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https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/rare-u2-dublin-concert-footage-revealed-1.3861291?mode=amp " For the first time in nearly 40 years, extended footage of U2 shot when they played the roof of an inner-city Dublin community centre in 1982 is to be released. There is hardly a more scrutinised or well-documented band in the history of rock music than U2 and footage, especially rare footage from the early years of the band, is prized. Taken in Sheriff Street, the footage was shot by Dublin filmmaker Sé Merry Doyle on Saturday, July 17th, 1982, a month before singer Bono married Alison Stewart. The band, at that point, were between their second album, October, released in 1981, and War, which propelled them into the mainstream in 1983. Doyle filmed the band’s concert while making a documentary about the demolition of tenement housing in the Gardiner Street/Summerhill area and during the Inner City Looking On community festival. U2’s appearance had been kept secret, so only a small number of the 300 or so people who saw them perform were followers of the band – the rest were locals. It was a chaotic scene, with local youths clambering up on to the roof of the community centre and grabbing at the band’s equipment. A still from the film U2: An Cat Dubh showing the band playing at a community festival on Sheriff Street in Dublin in July 1982. Photograph: IFI/Merry Doyle Twice during the band’s 45-minute set a swarthy local man stumbled on stage looking to sing, taking the microphone from Bono before a crew member recovered it. The man wanted to sing a Chubby Checker song, Let’s Twist Again, so Bono calmed the situation by singing it a-capella before the band started into An Cat Dubh from their debut album, Boy. Bono even managed to fit in a brief homily about the underprivileged area before the band, three of whom were born-again Christians, played Rejoice from the October album – when the buildings around them come crumbling down, the singer told the crowd, one word could save them: rejoice. Mr Doyle included 45 seconds of the footage in his 1982 documentary Looking On, and a short excerpt in his 1997 follow-up documentary Alive Alive O. “It was an amazing gig. There was one journalist there, Bill Graham from Hot Press, who often wondered would they ever get back to [the level of] that gig on Sheriff Street. “It really is the beginning of the U2 sound. They are raw and they are rough and they are dangerous. It was a great night. I was lucky to catch it.” Collectors Mr Doyle said he kept the footage under lock and key since 1982. “A couple of private collectors tried to buy it off me but because they can’t control the music, the natural home for it is the U2 organisation,” he said. “Bono is aware of the footage and loves it. Aside from the little fragment that was in the actual film, it has not been shown before.” The footage is being made available to the public online through the Irish Film Institute (IFI), which has digitised the material from Mr Doyle’s Loopline Collection. The other documentaries which are digitised include Alive Alive O, which examines a time when street traders were coming under increased pressure from legislators. Essie’s Last Stand, perhaps the most timely piece in the collection, examines an elderly woman’s fight to stay in her home as it is earmarked for development. Also going live will be Loopline documentaries focusing on the life and career of artist Patrick Scott, architect James Gandon and sculptor John Henry Foley. In addition there are 30-minute interviews with writers including Margaret Atwood, Richard Ford, Gore Vidal, Colm Tóibín and Doris Lessing. See ifiplayer.ie Direct link to footage: https://ifiplayer.ie/looking-on/

So gigs for Ireland will have paperless GA tickets. Great news for the fans, not so good for secondary sellers...

Just got this text from my mobile phone company: from 3Plus: Due to unforseen circumstances the 3Plus U2 ticket sale is cancelled and the code you obtained is no longer valid. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Tickets on sale 9am Friday 02/02/18 from usual outlets. Now, as it happens I am not relying on this presale, having eventually gotten lucky with the other presales this week. However I’d be freaked if I was relying on it.

Plans for a U2 museum on the site of the band’s recording studio in Dublin’s docklands are at an advanced stage, with a planning application set to be lodged in the coming days. Despite the fact that – along with Guinness, St Patrick, Oscar Wilde and, possibly, Michael Flatley’s feet – U2 are Ireland’s most famous export, there are no public spaces celebrating the band’s achievements on the world stage. Even the walls of graffiti which once surrounded their old studio at Windmill Lane have been levelled to make way for towers of glass and steel. It is intended the four-storey museum will be dedicated to the band’s archive and will include artefacts covering its 40-year story. It will sit adjacent to the studio in an unimposing warehouse on Hanover Quay where some of U2’s most famous songs over the last 20 years have been recorded. Latest twist According to sources familiar with the process, designs for the museum, will be housed in a cantilevered building jutting out over the river Liffey, have already been drawn up. If the museum goes ahead, it will be just the latest twist in a game of pass the parcel which has been running for 15 years. In 2002, much to the annoyance of U2, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) bought the studio with the plan being to level it. By way of comfort, the band were to be given the top two floors of a nearby development which quickly became known as the U2 Tower. Planning permission was granted for the tower but the economic crash intervened and the proposals were quietly shelved. Innovative tourism offering Meanwhile, U2 continued to rent the Hanover Quay studio, which they had sold for millions of euros. In 2014, in a deal said to be worth €450,000, they bought it back. While the planning application has yet to be approved, An Bord Pleanála has previously gone on the record saying the studios “were part of the cultural heritage of the area and should be celebrated with new innovative tourism offering”. Neither the band nor any of its spokespersons could be reached for comment over the weekend. Source: The Irish Times https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/u2-museum-plans-enter-an-advanced-stage-1.3178797?mode=amp