Random news from the Vertigo Tour

Here’s some news bytes for your Sunday:

The Charlotte Observer has a story in today’s paper about the December 12 Vertigo tour stop selling out (17,000 tickets) in 59 minutes. Management at the new arena say that they’re pleased with how it went, but the newspaper was able to find a few folks who had glitches with the online ticketing system. According to the newspaper, this was the first time the arena sold tickets to a major event, and that the ticketing was not through Ticketmaster, rather through the arena itself through an agreement with the city. To read the full story: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/11475389.htm

The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper has a story in today’s news as well about the upcoming release of Bono: In Conversation. The review ends by saying, “Bono is never dull.” Interesting. To read the full story: http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/entertainment/books/11454286.htm

The Sacramento Bee has an opinion piece in today’s paper about the need for newer, more state-of-the-art arenas in the Sacramento area. Writer Jim Kozimor states, “In an April 6 column in the Orlando Sentinel regarding that city’s struggle to build a new venue, some eye-opening observations were made. Among them: Orlando lost its bid to host the upcoming U2 Vertigo Tour concert. Reason? It lost out to a larger, state-of-the-art facility in Tampa.” The article concludes by saying “Like, say, improving economic impact and continuing to bring diverse entertainment to our community? Oh, and I just checked: U2 isn’t scheduled for a Sacramento visit on the Vertigo Tour. I wonder what we will miss out on next?”

And…for those who are still catching up on the news from the beginning of the month, The Spoof claimed that the Vertigo tour was being cancelled due to Homeland Security Threats. The story claims, “Credible evidence, from classified sources, leads us to believe that these four foreign nationals, calling themselves ‘U2′ were in fact in the country for purposes of gathering together large groups of American citizens…” To read the full spoof: http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i7786

As a side note – we have a lot of @U2 staff in Seattle for the next two days for the shows, including our own “person in charge of being in charge” Matt McGee. We should be hearing a lot more from our folks about the goings on in Seattle soon.

Oh – one other thing…I don’t know if you’ve found yourself doing this, but I have already done it twice. Now that the weather’s getting better, more people are driving around with their windows rolled down and their music cranked up past 11 on their dials. Recently, taking a walk around town, a car drove past with Vertigo on the radio. As soon as the car was close, the chorus of “Hello Hello” was heard and I yelled out “Hola!” to which the driver looked at me like I was in need of some help. You just can’t stop yourself from saying Hola when you hear Hello Hello. Is it just me? The folks at the bowling alley I went to last night also gave me that same look as I went up to bowl while Vertigo was playing and I yelled out Hola to the pins as I let the bowling ball go. It’s pavlovian, isn’t it?

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