A COUPLE OF UPDATES TO BELOW STORY.....
With Bono's documentary, Stories of Surrender, now streaming on Apple TV+, there's also a three-song EP.
Available on streaming services, the Stories of Surrender EP contains his versions of three U2 songs -- “Desire,” “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and "The Showman" -- as they were done on the band's 2023 album, Songs of Surrender.
He's backed on them by Gemma Doherty on harp, keyboard and vocals; Kate Ellis on cello, keyboard and vocals; and his musical director Jacknife Lee.
A limited-edition seven-inch vinyl disc will follow on June 13th.
Bono also plugged the documentary, EP and the updated and abridged paperback version of his memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, now titled Stories of Surrender, with a three-hour appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, which you can watch on YouTube.
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Bono's documentary, Stories of Surrender, debuts today on Apple TV+.
It goes behind-the-scenes and features footage shot at his 2022 one-man show, Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief…, at New York's Beacon Theatre, which he did in support of his memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. He says the show tells the story of three fathers. And, the show helped heal his "complicated relationship" with his father. Bob Hewson died on August 21st, 2001. He was 75.
There is also an immersive version of Bono: Stories of Surrender premiering this Friday on Apple Vision Pro. This marks the first feature length film available in Apple Immersive Video, recorded in 8K with Spatial Audio to produce a 180-degree video that places viewers onstage with Bono.
In conjunction with the film, an updated and abridged paperback version of his memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, now titled Stories of Surrender, was published on Tuesday. It includes him discussing the show as well as a new introduction he wrote.
AND, IN OTHER U2 NEWS......
While U2 have said they're excited about the new album they're recording, Bono tells Esquire magazine he'd rather be somewhere else.
“I’m the only one who doesn’t like recording. I just like to play live.”
But he realizes that recording a new album "provides us with a reason to leave home. You want to have some very good reasons to leave home.”
It's been eight years since U2 released an album of original material -- 2017's Songs of Experience -- and that concerns Bono when it comes to their fans.
“I hope they’re going to still be there for us," he says. "We’ve pushed them to their elastic limit over the years. And now it’s a long time that we’ve been away. But I still think that we can create a soundtrack for people who want to take on the world.”
The new album is being produced by Brian Eno, who produced, co-produced or played on The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum, Achtung Baby, Zooropa, All That You Can't Leave Behind, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, No Line on the Horizon and Songs of Surrender.
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Bono is the cover story of the new issue of Esquire magazine as he promotes his documentary, Bono: Stories of Surrender, which starts streaming tomorrow on Apple TV+.
The magazine captured him for its For the Record YouTube series in which he scrolls through videos on an iPad and comments on them.
Winning their first Grammy in 1988: "Look at that top hat and the head. The head hasn't a clue what's going to happen to it over the next 30 years. We were caught I would say caught in an act of show business crime thinking you could be authentic and real in the middle of an awards show And I'm not sure we pulled that off. I think we ended up looking more smug... When I see myself I just go, 'Oh are you absent of any humility?' But the truth is that's always a sign of the opposite..."
1987 video for "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," which was filmed in Las Vegas: "I love the fact that [Las Vegas is] a town that appears to be designed by children so that adults can run around and behave like them. But I also want to say people work really hard in Las Vegas. Like really hard looking after people like me who don't work as hard."
Adam Sandler imitating Bono on Saturday Night Live in 1995: "He's kind of a genius Adam Sandler. He's doing Bono better than me."
Meeting Pope Francis in 2018 (this video was shot prior to his death): "Had very interesting conversations..." Asked what they talked about he said, "Have you not heard of the seal of the confessional. I cannot tell you of what I've confessed... He's curious about how the world works. And he has a deep passion for the fragility of the human particularly the the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet.
U2 performing at the Sphere in Las Vegas in 2023 and 2024: "The most surprising part of performing at the Sphere ... I don't know if I should say this but this Sphere is not actually spherical. It is indeed a dome. It's a very big dome. It can make a performer feel very small..."
And his new documentary, Bono: Stories of Surrender: "It was a kind of brutal intimacy kind of almost uncomfortable intimacy but I'm too much of an exhibitionist to not go ahead with it, you know what I mean..."