First show in Turkey ever for U2 tonight. The band have been checking out the city for a couple of days. They’re really showing it their love and for what we’ve heard Turkish fans and media have replied in style.

Reports from the stadium are promising as rehearsals contained multiple run-throughs of both Mothers of the disappeared and Mercy.

U2log editor is on site, or follow the set here or here.

The first show in Turkey also marks the last show on this tour for support act Snow Patrol and during their song Chasing Cars, as the screens show “U2 crew love Snow Patrol”, all of the U2 crew take the stage and stage manager Rocco even gets to sing a verse, reportedly grabbing the microphone of Gary Lightbody.

-more to come as this might prove to be a very special show-

After saturday’s announcement of U2360 tour dates in Australia en NZ, today LiveNation & Michael Coppel have revealed Jay-Z will be joining U2 as ”the very special guest” on these dates.

Let’s see if we can expect Jay-Z bringing some “Pop-pop-pop” on stage with U2, as during his surprise cameo in Berlin last year (Jay-Z from 2:50, pop-pop-pop @ 3:21)

(I might soon be ‘popped’ for noting that I can’t help Jay-Z somehow reminding me of Steve Urkel)

Adam’s been talking to U2.com about recording ‘quite a lot of tunes’ during Bono’s recovery and ‘tossing a few out into the show’ (‘We could get four songs into the show’).

On a new album: ‘We’re kind of trying to break it up a bit, the idea of doing another big record and going away for a long time doesn’t appeal to us. But the idea of putting out tracks in the show and seeing what happens to them, and then maybe put out  a little EP at some point, these are all possibilities we’re thinking about.’

Photo slideshow by U1D2X

Second show on this leg of the U2360 tour in Frankfurt Germany.

Live stream can be found here: http://en.1000mikes.com/show/u2tour_on_air

Photo: @u2tourzargor

Setlist:

1. The return of the stingray guitar (intro)
2. Beautiful Day
3. New Year’s Day
4. Get On Your Boots
5. Magnificent
6. Mysterious Ways (with My sweet lord snippet)
7. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (with Moving on up snippet)
8. Glastonbury
9. Elevation
10. In A Little While
11. Miss Sarajevo
12. Until The End Of The World
13. The Unforgettable Fire
14. City Of Blinding Lights
15. Vertigo (with The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) snippet, Michael Stipe in the house)
16. I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight remix (with Discotheque snippet)
17. Sunday Bloody Sunday
18. MLK
19. Walk On
20. One (new arrangement apparently)
21. Amazing Grace / Where The Streets Have No Name
22. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
23. With Or Without You
24. Moment Of Surrender (dedicated to the people who recently died in the Love Parade)

Among other things on the band’s official site I don’t understand the splash screen and actually dislike it.

It’s always a hurdle on my way to content when I type U2.com in my browser address bar (I know I can use a favourite, but since U2 is a bit shorter than ‘…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead‘ or ‘Toad the wet sprocket’ typing is just as easy for me…).

But admittedly the latest images, coinciding with the countdown clips, are absolutely lovely:

Looks like this is the song the band composed for Glastonbury, as lyrics include “The flowering rose of Glastonbury”.
And if so, the song seems to be targeted at the (Glastonbury) audience, with a chorus opening “You are rock ‘n roll sunshine. You are a rock ‘n rollers’ sunshine“.

(posted on Willie Williams’ YouTube account)

In an email sent today Live Nation Belgium announces they’ll start sending your purchased tickets for the two shows in Brussels in the midst of august.
All this in an effort to prohibit the illegal reselling of tickets (even calling it “criminal practice”) by shortening the time between ticket-dispatch and the show.

Live Nation urges all ticket buyers who have changed address over the past few months (or are about to move) to update their address at: http://www.teleticketservice.com/tts/nl/aanmelden.