Breaking Waves…Fire Aid, Lists, Marianne Faithfull, V-U2
Original Story by Aaron J. Sams (2025-01-30)
Getting a lot of questions today about the Fire Aid concerts which will start in a couple of hours. U2 shared on their social media accounts news of the concerts and how to view them. The concerts take place tonight at the Intuit Dome and Kia Forum in Los Angeles and will be widely streamed on television and the internet. U2, however, are not listed to perform, but we will be keeping an eye out to see if they make an appearance in some way, perhaps remotely as they have done for other events in the past? (Update: U2, as expected, did not appear, but they did send a donation of one million dollars, which was announced by Billy Crystal at the start of the broadcast.)
Rolling Stone put together a list of “The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far” looking at albums released in 2000 and beyond. U2 appear only once in the list, with All That You Can’t Leave Behind at number 162. The full list is here.
“Sunday Bloody Sunday appears on another Rolling Stone list, this time the 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time. The song comes in at #30 on the list of 100 songs which can be seen in full here.
Tonight we’re thinking of Marianne Faithfull.
Bono and Edge wrote a song for her, “Conversation on a Barstool” and while she played it live for years, she was the third act to release it. Hazel O’Connor released a version in 1995, and Annie Ross and the Low Note Quintet performed the song in the Short Cuts film. She sang the song in concert throughout the 1990s but Marianne’s own recording wasn’t released until 1998 on her anthology album A Perfect Stranger.
RIP Marianne. She had a long career in music and film. If you are looking for a recommendation for what to check out beyond the song Bono and The Edge wrote for her, we suggest her album Broken English which garnered her a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Last week Larry Mullen made an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson show to promote his film, Left Behind. The appearance can be seen on YouTube here. The appearance aired on January 22, but was taped earlier, on January 16, 2024.
A new book about U2 has been announced. U2: The Last Biggest Band in the World is described as a “Walk through U2’s career to take stock of their highs and lows, their epic ambition contrasted with their courageous willingness to fail, all while placing them in a larger context of culture over the course of 50 years. The book will take a while to be ready, and is due out in 2028. It is being written by Steven Hyden who has written a number of books about rock and pop music, including books about Radiohead and Pearl Jam. Keep an eye out for more news as we get closer to publication.
U2 themselves made some noise lately with a new book offer, which commemorates the film V-U2 at Sphere. The book, is a book of photography from the Sphere shows by band photographer, Ross Stewart. The book was announced as a limited offer via U2.com for the members, and was limited to two copies per subscriber. The book sold out before the subscriber-exclusive 24-hours ended.
The book will be 30cm x 30cm, and will feature 156 pages, containing 140 photos. Along with the photos there will be an introduction by Stewart, one by The Edge, and an essay by Pat Carty, a journalist from Ireland.
Stewart shared from his introduction, “Edge’s guitar ripped open the wall, Bono coaxed the stars from the sky, Adam Clayton made the sphere disappear and then Vegas itself disappeared altogether. For 40 nights U2 performed magic, clearly enjoying the stage, the best show band in town. LM was missed but Bram really stepped up.”
For those who missed out on ordering a copy, a small number are available in Las Vegas at Sphere itself. Those copies are numbered out of 3000 so it looks like only 3000 copies have been produced. Those copies at Sphere are also selling for $75.
Additional new items for merchandise include a foil poster with the band playing under the flaming flag, and a T-shirt which also uses the flaming flag.
What’s next for U2? We’re told they are due back in studio this week to continue work on their new album. Tentative plans call for the album to be released this November if they can get it finished in time. In the meantime we’ll have Bono’s film “Stories of Surrender” soon, expect details to be announced in April with its debut not far behind. More information on the solo tour that was filmed by director Andrew Dominik can be found in our show archive.
Pet Shop Boys announced today that they are releasing Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live on Blu-ray and double CD. The set is released on May 2, 2025, and contains a performance from the Royal Arena, Copenhagen. The fourth song of the set? Their cover of U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” for anyone who is a fan.
Speaking of covers, Zucchero has released his album Discover II and includes his cover of “With or Without You” sharing, “Bono hasn’t heard it yet. I hope he doesn’t tell me off, but I think he’ll like it…” (You can hear it here…)
For those looking for us on newer social media platforms, we’ve added Bluesky and Threads to our platforms.
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