Joshua Tree Tour 2017 - Rumors & General Discussion III

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
I'm honestly shocked they're coming back to North America next year. I would've thought they exhausted all demand this year (30 stadium shows in one year is a lot). I'm not complaining though!
 
It's probably going to be 2 nights in Vancouver, Bay Area, LA, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York and Atlanta.
 
Tonight is going to be a different level of special, personally...I have seen this band 10 times as of tonight, but the guy who had the most to do with getting me into this band, the friend/best man/Godfather of my oldest child who I was supposed to attend the $5 Tempe show with, a show that I did not make due to weather issues in Northern Arizona and an age that did not permit me to make my own decisions, will be with me tonight, for the first time, for a U2 show.


I am thinking of bringing the $5 with me in my wallet just to give the confused ticket taker the house portion of the ticket. I feel like I am getting to relive that day in a way.
 
I swear to god, if U2 do a fifth - fifth! - leg through North America before coming to Australia, I will... make more angry posts and maybe write a pithy tweet on the U2gigs account or something.

They've never done so many North American (or European) legs between Australian tours before. If they don't get to Australia before December 2018 they will also break the record for longest gap between tours here. They've already beaten the record for tours of Japan.

In other words, we are going to play where the money is at.

Fucking lol. You've got enough entries already in the "shittest take of the month" competition, mate. U2 could make more money just setting up shop for a fortnight each in Dublin, Amsterdam, Rome, and Barcelona than they will with the current jaunt through the "heartland". Even though they could make a mint by long tours of Europe, and do pretty damn well for themselves in Australia and Asia, they just keep short-changing them and only do long tours of the US.
 
Is anybody REEEEEALLY surprised that they'd do NA and Europe again first? I mean come on. Really?

Of course they will. They shouldn't, but they will.

A fourth North American leg in as many years? They haven't done that many legs of North America in such a short period of time since - wait for it - the UF and JT tours. One each in 1984 and 1985, followed by two in 1987.
 
A fourth North American leg in as many years? They haven't done that many legs of North America in such a short period of time since - wait for it - the UF and JT tours. One each in 1984 and 1985, followed by two in 1987.
I'm not saying it's smart or a good idea or what they should do.

I'm just saying nobody should be surprised.
 
I would say that it'd be a surprise for them to do anything that they haven't done since the mid-eighties, but I saw them play Trip Through Your Wires in July, so point taken.
 
I'm honestly shocked they're coming back to North America next year. I would've thought they exhausted all demand this year (30 stadium shows in one year is a lot). I'm not complaining though!

A lot of the venues they're playing aren't in areas I assume they'll play next year. I think you'll see much the same as the IE schedule which will be little to no issue for them to sell out.

Hopefully they'll throw St. Louis in for a show after they missed out this year with the cancellation, but other than that, I'd expect to see Pacific Northwest, NY, Boston, Chicago, LA, Bay Area, maybe something in Philadelphia or DC, Montreal, Toronto.
 
At this point, it is a shame that Australia/New Zealand, Japan/Asia nor South Africa got to experience this Joshua Tree 30-year anniversary tour.

If they were able to bring the monstrous 360 stage, equipment and shows to these places, it leaves a lot of questioning of why they couldn't make it this time with The Joshua Tree to these same places.
Because they want to get to promoting SOE.

That part of the equation isn't hard to figure out. That they're going to skip the rest of the world and come straight back to Europe and NA again next year, at least in the beginning, is where the plan gets a little wonky.

Shouldn't be a shock to anyone, but questionable none the less.
 
Just wanted to again state for the record that I'm #1 on the GA list for the as yet unscheduled and unverified Washington DC e/i show. Irvine is #2.

Biweekly check in has now moved from the F Street Compass Coffee to the Fill Up Buster nacho stand outside section 406. If you're not willing to find a way into the arena to check in, then you aren't a real fan now, are you?
 
I'm honestly shocked they're coming back to North America next year. I would've thought they exhausted all demand this year (30 stadium shows in one year is a lot). I'm not complaining though!

I went to two TJT shows this summer (Chicago and KC). I would go to more if I could. My wife and were remarking about the crowd for U2: late 30s to mid 50s, middle-age professionals with money. It's a huge market with a lot of disposable income to tap and U2 can come here every summer - arenas, stadiums, whatever...people will spend their money to see them. Even older 'heritage acts' are making a mint doing this - because you have an aging population with some money to spend and not much to spend it on (very few people in this age group want to go to a TS or Kendrick Lamar concert - we just want to go see our favorite bands from the 80s and 90s...or even earlier).

According to Forbes, the top 5 touring acts in 2017 are: Guns and Roses, U2, Bieber, Metallica, and Depeche Mode. RHCP is sixth. Four of the top five are bands that are not reflected in the pop charts (I don't know the status of Bieber these days). The millenials may drive what's popular on Spotify and iTunes, but the older generations with money to spend are what drives demand in the US for live shows.
 
Last edited:
Just wanted to again state for the record that I'm #1 on the GA list for the as yet unscheduled and unverified Washington DC e/i show. Irvine is #2.

Biweekly check in has now moved from the F Street Compass Coffee to the Fill Up Buster nacho stand outside section 406. If you're not willing to find a way into the arena to check in, then you aren't a real fan now, are you?

Can't wait till the reports of Irvine shoving you out of his way on the way into the venue then claiming Viktory at grabbing the best spot in the venue.
 
I swear to god, if U2 do a fifth - fifth! - leg through North America before coming to Australia, I will... make more angry posts and maybe write a pithy tweet on the U2gigs account or something.

You could also make a statement by boycotting them when they finally visit Australia...

... just joking of course. It's unbelievable. I am wondering what drives them to skip Australia? Or are they not thinking straight?

Is it the logistics of moving the whole circus to a 'small' country at the other side of the world?
The fact they will be far from their own families?
 
Last edited:
I've got to wonder if possibly skipping Australia has simply come down to "well we're finished with JT30, and EI will be in arenas and wait that means how many shows to meet demand in Australia? Yeah fuck that, we only play 30 gigs a leg in the USA now."

It's funny that they're willing to play a shit-tonne of shows to meet American demand but not Australian. The revenue down here would be pretty lucrative too, you know.
 
You could also make a statement by boycotting them when they finally visit Australia...

... just joking of course. It's unbelievable. I am wondering what drives them to skip Australia? Or are they not thinking straight?

Is it the logistics of moving the whole circus to a 'small' country at the other side of the world?
The fact they will be far from their own families?

I've got to wonder if possibly skipping Australia has simply come down to "well we're finished with JT30, and EI will be in arenas and wait that means how many shows to meet demand in Australia? Yeah fuck that, we only play 30 gigs a leg in the USA now."

It's funny that they're willing to play a shit-tonne of shows to meet American demand but not Australian. The revenue down here would be pretty lucrative too, you know.

I've noticed that other bands have been having a similar conversation re: bands not touring down in Australia or New Zealand recently. One of them is Duran Duran as they haven't been down there to promote their most recent album, which was released in 2015 (all the while, they've been touring places like the U.S. like crazy as well). Enough fans were talking about it that their fan liaison posted a Twitter response about it a few months ago, part of which is below...

I can’t speak on behalf of band, but can tell you what I know - the band is dying to get back to you guys. Unfortunately, it’s just not that easy to book a tour in that neck of the world & they’ve been trying for months to do so. Lots of things involved that you wouldn’t necessarily be aware of but exist.

On top of that, there was another band that had someone call them out on Twitter for not touring Australia or something or other. The band's account replied and said that it had something with the "politics" making it more expensive for them to come down there this time around. I can't remember who or where this was, but that was also from this year.

So who knows? I imagine these bands haven't had problems in the past when it came to the usual expenses of shipping a show down there and such, so it's likely something or other doing it. Promoters not cooperating, additional expenses... your guess is really as good as mine since I'm not privy to the behind-the-scenes stuff either.
 
The only touring arrangements I've been privy to are those for small bands where the challenges are a). expensive airfares, b). how much extra luggage to buy to bring their own gear vs hiring it, and c). visas. Obviously a) is not of concern to U2, not in the same way anyhow, while b) is on an entirely different scale with the need to convey massive staging. But c) would be common, and affect U2 on a greater scale because of the larger costs. I do recall there were some changes to the visa regime recently that worked against musicians, and Australian customs is notoriously strict.

It was no accident that large international tours of Australia were more common in 2006 to about 2012 than before or after, because the Aussie dollar was so strong then. But our dollar is not as weak as it was in 2001-02, when it was so bad that plans to bring the Elevation Tour here, even as part of a mini-festival package, got canned as unremunerative. Other large artists are still touring regularly down here at the moment. Hell, Elton John's about to play Cairns, Mackay, Wollongong, and Hobart!

It's a shame Earnie Shavers isn't around these parts any more, because I think he had insider experience of much larger tours than I'd have any association with. I've put on one club-size festival and my friends have helped arrange to bring international artists down here for club/theatre tours, but none of us have experience beyond that level.

But no doubt a U2 tour would make a handsome profit, even if it's not quite the rivers of gold from 2006 and 2010. I think there's more to U2's schedule than pure remuneration, because if it was all about maximising profit they would tour Europe far more intensively than they do. The last time they really tried to wring every buck they could out of that continent was in 1993!
 
I swear to god, if U2 do a fifth - fifth! - leg through North America before coming to Australia, I will... make more angry posts and maybe write a pithy tweet on the U2gigs account or something.

They've never done so many North American (or European) legs between Australian tours before. If they don't get to Australia before December 2018 they will also break the record for longest gap between tours here. They've already beaten the record for tours of Japan.

On the upside, the longer they take to come back to Australia, the more irrelevant they will be and that can only mean playing stadiums becomes less and less likely.
 
In U2's case it's definately not about maximising profit, as Axver already mentioned.

I also think that the reason U2 hits secondary US-markets the last weeks is pure logistic/family related. The lucrative fast-selling South American market was planned and to fill up towards those dates, they decided to add US-dates wherever there was a stadium available or something... Edge has family in US, they all have connections in the US and family in Europe. Not very practical to be in Australia... ?
 
I'm sure the question will be asked this weekend..

"Bono will also be appearing as co-host in Australia on Triple M's "My Generation" this weekend with hosts Ugly Phil and Jane Gazzo, which appears at different times on different networks."
 
Could be a lot worse, at least it's not Kyle and Jackie O.
 
I'm sure the question will be asked this weekend..

"Bono will also be appearing as co-host in Australia on Triple M's "My Generation" this weekend with hosts Ugly Phil and Jane Gazzo, which appears at different times on different networks."

Wow that is quite unusual for Bono to be a 'co host' of something in australia. Hopefully that means its leas up to tour news here.
 
I'm sure the question will be asked this weekend..

"Bono will also be appearing as co-host in Australia on Triple M's "My Generation" this weekend with hosts Ugly Phil and Jane Gazzo, which appears at different times on different networks."

Has this show aired yet? Anything interesting? Any news?
 
Back
Top Bottom