Over the three months of voting, U2.com asked a handful of guest contributors to offer their list of 22 songs they’d like to see make the cut. Our very own M2 was asked to share his thoughts. After seeing the list, I was curious to see whose list was the closest to what the fans’ final 22 songs were. Drum roll please…

PAUL MCGUINNESS! Yes, that’s right. He got 16 out of 22 correct. Tied for second place were Joe O’Herlihy, Claudia Espanosa (Bajagirl), and M2 with 15 out of 22. Willie Williams tied with John Noble (Bigwave) for third with 12 out of 22, and in fourth place was Caroline van Oosten de Boer (VonB) with 8 out of 22.

There were two songs that everyone agreed upon: “Bad” and “Ultraviolet.” Six out of the seven guest contributors agreed on “City Of Blinding Lights,” “One Tree Hill” and “Zooropa.” Only Joe O’Herlihy included “Elevation,” while only Paul McGuinness included “Mysterious Ways.”

Even though not all the songs I chose made the list, I’m happy with the mix of old and new. My favorite song did make the list (“The Fly”), but it still would have been nice to see some of the more rare tracks make the cut. The biggest surprise was seeing the only song that was in every U2 360 show, “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight (remix),” not make it. For a recording that’s representative of the tour, it seems out of place not to have it included.

@U2 readers are sharing their thoughts in our Forum – check out the discussion and add your spin on U22.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Paul McGuinness and U22 Final Tally

New and renewing members will get a double-live CD called U22 that will feature 22 live songs from the U2 360 tour. And, fans get to vote on which songs will be included.

U2.com posted 46 possibilities yesterday, but there’s no obvious indication where the songs were recorded. Except that U2Wanderer.org managed to source the filenames for each 45-second clip, and that tells where a lot of the performances come from. Have a look:

There was some fear that a lot of the tracks would be sourced from the U2 360 Pasadena recording (hey, U2.com has a history of giving the fanclub stuff that’s already been released), but as you can see there’s no mention of Pasadena anywhere in the filenames. There are a few tracks without a cityname (“Breathe” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” for example), so those might be from Pasadena … but who knows?

(Yes, we notice what appears to be a concert date next to some of the filenames — see “Breathe” with 310809, for example — but those don’t actually appear to be concert dates. There was no U2 show on August 31, 2009. So we don’t know what those numbers are, nor do we know what the “DG AC/HQ” stands for, but that seems like a reference to the source recording.)

Anyway … the overall variety of song sources is impressive, and that’s the bottom line.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Where Are The Live Songs On U22 From?

U2.com is asking fans to submit photos of their U2-inspired cakes and cupcakes for their latest competition. Based on what I’ve seen in doing a simple Google search for “U2 cake,” fans are very creative. We’ve even had some U2-inspired cakes here at @U2, too.

The submission period is from May 15 – May 31, and voting is from June 1 – June 18. It is open to all fans. For more information, visit the U2.com page here. Good luck!

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

A Tasty U2.com Competition

Here’s one for the latter category: huge props for a very cool, 360-degree, 5-billion pixel “fancam” image from Sunday’s night’s concert in Johannesburg.

It’s interactive — you can zoom in and around the whole stadium from your vantage point behind Larry’s drumkit. And all those little icons you see are fans tagging themselves in the photo.

Very, very cool. Nice job, U2.com.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

U2.com’s Sweet 360 FanCam

This item is sitting on the shelf of a reputable California record store and I just have to wonder how long it will be there considering that (at the time of this writing), none of the copies of the same item on eBay were priced higher than $50 (and for what it’s worth, none had bids).

It’s a point to ponder—especially with the announcement of the soon-to-be-released U2 Duals fan club compilation, which so far hasn’t generated much anticipation from die-hard fans.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Artificial Inflation?

But … how many U2.com members know that they’re not always getting the first crack at buying U2 tickets? Check out this screenshot from an email that’s being sent out this week to Citi credit card holders. (You can click for a larger version.)

Citi card holders have a pre-sale that starts at 10:00 am tomorrow. And here’s the screenshot from the U2.com pre-sale page. Notice anything similar?

Both pre-sales start at the same time. To be frank, that sucks. Even worse, several fans on Twitter replied to us this morning saying that some 2009 pre-sales happened before the U2.com pre-sale.

And remember, too, that U2.com has changed its rules on fan club groupings. It used to be that Propaganda members, the fans who were paying for membership for years/decades, were “at the front of the line” when it came to be ordering fan club tickets – they were the “Horizon” group. Now? Horizon, Boots, and Breathe members are all buying tickets at the same time. A scalper who joined the fan club months ago has the same access as a 20-year fan club member.

So really … considering all this, what’s the point of having a U2.com membership these days?

Well, maybe this: Before the Pittsburgh show went on sale a few weeks ago, I had access codes for five separate pre-sales. The only one that offered GA tickets was the U2.com pre-sale. Might’ve been coincidence. Might not. But if that’s the only true benefit of a U2.com membership, don’t you think U2.com should explain as much?

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

What’s the point of a U2.com membership?

If you’re a paying member of U2.com, I’m betting you got an email earlier today just like the one above. A lot of friends said they got this email, too.

Thing is, U2.com — I’m not one of your European subscribers. I live in Washington state. And the folks I’ve been trading emails with today also live somewhere in North America.

These things are not the same.

To be fair, I’ll bet that the folks at U2.com requested that Fanfire send out an email just to the European subscribers, but Fanfire somehow screwed up those instructions and sent to pretty much the whole list of paying members. So, yes, this is probably a Fanfire mistake. But as long as U2 and U2.com continues to associate with the clueless people that run the fan club for them, it also reflects poorly on the band and the official web site.

(Related: Some folks that are still waiting to get their Artificial Horizon vinyl are reporting that the $30 charge has just appeared on their credit cards. It’s from Beatles.com. Perfect, isn’t it?)

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Geography Tip for U2.com

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U2.com/Fanfire is selling this Chicago 2009 U2 360 Tour lithograph for $100. The product page there says it was taken on September 12, 2009, at the first show of the U.S. tour.

It’s a good concert pic and no doubt makes a cool lithograph. But it’s not from Chicago. One of our forum members, EdgeFest, has posted about this because September 12 was her first show, she wanted a nice souvenir to remember it, and she forked out $100 for this lithograph … only to find out it’s from some other show. “I am seriously ticked off,” she wrote on our forum. “My special lithograph isn’t really that special to me anymore.”

The Evidence

First, here’s the photo being used in the lithograph. You can click to see a larger version. Pay attention to what Edge is wearing and to the signage behind Bono.

Next, consider the photo below of Edge from the September 12th show. He’s wearing a different shirt and different pants. (used courtesy of U2soul)

Then, look at this Edge photo from the next night, September 13th in Chicago. The shirt matches the lithograph, but the pants are different. (used courtesy of Tony Kinlan)

Edge doesn’t change his shirts or pants during a concert, so it’s pretty obvious that this “Chicago” lithograph isn’t actually from either of U2′s Chicago shows. Which begs the obvious question….

Where’s It From?

It’s from the Atlanta show on October 6, 2009. Have a look at this photo below, specifically the background behind the stage. It has the same Miller Lite sign and similar lettering as what’s shown behind the band in the lithograph photo. (used courtesy of borabora_54)

That looks an awful lot like the shot from the lithograph, doesn’t it?

Confirmed…

Actually now, all of the above photographic evidence is overkill. I found the photographer, Brantley Gutierrez, on Twitter and asked him where the photo was taken. He replied earlier this morning:

Final Thoughts

So, U2.com/Fanfire is selling an Atlanta photo as its Chicago lithograph. I’d like to believe this is an honest mistake and that U2.com/Fanfire will remove the lithograph soon, or just correct the listing to say that it’s from Atlanta. If, on the other hand, this is knowingly being sold as the wrong city … well, that’s pretty low.

I’ve shared many emails over the years with some of the folks who run the content side of U2.com, and I know this isn’t the kind of thing they’d do or support. Fanfire on the other hand? Like many fans, I don’t have nearly the same level of faith or trust in them.

In any case, I’ve sent an email to see if we can get this fixed.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

U2.com’s Chicago Lithograph Isn’t From Chicago

But, after it sinking in and doing a few Google searches for what artificial horizon actually is, it suddenly seemed to make sense…but it’s kind of like a knock-knock joke. If you have to explain the punchline, then you’ve lost the person on the other end of the joke.

For those @U2 readers who were like me, I’ll save you the hassle of looking it up. Artifical horizon is also known as an “attitude indicator” in aviation. Not that we have to check our attitudes at the door, but rather it’s something pilots use to orient their aircraft relative to Earth. In other words, it lets the pilots understand where they are in relation to horizon. So, if there is “no line on the horizon,” the plane is not pitched or banked towards it. Artificial horizon is also used when pilots need to use instrument meteorlogical conditions, which occurs when weather, cloud cover, or darkness dictates they fly “blind” or by using their instrument panels only.

I find the fan club CD title brilliant because of what has transpired over the past year. While No Line on the Horizon made many critics happy, it was not embraced by the record buying public. If you were to gauge success on the instrument panels – or in this case, No Line on the Horizon’s record sales and number one hits – U2 wouldn’t be anywhere near parellel with their artificial horizon. On the other hand, the band seems to be happy with the creativity and the art expressed on the album and are doing the best they can to downplay the sales quandry and lack of chart success.

So, while at first I saw the album title as merely an “artificial” horizon, full of remixes of songs that don’t even appear on their latest release – like a “remixed best of 2000-2010″ – perhaps it’s their own way of banking and pitching themselves, much like an aircraft, to reorient the U2 brand back to what it was like earlier in this decade. Either way, I’m looking forward to receiving it from Fanfire.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

What’s In A Name?

As of 7:15 a.m. EST, Fanfire confirmed that they are having “system-wide issues” in regard to U2.com’s presale codes and their customer service phone numbers suddenly being “out of service.” Fortunately, I had kept a very old email that had a different phone number that actually worked.

I spoke with “Mary” at Fanfire this morning to discuss my presale code suddenly stating that it had been used, which I know for a fact hadn’t. (Nothing like logging into U2.com to get the presale updates for this week only to find out that green presale code is no longer there and it’s been replaced by a red “this code has been used.”) She said that a supervisor will be coming in “in about two hours” to handle the situation and that there have been countless phone calls already today regarding this issue.

While I feel relieved that it’s not just me, it underscores the frustration fans are feeling towards Fanfire and why they’re now paying 25% more for U2.com when it seems the company fueling the site just can’t get things right.

At least they have 24 hours before the next round of presales.

I’ll update this blog post when I find out more.

UPDATE: 10:40 a.m. EST – Fellow @U2er Scott just renewed his membership this morning and got the same error message that the new code had been used. Definitely system-wide fail. Still no update from Fanfire on an ETA for fix.

UPDATE: Noon EST – Upon logging into U2.com and visiting “tours” the codes are now fixed. For those wondering, U2′s management was contacted about the issue and the fix happened quite quickly after that.

UPDATE: 1 p.m. EST – U2.com has issued a statement: “Some people have been reporting problems seeing their presale codes when they log-in. This is a temporary problem which will be fixed by the time the presales open. Rest assured that if you have a presale code in an email from us as a subscriber – and it has not been used for tickets – it will definitely work in the presales this week.”

FINAL UPDATE: 11:15 a.m. EST on Tuesday – successfully acquired 2 GAs using renewal presale code. No problems to report. Hurrah!

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

U2.com Presale Issues