Breaking Waves: Tina Turner, Recent Podcasts, The Sphere Ticketing

Original Story by Aaron J. Sams (2023-05-24)

The news broke this afternoon that Tina Turner has died at the age of 83. She was an amazing gifted performer, singer, and actress. She was also a neighbour to Bono and The Edge in the South of France for a time. And in 1995, when approached about writing a song for the new James Bond film, Bono and The Edge went to Turner to ask if she’d be interested in singing it.

Demo versions of the song were sent to Turner with Bono performing the vocal role she would eventually fill. Tina Turner relates the experience of being chased to perform the song: “I just couldn’t really feel it at the time. Then I got a hand-written letter from Bono saying, `Tina, trust me, it’s rough at the moment, but it’s going to be great.’ I had to believe him. We live very near each other in the south of France, so he and Edge came up and finished it with me. Nellie Hooper came in with the arrangement. All of a sudden the song became. It was a matter of communicating and believing in each other. I’m looking forward to working with them again.” The Edge also performs on the song.

Our discography entry for the single can be found here which includes the 2021 re-issue of the single as a digital release.

RIP Tina. Our thoughts are with her friends and family.

For those in the USA who don’t have Disney+, perhaps the next news will interest you. Bono and The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming got a wider release earlier this month, appearing on the USA-only streaming service Hulu. The special which aired initially on March 17 on Disney+ started airing on Hulu on May 11. So if you haven’t been able to watch to date and have access to Hulu, head on over and you can watch it now.

As part of this new addition to Hulu, there was additional promotion done for the special with various TV review outlets. The special can be found on Hulu here.

Yesterday on Claire Byrne’s show on RTÉ, her regular feature spotlighting one artist featured U2. Her special guest for the segment was Dave Fanning, who had been part of the U2 story since the start. The program runs for fifteen minutes and features the two discussing the earliest days of the band right up to current day. You can hear the segment here via RTÉ.

For those who have applied for ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) seating at the Sphere for upcoming shows in Las Vegas, you should keep an eye out for phone calls. They’ve been reaching out this week to notify that the itinerary given was a placeholder, and that next week they will reach out with details of the actual seats. They are asking questions about the arrangements needed. So far we are only aware that they’ve reached out for the intial September dates, and it may take a bit before everyone is contacted.

For those who are interested, you can see where these seats are located throughout the venue, by zooming in on the seating maps until individual seats are displayed.

We can’t tell you much more than that, but wanted to let you know so you don’t ignore a phone call that may be important.

Another podcast this week is by Rick Beato, who features longtime producer Daniel Lanois in discussion. And to no surprise the conversation turns to U2 in a couple of locations.

Speaking of Podcasts, the team here at U2Songs can’t say enough about the new U2-Y podcast that features longtime U2 graphic designer and collaborator Stephen Averill. In the podcast, Averill is in discussion with his son Gareth, and each week they are looking at U2 albums from Boy through to Pop.

This week however, Gareth is a little under the weather (get well soon!) and the podcast takes a short break, but a special episode came out looking at a very special night, the first night U2 performed as U2. The date was March 4, 1978. U2 took the stage as The Hype at the Presbyterian Church Hall in Sutton. At the end of that performance as a five member group, they announced that Edge’s brother Dik was leaving the band to focus on his engineering degree. Later in the evening, U2 took the stage as a four piece under the name U2 for the first time.

The stories are great, but this one is special, as we actually get to hear the farewell to Dik from the stage that night. What a amazing moment to be unearthed 45 years later.

The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, and links to both can be found here on the U2-Y site.

Last week we brought the news that fans in row 30 and higher in the 100 sections of The Sphere were being contacted by Ticketmaster to be informed of some issues with the view from those seats. While the view of the band on stage will be one of the best in the building, there’s an overhang of seats above these seats, which blocks out the view of much of the screens. Ticketmaster was offering a refund, or an opportunity to take part in a special presale for the new December dates to those affected. (If you are affected, you should have been contacted direct, and for the new dates these seats are marked “Full view of Band and Stage – Limited view of Sphere screen”.

Sadly, not all has gone smoothly with the offers made to fix these issues.

Many of those who chose to participate in the presale for seats at one of the new December dates report that they did not recieve the presale code. Those who contacted Ticketmaster support were able to get one in time. But it’s another issue in a long line of issues with this sale. There are still issues being had by people who purchased Vibee hotel packages who cancelled their original order because of the obstruction issue are still waiting for refunds, and receiving notifications they are still being charged for the packages. Looks like there’s still some work to be done to set this all right.

Please continue to reach out to Ticketmaster and Vibee direct with these concerns. Fans who are being persistant are reporting some luck in getting these issues resolved.

Don’t miss Don’s “5 More Albums“ piece on Jacknife Lee. Take a look at Jacknife’s career through five of the recordings he’s been a part of over the years outside of his work with U2. It’s a great way to learn a bit more about U2’s collaborators.

Finally if you haven’t stopped by U2’s YouTube account (or other services where you get videos such as iTunes), U2 has been releasing live videos from various past projects. These usually pop up on Friday’s and include a nice selection of live songs, in high definition where available.

The videos available to date?

U2 also released a number of these videos last year as well in the lead up to Bono’s memoir. We’ve got “All I Want is You” below for you!

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