steel driving hammer wrote on Dec 10^th, 2010 at 9:21am:


Not surprisingly you miss the difference between 'popularity' and 'personal taste'.

I dont feel the need to justify my personal taste to anyone - or to back it up with insignificant nonsense such as record sales, tour grosses, attendances and the like. So, I fail to see what on earth you're getting at.

The defensiveness is a little more than a musical equivalent of penis-envy. It's a pretty embarrassing trait in an adult.

They may be one of the biggest rock bands in the world, but Sydney has served up a shock to U2 - their second show, tonight, has not sold out.

More than 2200 $40 tickets - the cheapest for the Irish band's 360 tour - are unsold for tonight's concert at ANZ Stadium. Limited tickets are also available for more expensive seats, promoter Michael Coppel said.

He said that may be because the unprecedented number of concerts this summer has saturated the Sydney entertainment market.
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Mr Coppel, who is bringing other popular musicians such as Linkin Park, Katy Perry and Rihanna to Australia, said he has "never seen the Australian market this busy".

"Seven national tours that have gone on sale in the last five days," he said, naming Justin Bieber, Santana, Lionel Richie and James Blunt.

"I think it reflects the fact that when they [U2] toured last time, when their tickets went on sale, there were very few other concerts on sale.

"When they toured this time, they were the last big show of the summer to go on sale, and there was substantial sales already to Bon Jovi, and the Eagles, and Leonard Cohen and Muse and a range of other shows.

"Obviously everybody's business is slightly affected because we only have a limited amount of people."

Mr Coppel said one of the reasons that rival promoters had scheduled their concerts all around the same time was that each of them was busy working on their own projects and weren't aware of what their competitors were doing until they reached the promotional stage.

"Every promoter, if they are honest, would say 'I didn't realise it was going to be this busy. Suddenly there are 22 on the market.'"

The cluttered calendar was expected to free up by next winter, as it usually does, and as promoters reassess the number of acts they are bringing in to Australia, he said.

"Hopefully it will be a little less frantic in the summer next year."

About 130,000 tickets were on sale for U2's two concerts.

According to The New York Times, Oprah Winfrey recently asked Bono if he would like to have his own TV show on Oprah’s upcoming new network, OWN. She's quite busy working on new ideas for the cable channel and obviously has faith in Bono's capabilities as a TV star, because at a recent dinner, she asked yer man if he was interested: "I look at everything now through the prism of, ‘This could make a very good TV show!'" It’s not yet clear what kind of TV show she had in mind and whether Bono accepted the offer, but I’m thinking a music / talk show combination would make Bono very happy.

Sometimes 'you can't make it on your own' -- so U2 escaped getting 'stuck in a moment they couldn't get out of' yesterday thanks to Irish Rail.

Passengers travelling on Iarnrod Eireann's 14.20 train from Cork to Dublin were astonished to find themselves sharing a carriage with Bono and Edge.

Jetting back into Ireland from the latest leg of their world tour in Australia, the U2 stars were forced to land in Cork after Dublin airport closed.

With roads hazardous due to snowfalls and ice, the group's singer and guitarist contacted Irish Rail to reserve first-class tickets on an early afternoon train from Cork to Dublin.

"As far as we understand Bono and Edge had been delayed and had spent 36 hours travelling from Perth, Australia when they were diverted to Cork.

They contacted us and we were delighted to have them as passengers on Irish Rail yesterday," said Barry Kenny of Irish Rail.

Sources claim that stunned passengers on the 14.20 train leaving Cork yesterday initially mistook Bono and Edge for members of a U2 tribute act.

But they realised their mistake over the course of the journey.

© Belfast Telegraph, 2010.