2,160: The number of wheels on which the 2009 U2 360 tour is currently rolling across this great nation. Divided by 18, that’s 120 trucks, carrying only the lights and stage for the tour. Who knows how many tour buses it takes to cart around Bono’s Prada support team.

7,400: A rough, and conservative, estimate of the number of miles the North American portion of the tour will have traveled when it stops in Vancouver on October 28.

126,857: At an average of 7 miles per gallon, this is the number of gallons of diesel U2 will have sucked down by the end of the month just to transport its stage from venue to venue. This isn’t even counting the 24 European dates earlier this summer, which I had to leave out of this calculation because the whole metric conversion thing just made me even angrier. NASA can’t even figure that shit out.

0: The number of times the New York Times editorial board should let Bono, that smug Irish twat, even mention, without an asterisk*, the fact that severe climate change, along with extremist ideology and extreme poverty, is one of the three biggest threats this planet faces right now.

*Carbon offsets be damned. The damage is done, dude.

Photo by Brandon Wu

If ever there were a band that needs no introduction, that band is pictured in this post. Enjoy the photos—more after the jump and at the full gallery.

Read More “Photos: U2 @ FedEx Field” »

U2: “Get on Your Boots”
U2 apparently traveled all the way to Fez, Morocco to work on its forthcoming album No Line on the Horizon, and if “Get on Your Boots” is any indication, they’ve soaked up plenty of culture. Ethnic percussion, check. Eastern sounding harmonic minor riffs, also check. But there’s really no telling where the rapped verse/sung chorus came from, although it’s entirely possibly that it came from Chinese Democracy.

Dirty Projectors w/ David Byrne: “Knotty Pine”
Dirty Projectors perfectly replicate the sound of the early Talking Heads with jittery acoustic guitars and oblique lyrics that sound as if theywere cribbed directly from David Byrne’s notebooks circa ‘76 (note: further inspection of my Talking Heads box set reveals that the line quoted below was actually borrowed from one of Bryne’s notebooks). It also helps that the man himself steps in to deliver a few lines. “Here is the sound that photographs make/when I see them/when I hear them,” sing Byrne and David Longstreth.

Lady Sovereign: “I got you dancing (medasyn dub remix)”
Medasyn, who produced the original version of this song for Lady Sovereign’s upcoming second album, twiddles the knobs on “I Got You Dancing” resulting in, well, way less of the diminutive English rapper. Sovereign’s vocals are almost completely knocked out, leaving only buzzing machine funk.

Ciara: “I Don’t Remember”
This song, supposedly drawn from the sessions for Ciara’s upcoming record Fantasy Ride, finds the singer feeling busted after a night spent modeling lampshades, possibly for Wilhemina. “Got the same clothes on today that I had on yesterday, what did I do? what did I say?,” asks the penitent singer. Ciara may not recall how she pissed off her boyfriend, but the song’s fuzzy synths imply that at the very least, she can still remember Kraftwerk.

Check it out: More grainy tracks from the “We Are One” concert/love-in. As previously noted, Garth Brooks held the stage for what seemed like an eternity. I include his most palatable track below, since it’s usually a crowd-pleaser.

Garth Brooks on “American Pie”:

John Cougar Mellencamp on “Ain’t That America Pink Houses”:

U2 on “Pride (In the Name of Love)”:

Just returned from a spot of Indian food after the “We Are One” concert, where I collected some supremely lo-fi recordings of the hit-or-miss performances.  Garth Brooks got a lot of stagetime.  Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock got glossed over.  Will.i.am and Sheryl Crowe did some decent Marley with a sanitized “Where Is the Love” interlude.  My favorite performace, amazingly, was Bettye Lavette and (wait for it) Jon Bon Jovi on Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

Also dug U2 more than I’d expected and found Pete Seeger a welcome presence.

First batch below.  More in a bit, plus a rundown of last night’s Mike Errico/Alfonso Velez/Sketches show at Jammin’ Java.

Springsteen, with gospel choir, on “The Rising”:

National anthem:

Lavette & Bon Jovi on “A Change Is Gonna Come”:

James Taylor & John Legend on “Shower the People”: