It’s kind of crazy to think that the band U2 has been popular for about 30 years now. Over that three decade span, the group has had music that has ranged from brilliant (War, The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby) to self-indulgent (Pop) to a bit odd (Zooropa). But there has been one constant: They’ve always been a great live act. And tonight, a lot of the world will be able to see that from their computer screens.
U2 is streaming their concert tonight from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California live to YouTube. As the site announced earlier this week, some 16 countries will be able to view the show live: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, U.K., U.S. (other countries were presumably excluded due to streaming rights). The show will start at 8:30 PM PT tonight, and you can find it here.
During the show, YouTube will also feature a Twitter widget below the video player that will be displaying tweets from people who use the #U2webcast hashtag.
If you miss it live, YouTube will also put up the entire recording tomorrow on its U2 page.
U2 and technology have long gone hand in hand. Their ZooTV tour to support their albums Achtung Baby and Zooropa famously featured a massive amount of television monitors and live streaming video from all around the world. Later, U2 of course got chummy with Apple, and released their own branded iPod. But when the private equity firm Elevation Partners (which U2 lead singer Bono is a partner in) purchased a huge stake in Palm, the U2/Apple love affair seemed to sour. And since then, U2 has now seen their most recent tour sponsored by Palm and Apple rival BlackBerry.
3AM GMT
boring
Yeah no crap. I can’t believe they’re still considered popular. U2 sucks!
“the first global concert webcast”
really? then wtf was youtube live last year?
The time couldn’t have possibly been any shittier. And on a Sunday night before everyone needs to wake up early for work on Monday? c’mon
well it is when the concert is taking place in california, it’s not just about the live stream remember, that’s just a cool thing they’re doing.
Absolute fail here in Sydney, Australia.
Pathetic YouTube. Build excitement and anticipation and then poor planning.
I have 26,000kpbs downstream broadband and all it did for 25 minutes before I gave up was buffering, buffering and more buffering.
I spoke to others in the USA and other state of Australia and same problem.
I am sure the same old excuses will come out, ‘…errr we never anticipated and therefore planned for this sort of demand…’ = crap.
Stick to on demand video serving YouTube and U2 do it with someone who will do it right next time.
wrong, im in Canberra with a standard ADSL connection and im having no problems watching it.
lol ur internet fails.
Brisbane TPG is working perfectly
they are doing a recording for a DVD so it was convenient for them to use all of the extra cameras to broadcast it live.
And nobody said you had to watch it
Funny thing is i saw their first us concert on mtv, 3 decades ago, darn it.
Argentina has been included in the list of countries. The event is at 12:30 AM (Argentina Time)
I am proud that Marissa Mayer suggested I be named Google’s Chief Gynecologisty. I went digital long before Google.
This sadly is not the first live streamed concert. I would look back to 1994 in case you are wondering
Perhaps you could turn this into a news story? Something avec MEAT?
Streaming a concert is NOT news. Far more ambitious events have been webcast so to claim that “U2 and technology are somehow hand in hand” here? They are late to the party. The Party’s actually over (I hear Hulu started a new party, but, you have to pay to attend)…
How much money will YouTube/Google lose in this vanity endeavor would be news? Would love to see those numbers.
Projections anyone?
May the pomposity lose them at least $20 million.
Great video. Lousy sound mix for online.
“We’ve just heard you’ll be able to watch U2’s live stream on YouTube where ever you are.”
http://www.u2.c...itle/news-flash
seems like i can see it then
OMG a TWITTER STREAM next to the video.
Thanks Techcrunch for staying on the cutting edge.
They were on Saturday Night Live last night. Very cool. Don’t think I’ll be up for tonight’s broadcast.
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“Global” oh but only 16 countries can watch it. These streaming rights are getting ridiculous. You can’t say the music industry are even trying.
chicago show was great. highly recommend you check it out…and save yourself some $$.
Great concert. I hope it’s available after the stream too.
yeah youtube will have it after.
Thanks for the heads up.
12 here in the east. anyways i’m staying up to watch them (was going to read or stay online anyways) and when they came here with their stage set up it was awesome. thanks u2 thanks youtube. thanks to all the people who set it up. i love free.
and i’m not the biggest bono or u2 fan, but i loveeee david, adam & larry, STARTED!!!!
OMG. i can’t lie. i love u2. i can even stand bono’s pious ass. singing “you don’t know how beautiful you are” and crying right now. THANKS YOUTUBE.
Yeah I love U2
Not sure about Bono………but im 37 and have grown up with them. When I was in the US Navy yrs back I remeber seeing them live in Spain and then Rome. Went on a tour bus for like 7 hrs just to see them as our Navy Ship was docked in the wrong part of Spain…..hehe see good memories.
yeah i’m many years younger and have been listening to them since i was 6, and they are basically THE band, but as much as i love them and i love all the history that is attached to them and you can’t talk about alt rock in my generation i guess and not talk about u2 cause they are definately it, but man bono…sometimes i like him and sometimes i just wish he’d stick his shoe up his behind. oh well. have you seen the doc ‘it might get loud’? saw it last year and made me love guitar even more.
“going to a u2 concert is like going to mass”-alan cross (ongoing history of new music)
http://twitter.com/alancross
anyways it’s a good thing. i don’t buy this whole first broadcast live concert or whatever, butttttt i know i am one in thousands watching this. i know everyone i know is up right now watching, and so many more. they’re going to get huge hits from my country.
noticed lots of south american’s in the twitter stream. on twitter and looking at the twitter stream on the youtube page.
googled u2 and under the google news top link which has an article from the belfast news about this event, there’s the nme article about u2 being disappointed about the sales of their newest record. sold 1 mill which is lower than the last three or the lowest ever, and i don’t really care because i heard the new record and wasn’t tempted to buy it. i’m sure i’ll get it before the year is over. the claw and the 2 shows they had here was great. we love u2…maybe i’ll remember them when i get old like you
.
wow the sound and video quality is great.
I owned thesound.com (still do) and I streamed http://www.sant...esfestival.com/ in 1996-
I had to contact all 10 bands and get them to sign a agreement. There was no promise of money other than we would pay them if we sold tickets.
Well we sold about 50 tickets and it was a disaster.
I had to get AT&T to come out and give us 2 temporary lines. Then I strung about 1 mile of cables to the center of the concert and hooked into the Sound Booth. I did not know that the music would go in bursts. Since the cable was too long with no range boosters it would cut off the sound in buffered bursts.
We had chat and a cam that shot like 20 frames a minute or something like that.
I think we used some 3rd party gateway for payment and the 10 bands got like $10 bucks each
The promoters were pissed and we had to explain to everyone about the costs to set it all up, etc. Kinda funny.
Main thing is we quit the company too early. We had more than 1 million daily views for something we copyrighted as SoundBOX and it was a icon that when clicked would open a pop-up music player with 30 second sound samples. We were the very first customer of ASCAP and paid like $200 for a license or something like that.
So kinda funny to hear U2 advertise the very first global live concert.
Now days I dont quit startups and see them through until they get successful enough to get purchased. I have had 18 Nevada S-Corp startups over the years and only 3 have been successful and the others have failed. Live and learn I guess
I thought this was the most interesting stuff on this whole page LOL
Funny how they don’t talk about the costs of doing this. Definitely a loss regardless of size, webcasting concerts at that scale doesn’t pay.
it’s going good so far. some crap vocals here and there and some frozen parts, but aside from that it’s good. i watched that youtube orchestra thing too and it was great. i’m glad for youtube man. anyways i just noticed the photoshopped pic that goes with this post. nice pic mg. you missed a pixel.
if this goes on past midnight in the west i don’t think i can wake up tomorrow/today. f. why’d they start so late?
Thanks MG for this, really appreciate it. Keep posting such event infos.
As usual, MG’ focus is on the sensationalizing title than on the content.
This is truly awesome! Listening right now.
The quality of video is awesome
Pretty soon all events will be streamed live via the internet.
wait wait it’s done, they’re clapping…it’s done. thank baby stewie. i have to get up in 3 hours and go to school. anyone thinking this was a waste of money and time?
Video quality was awesome, but the audio had TERRIBLE feedback, seriously.
We learned 3 things U2 is old
Google spent alot of money tonight
3 It was coool for FREE
I.D. Magazine has an interesting article about the designer (Chuck Hoberman) and tech behind the screen:
http://id-mag.c...s-of-Influence/
“On U2’s current 360° Tour, a huge elliptical video screen hangs from a fog-shrouded, 164-foot-tall armature high above Bono’s head, filled with larger-than-life images of the band. As fans cheer and sing along, the screen slowly expands, breaking into 888 separate hexagonal pieces that dot a seven-story-high aluminum web. “
global? 16 countries.
It ain’t your dad’s streaming setup!
Bono was struggling with his voice. There was considerable echo in the audio. It seems that outside the US this was a 200kbps stream. In NYC I got 1000kbps but the audio was still not great.
MG — you’re right. cool use of technology. I’d love to see other live concerts on You Tube or some other streaming media. U2 was the right band for this venue, but I thought the show lacked energy. It truly felt like a Sunday night, as opposed to an opportunity to play in front of a billion people. U2 has more than enough songs in their bag that rock — but the first half of the show was mostly ballads and political statements…yawn..and I’m a fan of the band!
Interesting note — the picture on FireFox sucked — couldn’t watch full screen because the resolution was so poor. Switched over to Safari (same computer, same connection) and it was crystal clear. Go figure…
Thanks for the heads-up on the concert!
I caught the first part of the concert — good show, and wow, the quality I got on YouTube was astounding! Never seen live streaming that good, ever. They did some of my favorite songs up front too, which was nice — maybe they thought some people would drop off the streaming after a while.
Good job all around.
You think folks here in Israel are going to stay up all night or get up at 5:30am to watch it? Sorry, I only do that for infomercials.
I watched it in Canada and we loved it-I got 1000 kbps and the quality of the video and sound was great in full screen. I was very impressed with it – no buffering. Production was good too.
It was just amazing!!!! I felt like it was happening right in my living room.
Confirmed on u2.com and variety.com today:
“This was a big win for the YouTube community. Nearly 10 million streams came in from U2 fans across 188 countries, making this the largest streaming event in YouTube’s history.”