U2 to tour world in ‘intimate’ arenas

He may be laid up after a bike accident but it hasn’t stopped Bono from announcing a new U2 world tour.

The lead singer of the world’s top touring act — they’ve sold almost 23m tickets to 625 shows, grossing over $1.5bn (€1.21bn) at the box office over the past 30 years — announced details yesterday of a 44-show 19-city tour across the US, Canada and Europe.

“We are going to try to have a completely different feeling from night one to night two and have some fun playing with the idea of innocence and experience,” Bono said.

The band also confirmed that they will play arenas for the first time in a decade.

Billboard.com reported yesterday that staging will be in the middle of the arenas, spanning the length of the arena floor, with a giant double-sided screen running above the stage.

The Irish super-group, whose U2 360° tour in 2009-2011 smashed records by grossing $736.4m from 110-shows, will kick off their iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour 2015 in Vancouver on May 14.

The band will go on to play 22 shows across North America, followed by 22 more in 10 cities across the UK and Europe, kicking off in Turin in September 4.

Special shows are being planned for Dublin for the end of next year to benefit the U2-initiated Music Generation project. Details of these dates will be announced soon.

Pre-sale tickets will go on sale for the fan club at 10am today before going on general sale next Monday.

The new tour follows the recent release of U2’s 13th studio album Songs of Innocence by Island Records, which was given to U2.com subscribers and gifted by Apple to over half a billion iTunes Music Store customers worldwide.

Despite the controversy over the iTunes’ gift, Songs of Innocence has been streamed 81m times and downloaded by 30m fans.

The new tour will be produced by Live Nation’s Global Touring division, led by Arthur Fogel, president of Global Touring and chairman of Global Music for Live Nation.

“The anticipation for a U2 tour is always extraordinary, as it should be,” he said.

“Following the record-setting 360° Tour I’m amazed that they still want to be ground-breaking, this time on a more intimate scale.”