"Generally when I open my mouth, people prefer if I'm singing," Bono said. "But on U2X RADIO, maybe they'll forgive me the odd interruption"

By Andy Greene, Rolling Stone

U2 are getting a channel devoted exclusively to their music on SiriusXM sometime next year. "[U2X Radio] will feature music from U2's acclaimed decades-long career," the company said in a statement. "Never before heard interviews and live concert recordings; favorites and surprises from the archive; band curated playlists sharing personal influences both new and old; plus content celebrating their Dublin roots and much, much more."

The band will join the Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Frank Sinatra and a handful of other artists that have their own channels on the satellite radio network. "Generally when I open my mouth, people prefer if I'm singing," Bono said in a statement, "but on U2X RADIO, maybe they'll forgive me the odd interruption."

In statements, the other members appeared ambivalent about the news. "I'm not entirely sure what this, is but what it isn't is an opportunity to hear some bass solos," Adam Clayton said. "U2 24/7. Welcome to the last 43 years of my life."

Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
World's biggest band bring Joshua Tree tour to Australia for first time, but the music shines brighter without added spectacle

by Ben Smee, The Guardian

It is hard to imagine a time when U2 was not a rock and roll monolith; even harder to recall the last time the band performed their music without the giant screens and props that have for decades turned its concerts into extroverted performance pieces.

The 2019 Joshua Tree tour - the third time U2 has toured the American-inspired 1987 album but the first in Australia - seems to present a romanticised version of the band's various reinventions. The first four songs at the Brisbane opening night of the Australian leg are early-career standards, performed on a small secondary stage with room for just four musicians and a smoke machine.

This is U2 stripped of the sort of pomp that has, in their most overblown moments, managed to relegate the music to the role of circus soundtrack. There is nowhere to look but the stage. Bono even has to resort to analogue stagecraft, looking and pointing to the front row more often than the twinkling lights at the back, engaging directly with punters in a way they likely haven't since the band's first decade.

Without the distraction of a spectacle, the music shines. Who knew stadium rock didn't need constant reinvention? The key ingredients seem to be a bass drum set to the level of a Napoleonic cannon and familiar galloping tunes the crowd can screech into the Suncorp Stadium void.

Opening Act(s): Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

Setlist:

1. Sunday Bloody Sunday
2. I Will Follow
3. New Year's Day
4. Bad - The Boxer
5. Pride (In the Name of Love)
6. Where the Streets Have No Name
7. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
8. With or Without You
9. Bullet the Blue Sky - America (Stephen Sondheim)
10. Running to Stand Still
11. Red Hill Mining Town
12. In God's Country
13. Trip Through Your Wires
14. One Tree Hill
15. Exit - Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
16. Mothers of the Disappeared
17. Desire - Mannish Boy
Encore(s):
18. Elevation
19. Vertigo - Rebel Rebel
20. Even Better Than the Real Thing
21. You're the Best Thing About Me
22. Beautiful Day - One
23. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
24. Love Is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way
25. One

Remarks:

U2's second show in as many nights took place tonight in Tokyo, a city the band hadn't visited in 13 years (before last night's concert). Bono told the crowd: "Last night we had a very special time but let me tell you why we're back again... because we want to take it to the next level, some kind of rock'n'roll transcendence tonight. I don't know how you translate rock'n'roll transcendence but I think you can feel what we're talking about. We're here to surrender to each other, to music, to love..." "Bad" was dedicated to the memory of Tetsu Nakamura, a physician from the Peace Japan Medical Services, who was murdered along with 5 other workers in Afghanistan yesterday. Bono: "Let's take a moment in the dark to notice we are here, present, together... some indoor starlight, let's turn this sports stadium into a cathedral, our phones into candles... to memorialize the great Tetsu Nakamura, a great man from a great and generous country..." After the song ended, Bono sang a portion of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" saying "Blessed are the peacemakers." Bono also sang a snippet of Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy" after "Desire".