U2 on DVD

The footage will be pieced together from the band’s two shows last month at Boston’s Fleet Center, which, as you doubtless read in the last issue of hotpress, had a pronounced Irish flavour to them.

“It sounds great”, enthuses man-behind-the-desk Steve Lilleywhite. “I’ve known these guys for 20 years and I’m so proud of them. They’re really, really doing it.”

The visual side of things was taken care of by Dreamchaser, the Dublin company that also produced Zoo TV Live From Sydney and A Year In Pop.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Adam Yauch, Christy Turlington, Daniel Lanois and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan were among the guests last week as the North American leg of the Elevation drew to a halt in New Jersey.

Lanois also joined them on stage for ‘The Ground Beneath Her Feet’ and All That You Can’t Leave Behind’s ‘Wild Honey’, which was making its live debut.

U2 had demonstrated just how varied their circle of friends is two days earlier when they invited North Carolina senator Jesse Helms to their Washington DC show.

Bono struck up a relationship with the septuagenarian, who’s renowned for his extreme right-wing views, last year when they met to discuss the Jubilee 2000 campaign.

“It was the noisiest thing I ever heard,” Helms said afterwards. “I turned my hearing aids all the way down and kept my hands over my ears much of the time.”

Finally on the U2 front, Paul McGuinness reckons that Elevation represents an all-time career high for U2.

“This is the best tour we’ve ever done, and the band is doing the best shows they’ve ever done,” their manager enthuses. “This is shaping up to be U2’s biggest-ever record, which is very satisfying after 20 years of making records. The audiences are wonderful, the shows are all sold-out. What can be better than that?”