File this in the “hey, brother - can you spare a dime?” category…

According to Pollstar, The Rolling Stones are the top-grossing concert act in North America for 2005, bringing in $162 million for their 42-date concert tour in ‘05.

In comparison, U2 brought in only $138.9 million with 78 concerts performed in North America.

The reasons why the Stones topped U2 were because their average ticket price was $133.98, $37.06 higher than the average U2 ticket price of $96.92, as well as the fact that the Stones played in some stadiums. U2 remained in arenas for the entirety of their North American tour.

For the full story on the 2005 Concert Revenue scene, check it out at Pollstar.com.

While in Boston for U2’s December tour dates, Bono was seen not only at Harvard University meeting with people at the Medical School and the Kennedy School of Government on behalf of the work he does with DATA, he also spent time meeting the leadership at MIT’s new Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. In the photo are: Professor Bengt Holmstrom, head of economics; Rachel Glennerster, executive director of the lab; and economics Professor Abhijit Banerjee, one of the lab’s directors. You can download the story from MIT’s News Office using the link here.

This is not the first time Bono has been associated with MIT as he also served on the Board of Directors for the now disbanded MIT Media Lab Europe, which was headquartered in Dublin.

Photo credit: Justin Knight.

Quick, name a poll where Bono is getting beaten out by Barry Manilow and Clay Aiken! The folks over at the Jinglegram Voting Blog are conducting a blog poll for the top ‘Naughty’ and ‘Nice’ folks on Santa’s Christmas list. Bono’s on the nice poll at the moment, trailing far behind the clear favorite Barry Manilow at #9. Top three naughty? George Bush, Paris Hilton and Tom Cruise. I’m sure Santa’s resting easier now that someone’s helping him out with his job - there really is a poll for everything. Happy Holidays!

This photo is from the 11/14 show in Miami, but it describes perfectly what Portland’s concert was for me. This was the last arena show on this tour. This was a show where at least 40 of my closest friends flew in for the show from all over the US. After serving as your resident gig blogger for the tour, this was the show where my pad of paper and pen were put away - as well as my camera. This gig was a very personal one for me in so many ways, but mostly it was about letting go. As with many fans, I had scheduled 2005 around the tour - and now it’s about getting back to some sort of day-to-day normalcy. It’s not just the U2 crew and the band who need to detox from touring…but there are fans out there such as myself who need to do the same!

Sure, the setlist wasn’t anything spectacular (nothing new was added.) In reality, two songs that were supposed to be on the setlist, Stuck in a Moment and All Because of You, were dropped entirely. It wasn’t about the setlist for Portland actually. It was about the camaraderie of being in a 20,000 seat arena where you know that over 75% of those in attendance flew from all corners of the world to see the *last* arena show on the Vertigo tour. In all of my blog reports, I have mentioned about how loud the arena was and how the crowd was or wasn’t into it. For this concert, the roof and half of the sky was ripped off of its atmosphere. I swear, people in Seattle could have heard us in Portland. And yes, as U2.com reported - the ellipse was quite full. I don’t think we could have fit another person in it.

We had a GA area that was glowing red, there were signs all over the arena (approx. 2,000 on the floor and well over that in the stands) that simply said “THANK YOU,” and people were patient enough to wait until Elevation to hold them up. The transformation of the arena at that very moment was not only overwhelming, but it appeared to have completely taken Bono by surprise. It was awesome to see him speechless for at least a good few seconds as he was taking in the very simple public display of affection.

We all knew that this tour wasn’t really supposed to happen, and we also knew that the band had bent over backwards for us to try to make the situation right at the start of the year. We knew that they were trying their best to make many different groups of people “happy.” There are not very many opportunities for the fan community to pull together to make a public statement to the band, and it was something very special to have been able to do this on behalf of those who saw the show before us to extend their thanks to the band as well. It was awesome to see the band’s reaction to thousands of the signs simply saying “Thank You.” That was *the* highlight of the show for me.

I will need to piece together all of my ramblings from my travels since the Brooklyn Bridge promo gig for a more formal article for the site, but I wanted to put a finishing touch on my tour reporting on the blog.

As U2.com so simply put it - U2 does have the best fans in the world. It was all of you who made this tour a fantastic one, and it has been a pleasure being able to share my quirky thoughts with you all.

To all of you lucky enough to see them on the 4th leg - have a great time, and I look forward to hearing all of your stories on the shows.

Now I’m off to try to do some U2-tour-detox…good thing there’s new material from Robbie Williams for me to catch up on! (Yes, it is true - I am a huge Robbie fan as well! Heck - he played bingo with Bono…he’s got to be cool).

Zoo Station live
Originally uploaded by atu2.

Another handful of photos have been added to the party set on Flickr, and captions/descriptions have been added and updated at the request of @U2 Forum users.

So even if you looked already, you may want to go through the set again!

Greetings from a rainy, icy and darn-right cold Portland, Oregon! Yes, ice your only rivers *do* run cold! But enough about the weather….

On behalf of everyone on the @U2 staff, I would like to thank everyone who braved the ice storm to come out to celebrate our 10th birthday with us. We had over 200 fans join us - amazing! It was fantastic to see some familiar faces, as well as to meet so many new people.

Our birthday party got kicked off with the results from the official @U2 fan survey. During November, we asked fans worldwide for your opinion in our comprehensive survey. We were excited to see that over 4100 of you took our survey. Typically, when Time Magazine or CNN does a survey, they’re lucky to get 1500 responses - and they use those numbers to generalize about the entire population. So, with almost 3-times that amount responding to our survey, we are assured that we have a pretty good idea of the “typical” U2 fan.

We plan on having the survey results up on the site in the upcoming week or so, but to give you a little sneak-peek on what the results are (and to recap for everyone at the event)…the “typical” U2 fan is….

Male, aged between 25-36, still living with his parents, listens to U2 at least once a day, thinks that Larry would win on the television show Survivor, and feels that Edge is the best musician in the band. The typical fan also believes that Adam’s 1981 afro was the worst fashion mistake U2 has ever had….beating Bono’s Live Aid mullet and everything associated with PopMart. As I said, the survey was quite comprehensive! (More to come in the following days.)

After about an hour of presenting the survey results to everyone, we broke into the birthday cake, handed out some prizes, and then listened the musical stylings of Scott Perretta (who does an *awesome* version of Acrobat, by the way). Then, Zoo Station took the stage, performing for about 2 hours.

After surveying the @U2 readership, it was the hands-down conclusion that we all wanted to hear Mercy, and Zoo Station took on the challenge! To the best of our knowledge, this was the first time Mercy had been performed live by any band. And…it rocked the house. (I know I’ve said this before…but Mercy is the best U2 song they’ve ever written…but then again, I’ve been begging for Mofo to be added to the set too…at least Zoo Station opened with it last night!)

The fans wanted more, and Zoo Station happily gave them one more song at the end of the night, closing out their set with Unchained Melody. Other surprises they pulled out of the U2 discography included Lady with the Spinning Head (blending that with The Fly….brilliant!), Two Hearts Beat as One, and Twilight.

It was an absolute blast getting to listen to them, and we are very thankful to Zoo Station for coming all the way up from California to join us. If you get a chance to see them perform, don’t miss it! (Side note: they’ll be at Kells tonight as well.)

Good times were had by all last night. Congratulations to all of our prize winners! Thank you to Kells for hosting us and for keeping the Guinness, and Vertigo specialty drinks flowing last night. I would also like to give a special thank you to the @U2 staff who travelled a long distance to come to the event.

Photos from the event can be seen here, and special reports from the event will be in the next @U2 podcast.

Time Magazine named Bill and Melinda Gates, along with Bono, as Persons of the Year for all of their work for Africa. Time’s website is chock-full of information about all of the work they’ve been doing over the past 365 days. Congratulations!

So… you’re the biggest rock star in the world, in the middle or a gargantuan world tour, fought over by fans and world leaders alike… what do you do during your downtime? Fancy meals at 5-star restaurants? Taking the posse to the nearest spa for a day of decadence? Champagne-filled private parties? Nope. This from People Magazine’s Caught In the Act: “Gavin Rossdale, [caught] having a snowball fight with U2 rockers Bono and The Edge outside Chicago hot spot Le Passage, after partying until the wee hours.” Ah, the good life.

That’s E Lips to You
Originally uploaded by u2page.

And now for today’s “spit-the-coffee-out-laughing” moment… during the course of the Vertigo tour, I’ve heard that oval-circle thing at the front of the stage referred to in any number of ways - the bomb shelter, the egg, the ellipse, the heart (for those Elevation hold-overs). During the morning news hunt, I found what has to be the best reference to this most coveted area in this article from Omaha’s KETV Channel 7’s website. In a story about crazy fans lining up at 5am in freezing temperatures, we get this awesome quote: “The goal for fans with general admission tickets is to get in the ‘lips area.’ That’s the area right at the edge of the stage.” Now I truly believe that the reporter, who’s obviously not a big U2 fan, misunderstood Qwest Arena’s Roger Dixon as he was talking about the “ellipse area”, but that’s just funny. So all you crazy fans in Omaha - good luck getting into the lips. And have a great show.

From Yahoo News:

This photo supplied by the Jesse Helms Center shows Bono, wearing hat, posed with former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms and his wife, Dot, seated center, and family and friends at a pre-concert meal at the new Charlotte Bobcats Arena before Irish rockers, U2, played to a crowd of 17,000 Monday night, Dec. 12, 2005, in Charlotte, N.C. Since they were introduced several years ago, the archconservative Republican known as ‘Senator No’ and Bono have become close allies in the fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa.(AP Photo /Jesse Helms Center,John Dodd)

[Note: some of you may also recognize the gentleman on the right. –KE]

Bono, still wearing hat, arm wrestles Senator Helms for the last piece of fried chicken, presumably.

[Note: that caption was made up by me. –KE]