U2 singing to the Live Nation beat
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U2 singing to the Live Nation beatThis week U2 joined Madonna as clients of Live Nation, the US promotions company offering a new business model for a profoundly changed world of music. Decades ago, record sales made money, while touring often lost it.
Today, the opposite is the case, and Live Nation insists it can maximise the combined revenue of tours, music sales and merchandising by synchronising all three in a one-stop-shop. U2's new 12-year deal will keep them active until 2020 when Bono will be 60 and Adam 61.
From the outset, U2 have been a commercial entity as much as a musical one. Manager Paul McGuinness had a bold plan for world domination, but his first band, Spud, were unsuitable because they had young families and work obligations in Ireland. Undeterred, McGuinness recruited four footloose teenagers ("my baby band") and proved conclusively that it could be done. Thirty years on, U2 have sold 170 million albums and earned a combined fortune of €400 million.
U2's last circumnavigation of the globe, the Vertigo Tour of 2005-6, stands as the second-biggest grossing tour of all time, with a gross income of $389 million from 4.6 million ticket sales. Vertigo has only been bested by The Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang tour, which ran at the same time but took in more venues and grossed $558 million.
