|
 |
|
|
|
|
"If you can break out of Dublin, you can break out of anywhere." -- Bono |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"If you can break out of Dublin, you can break out of anywhere." -- Bono |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
Column: off the record..., vol. 9-426
@U2,
September 05, 2010
About a week ago, I came this close to hitting the "buy" button on United Airlines' web site as I stared at an amazingly low fare for a trip from my home airport (PSC) to Sydney, Australia: $1,015. That's about half, or maybe a little less than half of what it normally costs. The timing was perfect: I would've arrived in Sydney a day early to give me time to recover from the long trip, and I'd be staying an extra day in case they added a second show (which they did). But aside from the financial concerns -- add in a hotel room for three nights and I was looking at $1500 not including food -- I couldn't bring myself to book the trip. Even if I had a couple thousand dollars burning a hole in my wallet, I couldn't have done it. I was afraid. I had a bad feeling about Bono's back injury. It started with reports on Twitter from fans at U2's Moscow concert that Bono looked like he was in pain by the end of the show. Then there was this mysterious news article that claimed Bono needed pain injections in between songs during that same Moscow concert. Then, again on Twitter, fans at the Vienna concert also mentioned that Bono seemed to be in some visible pain. I watched U2gigs.com's video of "Every Breaking Wave" from the Vienna concert, and wow ... the last 10 seconds, Bono sure looks uncomfortable and like he's moving gingerly. And about 10-12 days ago, it looked like U2 was just about to announce its South American/Central American tour dates. But the announcement never happened. Hmmmmmmmm. So all of this stuff is just snowballing in my brain, and I'm thinking ... what if they have to cancel the Australian tour altogether? I didn't have hypochondria for me, I had it for Bono! So, I was pretty relieved to see the news on Saturday that U2 was adding more concerts in Australia and New Zealand. Surely they'd not do that if there was a chance the tour would be postponed ... right? And it also helped to see this tweet from Aaron at U2wanderer.org, posted after Friday's Athens concert:
Whew. So that's good news. But now there's other bad news. That airfare to Sydney? It's now at $2,101. Ugh. If you're a paid U2.com subscriber, did you notice how the first batch of member pre-sales were handled for the Aussie/NZ shows? Subscribers were put into two groups: Group 1 was Horizon, Breathe, Magnificent, and Boots-level members, and Group 2 was Cedar-level. In other words: there was no staggered pre-sale, no benefit to being a long-time fan club member. If you joined Propaganda in 1985, you had the same access to tickets as someone who joined U2.com one month ago. Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not a believer in fan entitlement. Old-school Propaganda members aren't better or more deserving than someone who became a fan last week. But, I am a fan of U2.com following through on its promises, and one of the promises of membership has always been that long-time members will get first crack at pre-sale tickets. If you're gonna make that promise, you have to follow through on it. But, for some reason, that hasn't been the case with the Aussie/NZ tour. When news came out a couple years ago that U2 was using a Hiroshi Sugimoto photo for the cover of No Line on the Horizon, I recall there being some articles in which it was said that there was no monetary consideration in the use of the photo on the album cover. Does that sound familiar? Well, I don't know if or how this fits into the concept of no monetary consideration, but Sugimoto is selling framed, limited edition prints of the album cover image -- complete with U2's autographs -- for the low, low price of $3,500. It's down near the bottom of this Yoshii Gallery web page. So, if U2 didn't pay him directly for use of the photo, it seems they agreed to help him make a little bit of it on his own. And finally ... if you're into yoga, this might be right up your alley.
See you soon! (c) @U2, 2010.
|
|
|
||||||
|
||||||||
