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U2 fans demand Ottawa concert date
By ANN MARIE McQUEEN -- Ottawa Sun
OTTAWA - All local U2 fans want for Christmas is an Ottawa concert date, but it looks like 2005 might just prove to be their 20th anniversary of disappointment.
Ever since a stellar show at the Ottawa Civic Centre on March 30, 1985, fans have watched the super group pass the capital by, tour after tour.
This week radio station 93.9 BOB FM started an online petition pleading with the popular rockers to make a long-awaited return appearance during their just-announced How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb tour.
"It's been about 20 years since you rocked our town, and we think it's about time you put us on your tour map!" the radio station asks.
Fans at the last U2 show recall Bono losing his voice during an encore rendition of Pride, apologizing profusely and then turning his mike to the audience while pleading for their help to finish.
Before that, Barrymore's bookers took a chance on the then-relative unknowns by booking them to play for $500 and a large cut of the door in 1981.
Corel Centre management is doing its best to get U2. But vice-president and executive director Tom Conroy, who met with U2 tour promoters on the issue in Toronto last month, says frankly it doesn't look good.
The problem, says Conroy, is not a fear the band won't sell out. Look at Bruce Springsteen, he says, who sold out 19,000 seats on Good Friday 2003.
"They'd sell out Yellowknife," said Conroy. "It's getting a date."
On Tuesday, U2 announced a 10-month world tour of 115 shows kicking off next spring in Florida. The tour moves to Europe in June and on to North America by fall. Everyone on the continent wants their business, says Conroy, and while the Corel Centre will hold dates in case Ottawa happens to get lucky, over the past two decades the band has repeatedly passed on such arenas to play giant stadiums in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Prime Minister Paul Martin has been more occupied with his trip to Libya than on trying to persuade his pal Bono to give a concert here, PMO spokesman Marc Roy jokingly said yesterday. The singer dropped by Ottawa last spring to give Martin a boost and praise his record on fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa.
"I don't know what he wrote in his Christmas cards," said Roy. "But if it does pertain to that, I'll let you know."
http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2004/12/18/787817.html
By ANN MARIE McQUEEN -- Ottawa Sun
OTTAWA - All local U2 fans want for Christmas is an Ottawa concert date, but it looks like 2005 might just prove to be their 20th anniversary of disappointment.
Ever since a stellar show at the Ottawa Civic Centre on March 30, 1985, fans have watched the super group pass the capital by, tour after tour.
This week radio station 93.9 BOB FM started an online petition pleading with the popular rockers to make a long-awaited return appearance during their just-announced How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb tour.
"It's been about 20 years since you rocked our town, and we think it's about time you put us on your tour map!" the radio station asks.
Fans at the last U2 show recall Bono losing his voice during an encore rendition of Pride, apologizing profusely and then turning his mike to the audience while pleading for their help to finish.
Before that, Barrymore's bookers took a chance on the then-relative unknowns by booking them to play for $500 and a large cut of the door in 1981.
Corel Centre management is doing its best to get U2. But vice-president and executive director Tom Conroy, who met with U2 tour promoters on the issue in Toronto last month, says frankly it doesn't look good.
The problem, says Conroy, is not a fear the band won't sell out. Look at Bruce Springsteen, he says, who sold out 19,000 seats on Good Friday 2003.
"They'd sell out Yellowknife," said Conroy. "It's getting a date."
On Tuesday, U2 announced a 10-month world tour of 115 shows kicking off next spring in Florida. The tour moves to Europe in June and on to North America by fall. Everyone on the continent wants their business, says Conroy, and while the Corel Centre will hold dates in case Ottawa happens to get lucky, over the past two decades the band has repeatedly passed on such arenas to play giant stadiums in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Prime Minister Paul Martin has been more occupied with his trip to Libya than on trying to persuade his pal Bono to give a concert here, PMO spokesman Marc Roy jokingly said yesterday. The singer dropped by Ottawa last spring to give Martin a boost and praise his record on fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa.
"I don't know what he wrote in his Christmas cards," said Roy. "But if it does pertain to that, I'll let you know."
http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2004/12/18/787817.html
