U2 Skips Chicagoland in latest tour

Dublin’s Irish rock band skips Chicago six county region which has largest Irish American population

U2 The Joshua Tree Tour 2017; Biggest Tour Of The Year Surpasses 2.4 Million Tickets Sold. First North American Leg Wraps to rave reviews having played to more than 1 million fans. New shows selling out in North America, Mexico and South America

Having played to more than one million fans, the first North American leg of U2’s The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 came to a triumphant close July 1st at the FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland. With ticket sales surpassing 2.4 million across North and South America, the UK and Europe, and Mexico, The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 has reaffirmed its standing as the most commercially and critically successful tour of the year.

The Joshua Tree Tour 2017, produced by Live Nation Global Touring, opened May 12th at BC Place in Vancouver and made its U.S. debut May 14th at CenturyLink Field in Seattle—the latter kicking off some of the most enthusiastic critical notes in the history of U2’s relationship with America. Rolling Stone hailed the band as “a live act simply without peer,” USA Today noted “Thirty years can’t dull searing music, hopeful lyrics or the captivating Irish band behind them,” while The New York Times added “For the performance of The Joshua Tree… the band members took places on the full-sized stadium stage.

They were ascending the way their career did… The band was dwarfed, but the music wasn’t. Larry Mullen Jr. on drums, Adam Clayton on bass and the Edge on guitar tore into the urgent rhythmic flux of ‘Where the Streets Have No Name.’ Against the craggy post punk groove of ‘Bullet the Blue Sky,’ both Bono’s falsetto and the Edge’s guitar leads were keening sirens.”

U2 The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 Biggest Tour Of The Year Surpasses 2.4 Million Tickets Sold (PRNewsfoto/Live Nation Entertainment)

The reviews of The Joshua Tree Tour 2017’s opening weekend set a tone that intensified throughout a North American run featuring 20 sold out stadium dates and U2’s first ever U.S. festival headline June 9th at Bonnaroo. Reviews for the shows have been consistently excellent, with some more recent highlights including:

“The thing about U2 is that, in almost any of their forms these past four decades, they always offer some degree of transcendence. They can’t help it… This is also what makes them what they are — legends, an institution, well beyond the levels of even some of our biggest stars today… These are songs that reminded you how many different kinds of people across countries and generations one artist, one voice can impact — and, in turn, they are songs that remind you that fighting for a better world, even when it zigs and zags over thirty years, might just be worth it.”—STEREOGUM

“U2’s Two-Hour Pep Talk is Exactly What We Need Right Now… The best U2 songs cast life as a garden of possibilities while pushing back at forces that seek to limit them. This Joshua Tree tour wisely plays just those songs. It is a two-hour pep talk. It is a technological spectacle. It is a warm bath for the soul. It will knock you on your ass.”—VULTURE

“I have left every U2 concert feeling like some measure of my humanity had been restored after being worn down by the blistering winds of the daily shit storm we call living. Last night was no exception.”—PHAWKER

“An uplifting return to Joshua Tree — and much more… Sunday’s sold-out concert at Gillette Stadium commemorated the album’s 30th anniversary by playing it in full, and it served as both a reminder of and reckoning with the power that fell into U2’s grasp at that moment in its history.”—BOSTON GLOBE

U2’s The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 heads to the UK and Europe where it kicks off with two nights in London on July 8th & 9th followed by concerts in Berlin, Rome, Barcelona, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdamand Brussels. It will then relaunch in North America September 3rd with a return to Detroit – the city where U2 played its first ever headline stadium show back on April 30th, 1987 at the Silverdome on the original Joshua Tree Tour.  The tour’s limited return to North America will include stops in Buffalo, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Kansas City, New Orleans, St. Louis, Phoenix and San Diego. The tour will then head to Mexico City followed by concerts in Bogota, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Sao Paulo.

Beck will be special guest for the upcoming North American dates. In Mexico and South America, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have been confirmed as special guest.

U2 The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 is produced by Live Nation Global Touring. UPS is the Official Logistics Provider of the tour.

For complete tour and ticket information, visit: www.u2.com & www.livenation.com

About Live Nation Entertainment

Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) is the world’s leading live entertainment company comprised of global market leaders: Ticketmaster, Live Nation Concerts, and Live Nation Media & Sponsorship. For additional information, visit www.livenationentertainment.com.

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.  

Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A critic of mainstream news media bias, Hanania advocates for peace & justice for Israel & Palestine, & the empowerment of Arabs in America. 

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Hanania's columns are archived on his personal website at RayHanania.com. Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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