Barely had Michael Jackson had time to celebrate setting a new ticket sales record with his London O2 residency than it was wrestled off him by U2 who on Friday March 20 managed to shift 650,000 tickets for their U2360 tour in seven hours – that’s an average of 26 a second.

Having had the news that they’d sold-out both of their Croke Park shows relayed to them by 2fm’s Gerry Ryan, Bono commented: “It’s overwhelming, really. It’s a very big deal for us to sell-out our hometown at such speed, it’s unbelievable.

“Gavin Friday says ‘insecurity is your best security’. That’s just who we are. We don’t take anything for granted. We had a big celebration to mark the album getting to number one in 31 countries – then we found out it wasn’t number one in Finland and we got depressed!

“Playing Dublin isn’t even a musical event, it’s a tribal event, a sociological experiment like a wedding.”

Despite the scale of the technology involved, Bono insists that U2360 won’t be “too choreographed. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll show, but we’ve created a stage set-up, which really allows us to get close to a lot of people. I’m going to have to be very fit though – I’m boxing, I’m running, I’m doing me press-ups, I’m chasing Larry Mullen down the road!”

Hot Press still fully expects a third U2 Croke Park show to be added on Monday July 26 – keep checking hotpress.com for details.