1. Originally posted by u2wanderer1:[..]
    They don't have to build excitement for us - they already have our money. They just have to get us the product.

    The subscription offer when announced this year listed "First downloads and full tracklisting coming in early 2021". So they told us up front before taking our money that we weren't getting the downloads all at once. I'll leave others to argue if May is still early 2021. But it's not exactly like they hide that they won't send out the downloads all at once.

    Oseary dismantled Madonna's yearly subscription style club about seven years back, maybe a bit longer. She doesn't take an annual fee any more. Now she just takes a fee when there's a presale for tickets. For $30 you get a two week window to enter a pre-sale and a key chain or something small from the shop. If you want to enter another presale three weeks later it's another $30 and another key chain. At the time it was said to be because of dissatisfaction of the fans with how it was run, and the inability to please anyone and I can see why.

    I'm actually at the point where I hate having to post about anything related to the fan club gift because they could give out gold bars and there would be a string of complaints that someone didn't like the format, they wanted something else. If it's vinyl, no one can play it. If it's CD everyone wanted vinyl. If it's a show we've heard it before. If it's prints or a book, people wanted music.
    I think you have too much sympathy with the management. That’s such a kop out about not being able to satisfy fans. They charge £30 to renew £40 to subscribe and give a dvd or 2cd set in a good year, we know these type of things can be bought in shop for half of that and record labels still make a profit. Offering a presale doesn’t cost them anything, and even being able to take part in the presale only means it makes it easier for us to give them our money. To me it’s greed on their part and not on ours the fans. No way looking for downloads instantly is an unreasonable ask. Bands can offer shows to download for $10 a 2cd physical gift and a different show to download that we get instantly would still allow the fan club to make good money and you would see so many more fans satisfied and more people subscribe. They don’t even know their own market, they could be offering shows in download only for subscribers only at an extra cost of £/$10 each and they would get loads of takers. So I have no sympathy with management and I don’t accept any potential reasoning for doing something like they did with the Madonna fan club, pure greed. Thanks anyway for the picture above hadn’t seen it yet.
  2. I received the first 3 songs yesterday. Today, the zip file was gone from my account info. I just checked now and the zip file is back. I downloaded it and the songs are RFD, Angel, and Wild Horses. So I've downloaded 6 tracks currently.
  3. Originally posted by deanallison:[..]
    I think you have too much sympathy with the management. That’s such a kop out about not being able to satisfy fans. They charge £30 to renew £40 to subscribe and give a dvd or 2cd set in a good year, we know these type of things can be bought in shop for half of that and record labels still make a profit. Offering a presale doesn’t cost them anything, and even being able to take part in the presale only means it makes it easier for us to give them our money. To me it’s greed on their part and not on ours the fans. No way looking for downloads instantly is an unreasonable ask. Bands can offer shows to download for $10 a 2cd physical gift and a different show to download that we get instantly would still allow the fan club to make good money and you would see so many more fans satisfied and more people subscribe. They don’t even know their own market, they could be offering shows in download only for subscribers only at an extra cost of £/$10 each and they would get loads of takers. So I have no sympathy with management and I don’t accept any potential reasoning for doing something like they did with the Madonna fan club, pure greed. Thanks anyway for the picture above hadn’t seen it yet.
    I’d be all over those $10 (£) downloads. I know Pearl Jam makes loads of $$$ with these things. Heck, it’s what made me the fan I am of that band!
  4. Originally posted by u2wanderer1:[..]




    And the whole thing would be available on file sharing sites before anyone got a CD in the mail. Berlin was streamed, not meant to be downloadable. And the day after it started streaming it was everywhere, YouTube, Facebook etc. It's the first time they made the whole thing available in advance of the physical package and then they spent the next few weeks taking it off file sharing sites...
    .


    Berlin is entirely on them. They sent a DVD copy in 2020. Who the hell would be hyped for that?

    I ended up getting a U2.com download mixed with DVD audio, and chapters marker - best version around, especially since the stream got updated with higher bitrate recently. My "gift" remains unopened in a shelf where it shall spend the rest of its days.

    Regarding this year's gift, funny - while they only released some of the tracks, I think the tracks they released are the most interesting ones. Red Flag Day, Horses, and the 3 from Boy. Literally the ones I cared about the most!
  5. Same for me : 1st 3 tracks download = The Boy Area tracks
    This morning RFD, AOH, Wild Horses

    I agree with deanallison : they could and should do more even if it's getting better since 2019
  6. Q - When can I expect to receive the double-CD due to begin?
    A - Subscribers will start receiving the physical gift in July 2021.

    Wild Horses, Red Flag Day and Angel of Harlem are now the songs I am able to download instead of the original 3 that were released.


  7. Unfortunately, a lot of people. I have had to accept the harsh reality that the majority of people don't actually care whether the content they're watching is in 480p or 4K. In addition, DVDs are much more accessible than Blu Rays, so I can see why they did it. Although that doesn't mean I agree with them not offering a physical 4K version.
  8. I still can't download them...
  9. It’s all very odd. Try a different browser. I couldn’t download with Firefox, but could with Safari.
  10. Wait. The Berlin stream was updated with a higher bitrate?
  11. Yes, a few weeks back when they did some reorganization of the site. It's also got a repeat of the opening at the end now making it longer...
  12. How do we know the stream has higher bitrate?