U2: coming for the music or the message?

By John Baiata, NBC News’ Senior Editor

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Political activism from rock stars has a long lineage. You can trace it all the way back to George Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh" in 1972, the "No Nukes" concert in New York in 1979, "LIVE AID" and "We Are the World" in the 1980's, and many more. Today such activism is ubiquitous. Concert-goers are urged to support a wide range of causes, and artists' web sites act as grass-roots organizations for a multitude of high-minded projects.

But no band – and no band leader – embodies this ideal more today than U2 and Bono. The band supports the efforts of Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the Chernobyl Children’s Project. Bono has used his fame to put considerable pressure on countries to reduce the burden of debt on developing countries and to draw attention to the fight against AIDS in Africa with his RED project.

Evan Agostini / AP

Lead singer Bono of the rock band U2 performs with the band during their 360 world tour stop at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ on Thursday.

U2 was the first big band to play in Sarajevo after the Bosnian war, launched an effort to put thousands of musical instruments back in the hands of New Orleans artists after Katrina, and have been very vocal in their support of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Many of their songs over the years have drawn on socio-political events for inspiration – from the fighting in Northern Ireland to the civil war in El Salvador.

The band’s latest world tour, in support of their most recent album, "No Line on the Horizon," has drawn praise from critics. The tour’s latest stop, at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, sold out for its two nights. With 84,000 attendees per night, that’s more over 160,000 to rally to the cause(s) in just two nights. (According to U2's Web site, they broke every record for attendence in the stadium - breaking the record previously set by Pope John Paul II in 1995.) Do the math for the rest of the tour, and you begin to understand the extent of the band’s reach, and that of others with similar followings.

But what’s the real draw, the music or the message?

For Kevin Sheridan, 37, an advertising salesman from Malverne, N.Y. the two go hand in hand. "I tend to like those (musicians) with a message. Usually the music is better, because it comes from the heart." Sheridan drew the line when it comes to Hollywood, however. "These artists write their own music, which reflects their views, and you know going in where they stand. But I don’t want to be preached to by someone just because they’ve starred in a movie."

Blair Thill, 22, of Little Silver, New Jersey, said Bono’s activism was part of what attracted her to the band to begin with. His involvement in the fight to eliminate AIDS in Africa even inspired her to do a fundraising bake sale during high school in support of the cause. But, she said, "I would venture to say most people are going to this concert for the music, not a social cause."

John Baiata, NBC News

Images of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a song dedicated to her.

Dori Kenyon, 38, a representative for Amnesty International manning one of several booths outside the venue, did not entirely agree. "You get all types. Some people are here because they [U2] have been around for 30 years, and they love the music…There are others who are here because they believe in what we’re doing, and Bono supports that."

Kenyon had made the drive from Lancaster, Pennsylvania with her son because she said, "We have a responsibility to everyone around the globe." She was collecting signatures in support of three causes – a bill guaranteeing maternal health benefits for women in the U.S., a petition urging U.S. lawmakers to deliver a plan that fulfills "the human right to health care," and another urging the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all other "prisoners of conscience" in Myanmar.

Suu Kyi was in the spotlight on this night almost as often as the band members.

The group’s Web site encouraged fans attending the show to download and print a mask of her face, and to wear it during their performance of "Walk On," a song written for her. Her image was beamed over the giant video screens above the set as Bono talked about her lengthy detention and fight for freedom.

Her plight was probably news to most in attendance. Not a single fan I spoke to beforehand had even heard of her, and no one visible in the crowd had donned the mask of her image.

Yet all eyes were on Bono as he spoke, and as he sang, in part:

"You could have flown away

A singing bird in an open cage

Who will only fly, only fly for freedom"

South African Bishop Desmond Tutu’s video message to the crowd, which preceded the encores, received a raucous cheer. Tutu reminded the crowd that they were "the same people" who protested for civil rights in America, against apartheid in South Africa and the troubles in Northern Ireland.

John Baiata, NBC News

A video message from Bishop Desmond Tutu preceded the encores.

A few minutes later we were reminded that contributions from Americans to the "ONE" campaign had helped deliver life-saving drugs to 34 million African schoolchildren, along with a couple of other encouraging statistics.

When the concert was over, those in attendance began to file out, talking excitedly about what they’d just witnessed. And while none I heard were talking about Aung San Suu Kyi, they’d all been given a primer as part of the price of admission.

U2 manager delighted to bring stage show full circle

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - As U2 wraps the 2009 dates of its groundbreaking 360 world stadium tour, the band is expected to gross about $300 million and sell about 3 million tickets to fewer than 50 shows.

Rather than a high-end ticket price, the big numbers are more about a unique staging concept that boosts configurations at stadiums, and fans know that U2 is again pushing the production envelope. The tour is in support of the band's latest album, "No Line on the Horizon," and if it isn't scaling the sales heights of previous sets -- since its March release, "Line" has sold 991,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan -- the band's manager, Paul McGuinness, credits that more to overall market conditions than a decline in the act's popularity.

Though sometimes outspoken about industry issues -- his 2008 MIDEM keynote excoriating the industry for its lackluster response to digital distribution still resonates -- McGuinness is anything but riled as he sits in an office backstage at Chicago's Soldier Field just before U2 went onstage. "What do I possibly have to be pissed off about?" he wonders. Both pragmatist and gambler, McGuinness guides the career of what has become arguably the biggest band in the world, and it has been a banner year for the group he has represented since the start of its career.

Much like the band he represents, McGuinness continually focuses on breaking new ground, and he's constantly looking for new ideas. The 360 tour is U2's first under a new 10-year Live Nation multiple-rights deal. While he doesn't claim to have all the answers, McGuinness is open to new horizons, as evidenced by "the claw," the massive staging concept that makes U2's 360 tour truly an all-encompassing experience.

Billboard: How did the European leg feel to you on this run of the 360 tour?

Paul McGuinness: Incredible. We played to staggering numbers. We've broken records in every building we play because the effect of this production economically is to increase the capacity by about 20 percent routinely. For instance, in Berlin at Olympic Stadium, we held the record already jointly with the Rolling Stones at 70,000. This time I think we put in 90,000. Every building we play we will break whatever record there is there.

Billboard: So you feel good about the live part of U2's business?

McGuinness: Absolutely, because in a way there's a memory in the audience. They've always known that when you come to a U2 show -- even when we were doing theaters -- we would do as much production as we could afford. Once we got into arenas, we loved it -- we always played in the round in the arenas -- so this seems natural to be in the round in the stadiums.

The engineering problems are enormous and costly. We had to find a way for it to be aesthetic and figure out a way of doing video. That cylindrical screen we have -- that didn't exist, we had to get somebody to invent that. We had to design this four-legged thing (the claw) -- and build three of them.

Billboard: How long will it take to get into the black?

McGuinness: When do we hit the break-even point? We haven't hit it yet. But we will sometime between now and the end of this leg.

Billboard: So next year is gravy?

McGuinness: Not exactly gravy, because whether we're playing or not, the overhead is about $750,000 daily. That's just to have the crew on payroll, to rent the trucks, all that. There's about 200 trucks. Each stage is 37 trucks, so you're up to nearly 120 there. And then the universal production is another 50-odd trucks, and there are merchandise trucks and catering trucks.

Billboard: Why do that when you can go out and set up a stage and still play stadiums and be in the black before you reach these shores?

McGuinness: Well, we have been trying to find a way of doing 360 for years. This was not something we decided to do recently -- we just couldn't find a way of doing it. The engineering to build a temporary structure capable of bearing the weight that this carries, hundreds of tons, nobody had come up with a way of doing that. (Set designer) Willie Williams and (architect) Mark Fisher had been teasing at it for years.

The other thing that has come such a long way is the LED technology -- those little guys -- we started the use of them for the industry with the PopMart tour (in 1997), and they weren't completely reliable in those days. We had a lot of technical trouble with that. The kind of modern production style really can be traced back to ZooTV (in 1992), which was a groundbreaking production. Building this cylindrical screen was only made possible by the trellis on which it's mounted, which was invented by this guy named Chuck Hoberman.

The coming together of those LED skills, the engineering skills, the imagination of the band, Mark Fisher, years of talking about this and years of seeing occasionally somebody performing in the round in a structure that would take a week or two to build and a week to dismantle. You couldn't truck it, you certainly couldn't take it up and down in a couple of days. This had to be transportable -- and it is, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Billboard: The fans seem to get it that you're bringing them something they've never seen before.

McGuinness: Each one of these shows there are 10,000 $30 tickets -- so even though the gross is expanded by the increase in the capacity, we see what's happening in the marketplace, people don't have much money. And so worldwide we came to the decision to have really low-priced tickets. We have some expensive tickets, but our expensive tickets are $250; they're not as expensive as the Rolling Stones' or Madonna's most expensive tickets. I think it's a very fair pricing. The scaling of this tour has worked everywhere we've played.

Billboard: Any comment on the state of the music industry right now?

McGuinness: I don't have a recipe for the solution to the woes of the record companies and the recorded side of the music business. It's very, very important, it must be supported. And there are an awful lot of people and an awful lot of industries and individuals -- the telcos, the (Internet service providers), the device manufacturers -- that have enjoyed an absolute bonanza since music went online. And I just think they should feel more responsible out of a sense of fairness to the community of creative people who make that music, which is now in so many cases completely free. Times change, mechanisms for distributing music change. I would like to see a greater recognition of the obligations the tech side of the business have to the writers and musicians.

I've nothing against big companies. Big companies are there to be infiltrated, they want to be infiltrated, they want you to come in and tell them how to do it, what to do. I've never found a big corporation hostile to anything we wanted to do. Similarly with Live Nation -- our relationship is very close indeed. This is our fourth tour with Arthur (Fogel, global music chairman for Live Nation). The first tour we produced and he promoted. The second one he produced and promoted, because that was better. And as (Live Nation) developed their plan to take Live Nation out of Clear Channel I was absolutely behind that, and I'm totally behind the plan to merge Ticketmaster and Live Nation. I think it's very good for the industry.

Click, click: What U2 hears when they hear U2

In Obama we trust ...less each day

As President Obama described his new policy on missile defense against Iran in Europe, I felt reassured when he promised that scrapping the Bush plan would actually strengthen America’s security.

Then I quickly remembered Obama also promised his health care overhaul wouldn’t add a dime to the deficit.

Yikes. Run for your life.

The moment captured for me what is the greatest mystery about our young president. Why does he continue to squander the public trust he worked so hard to build and that he will need for the many battles to come?

The central problem is his relentless push for health legislation the public doesn’t want. The harder he pushes — five TV interviews are scheduled for today — the more the country resists.

One result is a shocking trust deficit, as reflected in a recent Quinnipiac survey. By a whopping 68 – 26 percent margin, voters in Connecticut reported they don’t believe Obama when he says the health care plan will not add to the deficit. The findings mirror national ones reported in July.

Imagine that — an American president is not believed on his signature claim by nearly 7 in 10 people. Yet he insists, without evidence, he is right and they are wrong.

A president can go broke fighting public trust. As it stands, Obama will soon be like the little boy who called wolf too often.

Surely he knows how that story ends, so why continue on this destructive course?

That’s the mystery.