Stars follow $270m Facebook stake with backing for internet storage service

Lisa O'Carroll, The Guardian

His investment firm is looking forward to potential profits of about $1bn (£620m) from Facebook. Now U2 front man Bono appears to have developed a thirst for web technology, giving his personal backing to internet storage service Dropbox alongside bandmate the Edge.

The U2 pair were announced as individual investors by Dropbox in a picture posted on Twitter showing the musicians posing with founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi.

The service, which is still in its formative stages, has more than 50m users and was described as "tech's hottest startup" by Forbes in a cover story last November. The company did not specify how much the musicians invested.

According to Forbes, revenue is expected to hit $240m in 2011 even though 96% of users only use its free service.

Dropbox is a web service that allows users to store documents, photos and video in the cloud with the first 2Gb free. Heavy users then pay $10 a month for up to $50Gb and $20 a month for 100Gb in storage.

Houston told Forbes that even if he didn't sign up a single new customer in 2012 his sales would double because of the growth trajectory in storage usage.

The investment by Bono is the latest in a string of tech investments for the U2 frontman.

As cofounder of Elevation Partners he has invested in Palm, Yelp and Facebook, with investment in the latter two companies inspiring the company to start building a new $1bn investment fund.

The first fund, launched in 2004, was worth $1.9bn with $270m of that ploughed into Facebook in three instalments between 2009 and 2010.

The imminent IPO could now value the company at about $100bn, which could net the firm about $1bn, according to sources.

Elevation also committed $100m in an investment in consumer review website Yelp in 2010 on the basis of a valuation of $500m, the source said. Yelp completed its stock market flotation earlier this month and currently has a market capitalisation of $1.4bn.

"They did their IPO in March and based on how it is trading today, they have tripled their investment," said a source.

According to TechCrunch, Bono and the Edge got to know the Dropbox founders after they developed a music app on Facebook, iLike. They approached U2 to help them with the launch of a new feature which would help them promote videos to fans and ended up with an interview and a previously unreleased track.

Rock gods have the same awkward interactions with panhandlers that you do.

U2 guitarist The Edge, producer of Friday night's MTV special on youth homelessness, "The Break," says he, too, sometimes finds himself at a loss about how to help people on the street.

"There's that awful thing where you realize there's nothing you can do, right at that moment, so you kind of pretend they're not there," he told TheWrap. "And I think for somebody who's homeless, particularly someone who's panhandling, that's the most emotionally difficult thing, is to become like a non-person. Like you literally do not exist to someone walking by.

The musician and activist, who says he usually does give money to the homeless people he encounters, has spent three decades working on social causes like African famine relief as a member of his band. U2, the biggest touring act of 2011, has campaigned for causes and organizations from Make Poverty History to Amnesty International.

With "The Break," the Edge and host Anne Mahlum, an advocate for the homeless, profile three young people on the street and try to help them rebuild their lives. They include a woman who was involved in abusive relationships, a gifted drummer who suffered a downward spiral, and a woman who left home because her parents objected to her lesbianism. The Edge also wrote a song for the show, "There's No Home Like Place."

The Edge said U2 is "slowly starting to think about work," but the band is in no rush to get back to the studio, despite a wealth of material. Instead, it's listening to a lot of music. After we talked about the special, he told us what he's playing lately.

What interested you about this project?

It was something that just inspired me early on. I was questioning myself about some of my own ways of relating or not relating to homeless people, and it just started me on kind of a journey to answer some questions for myself. And in the process I started thinking about the way that the homeless are really completely marginalized, and in many cases disenfranchised.

They suffer through a lot of stereotypical views about how they got there. What I've learned is there is a myriad of reasons why someone might become homeless. No two stories are the same. I thought that it was time that there was a little bit more of an intelligent sense of inquiry into this problem. It's particularly serious at the moment with the economic downturn.

I thought if we could really make a difference in somebody's life with an intervention, it could be a reality TV kind of thing that would be very uplifting and inspiring, instead of making people view the show and feel better because they see a lot of bad behavior.

But also if somebody's in a position of being homeless, in could be hopefully an inspiring thing to see.

The question of how to help is a particularly interesting dilemma for you. As part of U2 and singularly, you're one of the most approached people in the world to help contribute to causes. And you're also in a unique position to help a lot of people. How do you choose what you're going to do?

I think it's down to feeling like you can move the needle, that you can make a difference. And of course we can't do everything, because then you'd be so diluted that there wouldn't be any kind of impact to your support or involvement. That's an important thing.

And the things that inspire you and the things that you feel moved to become involved with. As with Bono and his Africa work. He happened to be in Africa at a very pivotal time in his life and witnessed a lot of the problems with famine. And it's stayed with him. For me, there was something about the homelessness issue that was like this voice just saying, you've got to try to find some way of getting involved here.

There were a couple of stories as well that sort of inspired me. One Irish homeless man, in Dublin, quite famously rescued the driver of a bus that had plunged into the River Liffey. And he and a passer-by actually climbed down though this wrecked bus because the front of it was in the water but the back of it was accessible from the bridge. And they climbed down through the broken rear window and dragged the bus driver out and saved his life. But he ended up wandering into the night with his wet clothes to sleep rough.

And it just struck me as a kind of really tragic scenario - I wasn't the only one. It was a big story in Ireland.

Not that you've ever suffered through the kinds of struggles that homeless people do, but as a child or when you were trying to get U2 started, was there a time when you felt like you lived close to the margins?

I mean, friends of ours, during the early days, we would hang out in derelict buildings ... and all that stuff, which was kind of almost a rite of passage, particularly if you were coming out in a punk band, the punk movement. But no, personally, I can't lay claim ever having had to deal with not having a home. Although there are people I know who've had phases of being homeless, I'm not putting myself forward as an expert in homelessness.

In fact, Anne Mahlum, who's the advocate who does all of the heavy lifting in the show, is really the person who made this possible. Without her we didn't have even the beginnings to this film. She brings so much of her own personal experience to this amazing initiative, Back on My Feet, which for years has been brining dozens of homeless people back into regular society.

Ann's got such a depth of experience of being not just an advocate but an interventionist. She will try in as delicate a way as possible to help someone figure out the way forward. As she says no one wants to be homeless, but a lot of homeless people just don't know how now to be. It's a delicate thing. It's not just a case of knowing how to ask for help, it's the feeling like you are worthy of help. And having the courage and strength to realize to put up your hand and realize that you need it and finding it.

We weren't sure at the start of this production what was going to happen. We hope the interventions were going to turn out to be a positive thing but of course there was no guarantee. ... As it happens with Nancy, with Rob, with Ava, all three of the featured homeless people, they showed a great sense of being able to take advantage of the opportunity and to break the stereotypical that if you're homeless you don't want to change, you don't want to work, you don't want to better your situation.

What I learned in the process of making this film is the one thing that seems to be crucial to anyone's progress in life is a community. Supporters, family, friends, work mates, whatever. When someone has no one there to help in that isolated place it's not that hard to fall into this kind of problem of having no home. Connecting these young people if not to their original family and friends to a new community seems like a big step to moving forward.

You've written so many songs that have become associated with different social causes. Do you ever start out thinking, 'I want to do something about this problem and maybe a song will help?' Or does it just evolve out of the music?

It's different ways. In most cases with U2 the music comes first. The lyric will sort of emerge as it were from the music and the emotional content that the music seems to suggest. In this case, for the song I wrote for the show, I was trying to write about homelessness and the issue. In many ways we're all looking for a home, we're all searching.

But it's the lack of a physical place to live, that's the thing that's so crippling. I think would be the only way to describe it for someone who's in that position.

It stops you from doing so many things. Just the act of voting, getting a job. So many things are more difficult if you don't have a place to live. We need to get better at dealing with it.

And can you say what you're listening to now?

There's a very interesting album called "The English Riviera" by Metronomy. It's quite an interesting record. It's kind of timeless but very quirky. But also very fresh. I'm enjoying that. Foster the People just for pure melody is great. And Bon Iver - I love the innovation of that sonically. It's a very interesting record.

© The Wrap News Inc. 2012

By Andrew R. Chow, Crimson Staff Writer

There are thousands of song covers spread across the Internet, and most of them are bad. Some are exact renditions which don't try to add any value to the original song; some, too adventurous, lose the original meaning of the song altogether; some are terribly sung, played, and recorded. Covers are dangerous ground for aspiring musicians, and knowing the breadth of the existing mediocrity, Jeff Dorenfeld must have approached his new covers project, "Under the Influence," with trepidation. Dorenfeld, the faculty adviser of the Berklee School of Music's Heavy Rotation Records, spearheaded this covers album in which Berklee students and alumni cover the songs of popular alternative rock bands such as Gang of Four, Smashing Pumpkins, and R.E.M. The album is an impressive display of Berklee talent, as each artist completely restyles their two chosen songs without losing the ingenuity of the original compositions.

Kolderie found his young counterparts in the studio to be creative, bold, and technically talented. The album begins with Berklee alum Julia Easterlin playing the Pixies' "Hold My Body" and Radiohead's "There There." Whereas the Pixies' version of the song is pulsing and grungy, Easterlin's version has a bright organic bounce; it relies heavily on vocal rhythmic patterns and Easterlin's expansive vocals. Her Radiohead cover, too, deviates heavily from the original, with shimmering percussive bells and hand drums. "There's no way I can sing Radiohead the way Thom Yorke sings it and pull it off," Easterlin said. "I wanted to take the song in my own direction and make it unsettling and ethereal."

While Easterlin scales up her songs by adding intricate layers of harmony, David Pramik, covering Joy Division and U2, took the opposite approach. His much barer arrangements lean heavily on simple piano and guitar chords and his warm voice. U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," released in 1987, is a soaring epic; Pramik's version is forlorn and hymnal. "[The song] is very biblical and religious," Pramik said. "I wanted to hear it much more intimately." While many other artists on the album succeed through their dense arrangements, Pramik lets the melodies speak for themselves. Moreover, his stripped-down arrangements reveal a strong melodic link between Joy Division and U2, which is exactly what Dorenfeld hoped for.

"Under the Influence" makes for a very strange 48 minutes. The album hops from genre to genre without segues. Da'Rayia turns up the funk on energetic reinterpretations of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Gang of Four; she is followed by the Boston Boy's bluegrass strum of Hüsker Dü's "Don't Wanna Know If You Are Lonely," an album highlight due to its laid back harmonies. The thrashing Berklee String Metal Ensemble immediately follows. But given all of the album's incongruities, Dorenfield acknowledges that the album isn't meant to be critiqued holistically. "We wanted to take from all different genres," Dorenfeld said. "We understand that some tracks may not appeal to some people."

The album may not be cohesive, but the project mostly succeeds because the covers are not just variations of existing compositions but wholly new artistic creations. The arrangements by Kolderie and the individual musicians are fresh and often startling, and the performances are superb. Moreover, the album has impressed at least one of the original artists. "Roger [Miller of Mission of Burma] said he liked the cover of their song," Kolderie said. These Berklee musicians, as well as thousands of their peers, are working tirelessly in hopes of one day being able to admire covers of their own compositions.

--Staff writer Andrew Chow can be reached at andrewchow@college.harvard.edu.

Copyright © 2012, The Harvard Crimson, Inc.

Where the Streets Have No Name in Glastonbury

by Ray Waddell, Billboard

Any year in touring that includes the figure $736,421,586 can only be considered a good year for business.

That mind-blowing sum is the final tally for U2's historic 360° tour, a three-year behemoth that shattered preconceived notions (and capacities) for stadium shows, forever changed the paradigms of concert production and moved more than 7 million tickets around the globe.

When it wrapped in July, 360° went down has the highest-grossing and biggest ticket seller in the history of the business. Of those totals, $293.3 million in box office and nearly 3 million in ticket sales were generated during the Billboard touring calendar, which ran from Nov. 1, 2010, to Nov. 8, 2011-and easily enough to make 360° the top tour of the year.

"As time moves on and we get further away from it, it actually seems more impressive than when you're actually in the middle of it," says Fogel, not a man given to overstatement. "It just leaves a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and is without a doubt one of the greatest experiences in the business that I've ever had."

While it was under way, 360° was a beast to execute, from its initial yearlong setup, to the postponement of the second North American leg due to Bono's back surgery, to the daily grind of pulling off the most ambitious tour ever mounted.

"It was a lot of pressure, even during the down times, because it was so big and so complicated," Fogel says. "The postponement issue was a lot to deal with, so when it ended and time goes by, it seems that much more impressive and an accomplishment to be incredibly proud of."

While 360° is in a class all its own in terms of scale and box office, the principals that made it a success-scaling, routing, showmanship and songs-are relevant across the entire live business. The fact that such numbers could even be achieved, let alone in a down global economy, is a testament to the power of live music.

Months after 360° wrapped in Moncton, New Brunswick, the tour's significance was finally sinking in for Live Nation Global Touring chairman Arthur Fogel, global producer of the epic trek.

"As time moves on and we get further away from it, it actually seems more impressive than when you're actually in the middle of it," says Fogel, not a man given to overstatement. "It just leaves a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and is without a doubt one of the greatest experiences in the business that I've ever had."

While it was under way, 360° was a beast to execute, from its initial yearlong setup, to the postponement of the second North American leg due to Bono's back surgery, to the daily grind of pulling off the most ambitious tour ever mounted.

"It was a lot of pressure, even during the down times, because it was so big and so complicated," Fogel says. "The postponement issue was a lot to deal with, so when it ended and time goes by, it seems that much more impressive and an accomplishment to be incredibly proud of."

While 360° is in a class all its own in terms of scale and box office, the principals that made it a success-scaling, routing, showmanship and songs-are relevant across the entire live business. The fact that such numbers could even be achieved, let alone in a down global economy, is a testament to the power of live music.

TAKE THAT, BON JOVI

Many other acts rang up big numbers in what turned out to be a resounding comeback year for the live music business. Chief among them was Bon Jovi, which, remarkably, put together the biggest tour in the band's history with the Circle trek. The tour ended up grossing some $265 million, including $193 million this year. A critical element of Bon Jovi's success is that, unlike many of its peers from the same era, it isn't a nostalgia band. New albums top the Billboard charts, new songs are played on contemporary radio, and new fans come onboard to sing along to those new tunes and the classics. Maintaining relevancy is an obsession for frontman Jon Bon Jovi and is critical to the band's ongoing success.

"We've been blessed by having had that cross-generational thing and still being accepted by the masses so that they make the records No. 1 all around the world," Bon Jovi says. "Unless we had two generations of fans, we wouldn't be able to sell out those stadiums, but with that we can."

The list of the Top 25 Tours comprises a healthy mix of genres and generations. Most of the names on the tally are familiar on a worldwide basis, but one group -- reunited British pop sensation Take That -- shocked many observers by ringing up box office to the tune of $185 million, with attendance of 1.8 million. Those numbers were primarily driven by shows in the group's U.K. home base and across Europe.

One person who wasn't surprised by Take That's staggering take is Simon Moran, managing director of SJM Concerts, promoter of Take That's shows in England. While conceding that the group's numbers are impressive, Moran says they shouldn't be totally shocking. "Their track record in the U.K. is second to none," he says. "You go through U2, Oasis, the Rolling Stones -- they outdraw all of them in the U.K. And the production is unbelievable. It's like Cirque du Soleil mixed with a rock show."

Another Brit in the upper echelon of 2011 is Pink Floyd alum Roger Waters, who launched his conceptual tour of landmark Floyd album The Wall last year and continued it this year to the tune of $150 million from 92 shows reported to Billboard Boxscore. The tour, which ventured into international waters this year and has been extended into 2012, was produced by Live Nation and booked by William Morris Endeavor.

"Live Nation basically bought that tour and drove it. [Live Nation CEO] Michael Rapino and his crew did this worldwide," WME contemporary music head Marc Geiger says. "It's a massive hit everywhere. The Wall is the gift that keeps on giving, and it's a testament to one of the biggest bands of all time."

Taylor Swift firmly secured her status as a member of the touring elite. Her Speak Now tour took her into international markets for the first time, and also to her first stadium shows in North America. In only her second headlining tour, Swift grossed nearly $97 million for the year-end recap period, and sold more than 1.3 million tickets, with dates still coming in as the chart year ended.

Once all numbers are reported, Speak Now will have topped $100 million and 1.5 million tickets sold in the United States alone, according to tour promoter Louis Messina, president of TMG/AEG Live. In addition to significant overseas work, Swift hit stadiums for the first time, with two nights at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., grossing more than $8 million and moving 110,000-plus tickets.

After taking 2010 off from touring, fellow TMG/AEG Live client Kenny Chesney returned with a vengeance on his Goin' Coastal tour, once again cracking 1 million in attendance (1.3 million, a personal best) at amphitheaters, arenas and NFL stadiums. Other touring country acts in the top 25 include Jason Aldean and Toby Keith.

Urban/pop sensation Usher solidified his status as an arena-level headliner in 2011 with the blockbuster OMG tour, produced by AEG Live. With Trey Songz as support, Usher enjoyed his biggest tour ever in OMG, grossing $75 million and moving almost 1 million tickets.

"This was a career-defining tour for Usher," says Randy Phillips, who played a dual role in OMG as CEO of AEG Live and Usher's manager. "When people were betting against him, he came back stronger than ever, which goes back to that old adage, 'Never bet against a star.'"

Other urban/R&B acts in the top 25 include Lil Wayne and the pairing of Sade with John Legend.

Pop remains solid, with Lady Gaga rapidly transitioning from upstart to global superstar during the course of her Monster Ball tour, which upped its total in 2011 by adding another $72 million in Boxscore reports.

Katy Perry also moved up in touring status this year, with her first arena headlining tour approaching $50 million in gross and selling more than 1 million tickets. Other pop acts in the top 25 include Justin Bieber, Glee Live!, the creative pairing of New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys, Kylie Minogue and Enrique Iglesias. The lattermost artist took in nearly $30 million on a tour produced by AEG Live.

The amount of money at the box office it took to make the Top 25 Tours tally was nearly the same as 2010. This year, it took $27.3 million to make it into the top 25 (Toby Keith), while last year's threshold was $28.6 million ( Tiësto).

© 2011 Billboard. All rights reserved.

Genevieve Carbery, The Irish Times

A LINE-UP of big names in the music business have re-recorded U2's hugely successful Achtung Baby album in a new special recording to raise funds for Africa.

Patti Smith, Snow Patrol and Depeche Mode are among the artists on the recording.

(Ahk-toong Bay-Bi) Covered was released for download yesterday to raise money for Concern Worldwide's work in crisis-hit east Africa. The 12-track album features covers by three Irish artists: Mysterious Ways by Snow Patrol, One by Damien Rice and The Fly by Gavin Friday.

British artists on the album include Scottish band Glasvegas with Acrobat and Scottish vocalist Shirley Manson's band Garbage with Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses .

Achtung Baby was first released 20 years ago this month, in November 1991.

Concern Worldwide chief executive Tom Arnold said the crisis in east Africa was "still very much an emergency, and Concern is delighted that all of the parties involved are making this hugely significant contribution to our work in the region".

The album was a "timely reminder that alleviation of the hunger and health crisis in the region must not be forgotten and should remain a global priority". The album is available from iTunes priced at €6.99.

Webmaster's note: Please check out this website for more information on donating to this charity.

© 2011 irishtimes.com

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