The concert promoting company, Live Nation Inc. has signed a 12 year deal with U2 which gives the company the exclusive rights for the production of concerts for U2 and to manufacture and trade its merchandise, to run the U2 website as well as the online fan club. The new deal will guarantee the required inventory for the ticketing service which will be launched in 2009. The deal will not involve the distribution and publishing of the U2’s recorded music.

The Live Nation and its allies had produced and publicized almost all the world –tour of U2 from the year 1997 and a subsidiary of Live Nation was managing the fan club and website of U2 already. U2 has the potential to draw large number of fans to the concert and their last world tour grossed about $ 389.4 million which is the highest grossing tour in the history of box-office. The U2 fans believe that the new deal will remove the problems that the group faced during last tour.

The Edge, a popular guitarist of the U2 band and one who will be easily recognized by any ardent U2 fan, has revealed that it is the friendship that each of the band mates have among themselves that is a major contributing factor to the longevity of the U2 band. The guitarist has said that the camaraderie among the band members is the sole reason for the band to last for three decades and this has led to the band coming up with distinct music and sounds in their albums.

The U2 guitarist feels that it might be due to the fact that all the members of the U2 band were friends before forming the band group that they have succeeded for three decades in this challenging music world. He felt that the bonding among the band members were so strong that even in terms of adversities and huge conflicts, they were able to evade off the big conflicts very easily.

The first live action movie of U2 that is presently running to packed houses and is creating box office records in many parts of Ireland and the U.K is also now becoming a huge rage in America. The Catherine Owens directed movie, U2 3D is the first movie to be shot, produced and exhibited using the 3D technology and fans are really enjoying the movie. The 3D movie featuring the U2 was shot during the pop band’s South American Vertigo tour.

The Pacific Science Center in Seattle is seeing unprecedented rush for the movie and the rush never seems to stop despite the center extending the run of the movie. The Seattle Science Center has further on increased the shows and now there will be two extra shows daily at 7:15 pm as well as 9:30 pm. The revised schedule of screening the U2 3D movie will be effective till the 3rd of April and fans are thrilled about the increase in the show timings.

The sixth annual Bono’s Birthday Well fundraiser was launched on March 17th by the African Well Fund in a bid to raise money for their welfare projects to support the needy people in Africa by cashing in on the popularity of the U2’s front man Bono. This year’s Bono Birthday fundraiser is named as “Walk to the Water….Walk With Me” and its main aim is to raise funds in honor of the birthday of U2 star Bono that falls on May 10th. The details of the projects that will be benefitted by this fund raising project will be announced later.

There was a similar event that the African Well Fund organized and they were able to raise $34,000 during the Bono’s Birthday Well fundraiser concept. The funds were allotted to projects that were carried out in several Ugandan schools to provide proper drinking water facilities as well as sanitation for the school children and the project was carried out in partnership with Africare and Invisible Children organizations. These projects are currently underway and many schools in Uganda have also benefitted from the funds that were raised last year. The donations for this year will be accepted from March 17th till May 10th this year and there are expectations that Bono and U2 fans will be more generously contributing for this good cause this year.

The U2’s famed producer Daniel Lanois, who has worked with them from the “Joshua Tree” to their latest album “How to Build an Atomic Bomb” has said that he has a strong relationship with the very popular band U2 and its members and the rapport that he has with them has reflected in the albums that they have done together. He says that the unique bond, love and affection that they share are totally out of this world. Lanois says that the freedom that each one in the band and he has in their sessions, to speak their mind out if they find something is wrong somewhere, is the only reason that they have come up with such original songs in their albums.

Lanois said that he will take the recent comment of U2’s front man Bono, that Daniel is an ancient, has been taken by him as a compliment. Daniel says that he is not the kind off guy who likes to rush up things and is prepared to fight for a soulful tune until it is made. Bono is the one who brings in many new ideas often while composing songs and the entire group will be listening to him with their thinking caps on, in a bid to come up with a different and original, but soulful composition.

Soul Factory is all set to release a new album that will celebrate the music, culture and future of the African nation and also pay homage to the very popular band group, U2 and particularly to the charitable front man of U2 band, Bono, on April 1st, 2008. The album named as “In the Name of Love: Africa celebrates U2” is a musical tribute to the great band U2 who are doing yeomen humanitarian service through their charitable concerts and tours to support the downtrodden people of Africa. The portion of the record sales will benefit the Global Fund, a non profitable charity organization and the album features songs by Grammy Award winning and nominated African artists like Les Nubians, Vieux Farka Toure, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, Soweto Gospel Choir and many more.

The album has 12 classic hit songs of the famous band U2 sung by the popular African singers. The songs that are present in the album include “Mysterious Ways”, “Love is Blindness”, “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own”, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “Seconds” etc. In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2 is produced by Paul Heck and Shawn Amos and they felt that it was important for the African musicians to recognize the efforts of eminent personalities like Bono and hence came up with this album to salute the charitable efforts of the U2 band.

Bono, the leader of the U2 band amazed his fans once again this Monday by making a call to the 2FM radio show and then, by appearing at a public function along with politicians in Berlin. Bono rang up to an early morning 2FM radio show on his way to drop his daughter to school. Bono, through the medium of radio defended the news about his legendary voice. He was upset about the news that he was not singing the famous song “In a life Time” with Moya Brennan, the Clannad singer as the quality of his voice has deteriorated.

Bono laughed off the allegation and made clear that he could still sing high notes without any problem. He said that the report is only an Inter-band rivalry. Bono sang a jingle to entertain his hosts of the radio. Bono later reached Berlin to attend the parliamentary council meeting of the Social Democrats. He rang the bell to start the meeting and was seen standing next to Peter Struck. Bono was happy that fighting poverty with money was helping millions of lives. He also appreciated the debt relief law which will provide help in sending 29 million children in Africa to study in school.

U2’s third album “War” is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and the producer of the album Steve Lilywhite is talking about his experience with the band while making the album. Steve remembers that he was hesitant to take up the third album with U2 as he has already done “Boy” and “October” with them and believed that it was good for the band to work with different producers. After, the bad performance of “October” they needed to come back and was well supported by Chris Blackwell. Steve remembers that the band members were more focused in the “War’ sessions and Bono wanted Edge to be more sharp and aggressive.

Steve said that, he tried to make War as different as possible from the two earlier albums as it was the same band and same singers. Steve is proud that he was able to do the Remix of “New Year’s Day” within 15 minutes. Steve has high regards for Bono and his ability to market his band. He believes that U2 has the power of making use of their inadequacies to their advantage. War, one of the best albums produced by U2, contained all the major ingredients for success of an album like commitment, passion and the power of music.

Ireland’s spiritual singing group Clannad is preparing for comeback to the spot light. The group member Sally Williams remembers the help of Bono in creating the super hit song “In a Life Time” by lending his unique voice about 20 years ago. Now, the Irish band is visiting Wales as part of their first U.K tour, but the fans will miss the U2 lead singer with this group. Bono was never comfortable in giving the live performance of this hit song said vocalist and guitarist Duggan.

The Clannad’s has performed it in Top of the Pops without Bono. Duggan informed that Bono is not ready to sing it because he feels that he doesn’t possess the voice to sing it anymore. In this U.K tour, the singer Bryan Kennedy is expected to perform it in Belfast. Duggan says that Bono is a real down to earth kind of man and he is very proud of his friend. The group Clannad consists of Duggan, his niece, Moya Brennan the lead singer, Ciaran Brennan and Padraig, Duggan’s twin brother. Duggan is now 60 years and still loves to perform on stage. The come back concert will give a rare chance for their fans to hear all the chart breaking songs.

The lead singer of the famous rock band U2, Bono, who is always in the news, has said that the new album that the U2 band is recording in their Dublin studio will be totally uncompromising as well as a far-reaching album. Bono said that he could not reveal much about the album right now, but opined that the album that the U2 band is currently producing will be no less than a great album. He says that the new album will be enjoyed by both the young and the old alike and that the band is working day in and day out to produce an album that is totally extraordinary.

Bono is pretty confident that the new album will definitely shock many people once it is released. Bono has hinted that the upcoming album will have Moroccan influence in some songs and also said that the listeners can feel a bit of the trance and the metal in the album. Bono felt that this new album will bring a few people on to the dance floor. The producer of the U2’s new album has confirmed that the Irish rockers have already started work on the follow up of the U2’s 2004 album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.