All that you can't leave behind

Hot Press has learned that 2003 will see an update of the U2 concert book, U2 Live: A Concert Documentary. The book is published by Omnibus Press.

An exhaustively researched and lovingly produced gig-by-gig account of the band's career, the book was originally compiled by Dutch writer Pimm De La Parra, one of band's biggest fans and a leading authority on their

career. However earlier this year, De La Parra died in tragic circumstances, giving rise to uncertainty about the future of the work.

"It was very sad," Chris Charlesworth of Omnibus Press told Hot Press. "I had met Pimm twice to talk about the update, before I got the email announcing his death. He died on April 9th of this year. I know that the band

were really taken with the detail of the work that he had done, and so some of his friends in Amsterdam are going to continue with the project."

Among those likely to be involved is Caroline van Oosten de Boer, a Dutch writer and U2 aficionado who has published a book about Gavin Friday - Gavin Friday: The Light And The Dark - and was a friend of De La Parra.

"Pimm had told us that the book was generally supported by U2," Charlesworth added. "But he always went as a fan and never asked for any favours, backstage passes or anything of that kind. They were very impressed with

this and asked to meet him.

"They gave him the red carpet treatment, which he enjoyed. He told them that it was a great privilege to meet them, but he wanted to go on doing the book independently, in the way that he always had.

"I know that they really appreciated what he had done with the book, which is why I am so keen to keep it in the catalogue."