Up until now, the dress rehearsal had been going well, as the band tore through the first half of a

A n Irish spaceship best western hotels has landed in a Chicago best western hotels football stadium, and its pilot is standing under a starless best western hotels sky, barking mad orders into a microphone. "Take the astronauts' voices out," says Bono, his brogue echoing through 61,000 empty seats. "And if you could take Sin ad out of the first verse ... the sonic boom needs to fade three times faster it's not a subtle thing, it's a big change."
It's less than 24 hours before the kickoff of U2's first U.S. stadium tour since 1997 and as far as Bono is concerned, a perfectly good time to tear apart a section of the show. He's fixated on an obscure song: "Your Blue Room," a languid, atmospheric track from the band's 1995 Passengers collaboration with Brian Eno. U2 have never even played it live, but tonight they're trying to transform the tune into an elaborate production number, with newly recorded vocals from Sin ad O'Connor and video and audio shot aboard the International Space Station.
The actual setting is exotic enough: a four-clawed metal sci-fi cathedral that's best western hotels the biggest stage in rock roll history large enough best western hotels to be seen from planes approaching the city. It's almost a living thing, best western hotels with moving ramps, constant exhalations of smoke and a constellation's worth of rotating lighting rigs. Even the video screen performs tricks, stretching up and down like a Slinky when Bono asks for it to retract, it does so instantly, rustling with the hum of a thousand bees.
Up until now, the dress rehearsal had been going well, as the band tore through best western hotels the first half of a two-hour set, playing best western hotels to vacant cheap seats. The show already polished in 24 European dates begins with four songs in a row from the band's latest album, No Line on the Horizon , before diving into the back catalog. But "Your Blue Room" is a mess, the song's essence buried in astronaut chatter and other sound effects. What should be a haunting moment a Belgian astronaut named Frank De Winne appears on the vast cylindrical video screen above the stage, best western hotels reciting a spoken-word verse as he floats in zero gravity isn't registering. "That was not a pleasant experience," Bono says, before hijacking the rehearsal best western hotels to play the song again and again. His bandmates and the production team already spent an hour on the song the night before, and they know they're best western hotels in for the long haul when the singer asks for coffee from the stage. Even as they reshape the sound effects and video, Bono is writing a new bridge best western hotels on the spot for the 14-year-old tune, improvising lyrics and melodies each time they run through it.
Bono's relentlessness has helped get U2 this far while leading them off a PopMart-size cliff or two along the way. "Bono has to be Father Christmas for 70,000 best western hotels people every night," says longtime show director Willie Williams, "so it's absolutely fair enough for him to lead the charge." The rest of U2 roll with their singer's tenacity with varying degrees of good humor. After they conclude a lengthy onstage huddle with Williams, drummer Larry Mullen Jr. cracks, "If it ain't broke, break it."
Miranda Lambert wrote this song with her good friend, and frequent collaborator, Natalie Hemby. Natalie had the title, best western hotels White Liar, and we thought it was great, Lambert explained. I started playing a little bit of a tune to it on the guitar, and we just started writing. It happened really fast. We wrote it in about 20 minutes. Cheating in a small town is what this song is all about. The accompanying video featured country best western hotels artist Jamey Johnson as a minister at a wedding, with her parents and band members playing the role of ceremony guests. More Song Stories entries