U2 Postpones Tour as Bono Recovers From Surgery

By DAVE ITZKOFF
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/
May 25, 2010, 8:51 am

An injury sustained by the U2 frontman Bono has forced the group to postpone its American tour and cancel its appearance at a major British rock festival while he recovers from emergency surgery on his back, Reuters reported.

On Friday the band announced that it would reschedule the North American opening date of its “360°’’ tour in Salt Lake City on June 3 after Bono was injured during a rehearsal and underwent surgery on his back in Munich. The tour has already grossed $109 million since it started last year and has been predicted to bring in the largest gate ever.

On Tuesday U2 said that it would have to reschedule dates through July 19, when the band was to perform at Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey. In a statement on the band’s Web site, the group’s manager Paul McGuinness, said:

Our biggest and I believe best tour has been interrupted and we’re all devastated. For a performer who lives to be on stage, this is more than a blow. He feels robbed of the chance to do what he does best and feels like he has badly let down the band and their audience. Which is of course nonsense. His concerns about more than a million ticket buyers whose plans have been turned upside down, we all share, but the most important thing right now is that Bono make a full recovery. We’re working as fast as we can with Live Nation to reschedule these dates.

U2 also said it would cancel its performance at the Glastonbury Festival in Britain at the end of June. On the U2 Web site, Bono said: “I’m heartbroken. We really wanted to be there to do something really special – we even wrote a song especially for the Festival.”