought a newspaper. It was in French. This was disappointing. If Wikipedia was accurate, I'd be able to read it.

We recorded a song today. I don't remember what we called it.

I looked out the window and saw a bunch of people with recording things. I decided to play a neat trick, and I put a Coldplay B-side on the stereo. They won't ever figure it out.

I went to the bar afterwards, and it was extraordinary! They had my favorite drinks: alcohol. Extraordinary! I ran into this guy, and he looked like someone I knew. He had a scientist coat on. I decided to pretend he was Edge because Edge is a scientist. Extraordinary! He walked away after that. I got a cab, and the guy driving it sort of reminded me of this guy I met in Spain. Isn't that just extraordinary?!
Click to expand...

:lmao:
 
02/08/06

Adam's blog

Kinda forget Americans write their dates, month first, then the day, no wonder some fans thought their U2.com memberships were expiring way too early.

So, another day of mucking about in the studio, I do hope someone realises that Bono was tricking people with the Coldplay b-side. Had a laugh about it, but in hindsight, could come back to bite us on the arse. But at least Coldplay admit to being influenced by us.

Bono taking piano lessons, now we're really gonna get the Coldplay comments. Should take guitar lessons, Bono won't be able to sit at a piano for 5 minutes on stage. If he even hints at the word keytar, I'm out of there, gonna go sit in the back and chat with the crew backstage till he puts it away.

Brother came over, showed me how to change the colours on U2.com again, that was very odd seeing everything in green and red, kinda trippy, looked like the entire site was vibrating. Wonder if it should be made known those "site down for maintenance" is just us messing with the site's colours. Edge of course loves it a little too much. I thought making the site yellow and white was going too far. How Edge and my brother managed to hack into that other U2 site, interference or something, and turn the site all black...only lasted about 2 seconds but that was the icing on the cake.

Bono was off somewhere, gonna put a GPS thing in his shades.

Larry was in a rather good mood, decided to pull off Keith Moon. That'll never see the outside of these walls. Throwing the cymbal like a frisbee was his own thing. My ears still hurt. Edge's too. Larry laughed about it of course. Next time he walks by my bass amp, he's gonna know what the rattle in rattle and hum comes from.
 
Larry's blog

02/08/06

Not even sure this thing works, blogs, Edge raves about them so much though. Wonder if anyone would guess he uses his real name for his blogs. Reverse-reverse psychology or something.

Got Adam and Edge good. That cymbal needed to be replaced anyway. Why I wear ear phones. Laugh out loud.

Adam has a good idea, GPS thing in Bono's shades. I guess a cowbell would be too much. Always need more cowbell afterall.
 
Bono's Blog - Aug. 2 '06 (Part 1)

Adam thinks we're gonna get Coldplay comparisons now that I play piano. I don't buy it. No one is as smart as me.

By the way, I didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize yet, so I think I'm gonna have to grab that big ass crowbar, and whomp me some Norwegian skull.

I tried putting a GPS in my shades. It didn't work, I think when I glued it, nothing happened, and then when I tried to wash the glue off with gallons of water, the GPS may have broken. Maybe I'll get Edge to do it. After all, he's a scientist.

I have to go do laundry. I'll finish this a little later.
 
Larry's blog, 8/2/2007

Have a collection of about 24 songs now, with plans of releasing it as a double album in November. First half produced by Eno/Lanois, the second produced by Rick Rubin. Album's called Opus. Glad to get back to names we can fit on a t-shirt.

Right now we're doing a lot of rehearsals for an international tour so we can change the songs up. I've just got back from relearning Acrobat and B's been working the vocal cords so we can finally do Red Hill Town.

I need to talk to Paul (our manager) today because I've got some concerns about this new album, but he's out over-seeing the final editing for the DVD releases of Popmart - Mexico, Under A Blood Red Sky - the full show, the entire Tempe, AZ concert that was on Rattle & Hum, and the Best of the 1980's videos (Whew, it took a while to dig up the Red Hill Mining Town, A Celebration, Gloria & others!).

Edge and Adam are out today, firing the producers of our website, U2.com. We've decided to go in a different direction, we'll have a store that'll now offer digital downloads of all of our songs, videos & even some selected concerts and TV appearances. You'll be able to buy vintage tour shirts from the old tours, posters, programmes, just whatever really. You'll also get quarterly ep's of demos, out takes, live stuff. You know, just to keep things interesting. Oh, and you'll get real priorty ticketing for upcoming tour. And that includes that small venue tour we've been talking about doing for years.

See you soon!!

Larry's blog 8/9/2007

What a long week it's been! I never did get a chance to talk to Mac. Apparently when Edge and Adam tried to fire the U2.com crew, they decided to sue us. Paul had to leave the DVD stuff in limbo for the time being and rally the lawyers. So it'll be a while (if ever) before any changes on those two fronts. On top of that, we can't find Adam. Apparently he was pretty pissed when he and Edge went to the meet, and now he's just disappeared. Second strike. Out of the bad as far as I'm concerned.

Bono, him being best mates with Adam, walked out too. He's gonna do a tour of Antarctica. He saw that March Of The Penguins DVD and has decided to rally the world to their plight (whatever that may be). He was last seen boarding a plane with Gavin Friday and Geldoff to get some kind of Live Aid, 8, whatever started to help them birds.

So me and Edge have been sitting in the mixing room trying to get this album out. But you know, it isn't really working. It sounds too much like U2 (what with the anthems, the soaring vocals, and guitar wizardry) and we're looking to give our audience something different - from us; not necessarily different from what's already out there. We've scrapped the Rubin stuff and locked the demo's in the vault so that by the time they are finally released, you will all be dead. We're remixing the Eno stuff, cutting Edge's guitars out entirely, and replaced them mostly with piano because that's really the rage with the kids today.

So while it's going forward it's going slowly. I'll give you an update in 2010 when we're nearing completion. In the meantime check out those great album cover mousepads on U2.com; well, except for the Joshua Tree one, that's been sold out since 2004...
 
Edge's Blog 8/3/06
Some people point out that I write my dates wrong. What no one knows is that it's actually based on ancient Mayan date-keeping, where every seventh day is inverted. What does Adam know, anyway? He's so high on his organic green fruit drink, he has no clue. We turned him way down on the last album and he never even noticed.

Anyway. We've decided that Coldplay is going to record our next album for us. I checked out the message board on Interference.com and they all seemed to think it's us anyway. We're going to spend the next year or so here in Eze while Coldplay does all the work for us. Perfection.

On to today. Tried to fix the GPS in Bono's glasses, but apparently he actually took it into the water with him. Went on a bit of a bender and was convinced his 73 Mercedes was actually a submersible car. After that the GPS was pretty nigh useless, though I'm working on some technology that could turn the GPS glasses into a transformer. That would be awesome. Then I invented a whole new way to perform surgery. Why hasn't anyone thought of telepathy before? I can't wait to try it out. Then I invented a whole new way to translate the Incan language. I'm going to give it to Bono -- it might help his lyrics on the next album. If he sings about kneeling one more time, I think Larry's going to spit up bull's blood.
 
I would love for the band to be a little more communicative with fans, whether on the road or in studio. It doesn't seem to be much of a priority in the organization, though, and since U2 seems to operate by the "if it works when it's broke, why fix it?" philosophy, I don't see band blogs and in-studio web cams happening.
 
Bono's Blog August 3rd 2006

Larry told me about this cymbal prank he played on Adam and Edge while I was trying to put a GPS in my glasses. Extraordinary! That Larry can really pull a fast one, like the time he painted my Fly shades black AND glued them to my head. I was walking into walls for hours.

I'm not in a good mood, however. My beloved car, my 1973 Mercedes, is gone. It's a convertable, and I realized, if I put the top up, then I'm sealed in, and it's like a submarine! So, I tried it out by driving into the ocean, only it didn't work. Damn people don't know how to make a good car anymore. Luckily, Adam was swimming in the water at the time and helped me out.

The one good side was that with the car thing going on, Edge doesn't know I broke the GPS by pouring water on it to get the glue off yesterday. Now he won't think I'm dumb!

Anyway, Edge is completely convinced that Coldplay is going to record the next album, despite the fact that Chris Martin doesn't want to because he's "music itself" and doesn't have to "stoop to our level."

Also, he wants me to use this crazy Incan thing to record the next album. I don't want to, because I know a couple more "kneels" will be the perfect payback for Larry because of the time he shaved my head before the POPMart Tour. He's gonna crack I can feel it!
 
4/08/06

Adam's blog

I learned to write my dates day first, then month, as did everyone in Europe, that's how I'm gonna write them, unless I'm in America. Edge, Mr. L.A. man now. I just learned that Hulk Hogan, that wrestler who is a neighbor of Edge's in L.A. was a bass player. Fancy that.

Went out for a nice cool dip, and what do I see, a car driving into the ocean. I've seen submersible cars on some science programme Edge was watching, but didn't think I'd see one in a remote area of France. To my shock and horror, it's Bono driving, and it's no submersible car! Beautiful car, the way he abuses them, it's a shame. So I rescued him, again.

Coldplay...do our next album...don't like that idea, besides the fact that few bass players have the kind of tone I have.

Incan vocals, might be interesting, but maybe Bono should write something in Gaelic. Too bad I can't remember any Swahili, get an Incan, Gaelic, Swahili vibe. That would really scare away the fans. More so than the thought of us looking into R&B and Hip Hop. Which all that would mean, is Larry and myself would have our parts recorded much louder in the mix.

Larry on a tirade, wants to fire the crew for U2.com. Guess he fails to realise, none of us know how to do that stuff, except for Edge, and I doubt Larry wants Edge to become a webmaster in lieu of being a guitarist. When Edge gets hooked on the computer, he really gets hooked.
 
04/08/06

Larry's blog.

Blog, dog, fog, bog, flog. Look, I wrote a lyric. Kneel, heel, get real. Diss me band again, I'll come at you like a train. Ah forget it, let Bono do this stuff, got more important things to do. Could go for more instrumental stuff, then Bono doesn't have to remember words. He can show off his new piano playing. Piano, pfft, gave that up years ago, I've no regrets. Nobody looks cool playing the piano. Just look like a geek. Okay maybe Paul McCartney....nope still looks geeky. Guitars man, rock and roll is about guitars, not keyboard things. And I'm with Adam, no keytars in this band, I'll knock that silly looking monstronsity to the ground and smash it to pieces.

I learned how to play an accordion, but nope that's going on an album, but it would be something new for us. Adam took up bagpipes, he thinks I don't know, I know. "It's a CD", sure Adam.

Edge learned to play the didgeradoo. That was a good laugh.

Wonder what trick I should play on Bono this time, the shades was fun, shaving his head, that got old quick. Maybe I'll shave his eyebrows, oh that is it! ahhahahha
 
Aug. 4 2006 - Bono Blog

I didn't go to the studio. I said "kneel" again and Larry may do something horrible. Either way, I'm wearing a fencing mask in tomorrow. I'll look like the guy from Zombie Nation, won't I?
 
Edge's Blog 8/4/06
Look, I know it's real thrilling that Bono thinks he can play the piano now. I was playing Bach piano concertos when I was 3, but some people are slow learners. This I know. (Just look at Adam.) The big problem is that Bono only plays black keys. Have you ever heard a song only played on black keys? I'd rather watch Bono walk around all day with those Fly glasses glued to his face. That at least was entertaining. I've taken to unplugging Bono's piano from the main recording deck. Like when we used to let him "play guitar" on the Joshua Tree tour, even though he was NEVER ACTUALLY PLUGGED IN. I was afraid he was onto us when he saw that little clip in the Rattle and Hum movie, but we just said that Phil Joanou had dropped in a clip from the Stop Making Sense movie, and he fell for it.

I think Larry and Adam are going a little off the deep end with the new album. I think they've figured out that I've been re-recording all their parts after they leave, so they're trying to stretch as musicians. Larry's picked up the accordion, even though he keeps trying to use it as a percussion instrument (he goes through about one an hour), and Adam's trying to make sense of "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes. He keeps saying we can finally play that introduction to "Tomorrow" live. I don't have the heart to tell him most of our fans don't even know we did an album called "October." (Note to self -- can I remove that one from iTunes and Amazon? The less said the better!)

Bono walked into the studio today with a fencing mask on. The one thing Adam does, of course, is fence, so for the next three hours we had to watch these two systematically destroy the studio. I think Larry kept trying to get in on the action -- he looked more pissed than usual -- but the fact that we've taken to letting him play drums in a steel cage really helps. (Keeps him from getting out and shaving Bono's head again.) Ah, crap. Larry's out again and the electromagnetic pulse I devised to immobilize him is on the fritz! Back later.
 
Bono's Aug. 4 Blog Part 2

I went into the studio after all, with the fencing mask on. Turns out Adam fences, so he took me on. I would have won, but Larry held up a beach ball and distracted me.

Edge is helping me out by locking Larry in a steel cage. I feel safe now to play the piano, and play I do! Edge does seem to think I have issues but he strangely ended up completely fine with it after he made some kind of adjustment to the piano. It sounds great!

Adam thinks we can play Tomorrow with him on the bagpipes. Why not me on the piano, though?

Oh damn, Larry got out. Gotta run...
 
Blogs are pretty low on my priority list as to what I want from the band.

All these fake blogs are probably more entertaining than anything they would come up with, anyway. Although I have to admit, that long-ago tour diary Adam wrote (I remember seeing it posted here years ago - didn't he do it for Hot Press magazine?) was really fun to read.
 
8/14 - Adam's Blog

I went to see the Nelly Furtado concert last night, man, she is hawt.

I got backstage and I had a few bottles of water while me and Nelly talked about the weather, the new U2 album, and Bono's latest pair of shoes. She's a nice lady.

So, today, I am supposed to meet Nelly for lunch. I made sure I shaved today and withdrew some money from the ATM machine. I'm bringing my bass....I'm looking to score.
 
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