U2360° Salt Lake City Postponement21 May 2010
Following Bono's unexpected back surgery earlier today, Live Nation confirmed that the U2 U2360° tour launch previously scheduled for June 3rd in Salt Lake City has been postponed.

U2 fans with tickets to the June 3rd event are encouraged to retain tickets until updated show information can be provided.

Additional tour information will be forthcoming.
Hope he's O.K.

If they postponed SLC, Anaheim is definitely going to be postponed. No way he's perfroming 2 1/2 weeks after back surgery.

Agreed. Even if it was a minor surgery, I don't see how he would be ready to start running around on stage for 2 hours every night until he's had several weeks to recuperate, physical therapy, etc. Looks like I am making alternate plans on June 6th... Hope he gets well soon.

Rumor has it the trucks (and stage) are leaving SLC heading to Minn. for the June 27 show. That means the first possible show could be Seattle since they have three stage setups.

Monday we should know more...

I'm sitting on both Anaheim shows and Miami tickets. I would actually prefer them postponing this whole leg while he rests up, and they make up the shows after the Euro and Rumored SA/Asia leg in 2011

I have tickets for the Seattle show, so I have my fingers crossed that he's able to recover in time for that show. I'm a bit skeptical that a month is enough, but I guess it depends how major the surgery was. Get well soon Bono!

Eek! Stinks that I've planned/waited for the Seattle show. Wonder what was wrong with the old fart, exactly.

It must be from carrying that cross on his back, or else worrying where his next meal will come from.

I wonder if it is too late to get David Lee Roth to front the band?

Good point. lol!

I thought it was from taking the biggest crap ever (according to South Park)?

Exclusive: U2's North American tour cancelled
Photo
8:51am EDT

By Mike Collett-White and Ayhan Uyanik

LONDON/MUNICH (Reuters) - U2 frontman Bono left hospital in Germany on Tuesday after undergoing emergency surgery on his back, but the injury has forced the Irish band to postpone the entire North American leg of its world tour.

It also means the band will not be appearing at Glastonbury, one of the biggest live music events of the annual pop calendar.

Bono has been told to recuperate for at least eight weeks and band manager Paul McGuinness, speaking to Reuters outside the Munich hospital where the operation was performed on Friday, said the 50-year-old singer "feels awful" about the tour changes, which will affect over a million fans.

"Clearly this is a serious injury and the recuperation time necessary to rehabilitate Bono is a big problem for the U2 tour and has unfortunately necessitated the postponement of 16 shows in North America," he said.

"Those shows were to occur between June 3 in Salt Lake City and July 19 in Meadowlands Stadium."

The earliest possible date for Bono's return, according to the band's website, would be August 6 in Turin, Italy.

U2 were to have been the headline act on the main stage at Glastonbury on June 25, but that has now been canceled.

"I'm heartbroken," Bono said in a statement posted on the festival's website. "We really wanted to be there to do something really special -- we even wrote a song especially for the festival."

BLOW TO LIVE NATION

As well as the band and fans, the injury will also hit Live Nation, the music concert company which signed a 12-year deal to handle merchandising, digital and branding rights and touring for one of the world's most successful bands.

"Obviously Bono feels terrible about missing these shows and we are working as fast as we can with Live Nation to reinstate them and reschedule them for next year," McGuinness said.

"For a performer like him to miss shows is a terrible thing and he feels awful about it. He shouldn't. The most important thing is for him to get better and return to his full power as a performer."

Joerg Tonn, the neurosurgeon treating the star, described Bono's condition as a "sudden onset disease" which caused temporary partial paralysis. The injury happened while the singer was training in preparation for the tour.

"He was already in severe pain with partial paralysis of the lower leg. The ligaments surrounding the disc had an eight millimeter tear and during surgery we discovered fragments of the disc had travelled into the spine canal.

"The surgery was the only cause of treatment for full recovery and to avoid further paralysis. Bono is now much better with complete recovery of his motor-deficit.

"His prognosis is excellent but to obtain a sustainable result he must now enter a period of rehabilitation."

The 2009 part of the tour helped the band earn $109 million last year, according to music journal Billboard. The U2 360 Tour, so-called because fans surround a giant circular platform, was predicted to become the highest-grossing tour in history.

The band, with hits like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Where the Streets Have No Name", is one of the world's biggest. They have sold over 150 million records, according to unofficial estimates.

(Reporting and writing by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Steve Addison)

Certainly makes sense. I didn't really think 'back surgery' is something you can do on the weekend and go off on a world tour two weeks later. At least the dates will be rescheduled for 2011 and the 360 Rose Bowl DVD will be out in June to hold us over. Who knows, maybe there will be some progress made on the "Songs of Ascent" project by that time.

^^Agree on the idea that we might get more new music by seeing them in 2011 instead. The rescheduled shows in 2006 were some of the best.

I just hope it doesn't conflict with anything I have going on work wise in '11

They aren't playing in my town, but opening act Interpol was a day after a U2 show in Minneapolis. Because the U2 tour is postponed, Interpol canceled their solo dates.

I had purchased tickets for June 7th show at Anaheim stadium last year as Christmas present for my girlfriend. Guess she'll have to wait till next year to see them.

Join the club! My 55 year old mom is in love with Adam, and tickets to the Seattle show were her birthday present. She'll have to wait until she's 57 now

Also in Seattle. I got mine as an anniversary present for my girlfriend in Dec 09