According to a Billboard exclusive reveal, U2 ‘360′, U2’s world tour in support of its new album No Line on the Horizon, will play stadiums around the world, beginning June 30 in Barcelona. The tour is destined to become one of the highest-grossing tours ever; at $389 million, the band’s 2005-2007 Vertigo tour is second only to the Rolling Stones’ A Bigger Bang trek.
“We’re very excited about the idea to go on the road with this album,” the Edge says. “It’s an album that I think is going to translate so well to the live context. The songs we’ve tried in rehearsal are sounding fantastic, so that’s got everyone really fired up.”

The tour will be global and lengthy: The basic layout of the tour is Europe in July and August, America in September and October with a total of 40-45 shows this year; more stadiums in America in June and July next year, then August and September in Europe. The trek then tentatively will hit South America in the fall of 2010, for potentially as many as 90-100 shows over the next two years. U2 will stay in Europe through Aug. 22, and then hit American shores on Sept. 12 with a show at Soldier Field in Chicago. The band will play in North America until Oct. 28 and plans on working the globe until the fall of 2010.
“This is going to be completely different, and that’s what makes it exciting - finding something new to bring to the touring culture,” says the Edge. “It’s hard to come up with something that’s fundamentally different, but we have, I think, on this tour. Where we’re taking our production will never have been seen before by anybody, and that’s an amazing thing to be able to say. For a band like U2 that really thrive on breaking new ground, it’s a real thrill.”

This will be the first tour under U2’s 12-year multi-rights deal with Live Nation, though the band’s relationship with global music chairman Arthur Fogel dates back to a show at the El Mocambo in Toronto in 1979. “Arthur and I are great friends and I’ve been very interested in the Live Nation project for years now, and we’ve been very supportive of it,” says U2 manager Paul McGuinness. “We obviously intend to go on performing for a long time to come and that’s what the deal reflects. U2 always had parallel careers as recording artists and a touring act and it was always fundamental to our way of thinking that the two should be complimentary.”

“On the last tour it basically broke down indoors in America and stadiums outside of America. Both shows were pretty different and they were both incredible, but I think the general feeling, and certainly mine, was the experience of U2 in a stadium is special and unique, and it would be great for North America to experience that the way the rest of the world did the last time around.”

Field level is going to be $55, and there will be 10,000 tickets a show, every show, at $30, Fogel says. The price points are $250, $90-$95, depending on the market; $55 and $30.

On-sales will begin in Europe in mid-March, and North American on-sales will start in late March/early April.

Sources: billboard.com; rtvchannel.tv;

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 8:56 am and is filed under News.