New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Disney+ reveals the official trailer and key art for the highly anticipated docu-special, "Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman," is set to premiere globally on Disney+ on March 17, St. Patrick's Day, coinciding with U2's highly anticipated album "Songs Of Surrender" - a collection of 40 seminal U2 songs from across the band's catalog, re-recorded and reimagined.
In the docu-special, from Disney Branded Television, Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville captures Dave Letterman on his first visit to Dublin to hang out with Bono and The Edge in their hometown, experience Dublin, and join the two U2 musicians for a concert performance unlike any they've done before.
From Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's Imagine Documentaries, Neville's Tremolo Productions, and Dave Letterman's Worldwide Pants, "Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman" is part concert movie, part travel adventure plus a whole lot of Bono and The Edge, with Dave's humor throughout.
As well as the concert performance itself, the docu-special will focus on the extraordinary relationship between Bono and The Edge and how it has developed across 45-plus years of close friendship to become one of the most remarkable songwriting partnerships in the history of rock 'n' roll, plus document Dublin through Dave's eyes as he experiences Bono and The Edge's home city for the first time.
Letterman, who accepted an invitation from the two U2 bandmates to join them in Dublin for his first-ever visit to Ireland, has a 25-year relationship with U2 but had previously only spent time with the Bono and The Edge in the U.S. As well as being their honored guest at an intimate concert performance at a local landmark, the former Ambassador Cinema building at the top of O'Connell Street on Dublin's Northside, Dave embarks on his own exploration of the city. He visits the legendary Forty Foot swimming spot on a freezing cold morning and rides the DART commuter train north from Co. Wicklow. Letterman also inspires a brand new U2 song written by The Edge and Bono and narrowly escapes having to perform at a sing-song at the legendary McDaid's pub off Grafton Street with an equally legendary bunch of artists and musicians, including Bono, The Edge, Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Imelda May, Loah, Saint Sister, Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C., and Dermot Kennedy, whose voice Bono describes as a "sonic boom."
U2's new album titled "Songs Of Surrender" ― a collection of 40 seminal U2 songs from across the band's catalog, re-recorded and reimagined for 2023 in sessions spanning the last two years, is to be released in full on Friday, March 17. The first track to be made available from this brand new set of recordings is the anthemic "Pride (In The Name Of Love)," listen here. "Songs Of Surrender" is curated and produced by The Edge and sees the band revisit some of the most celebrated songs of their 40-plus year career, including "With Or Without You," "One," "Beautiful Day," "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Invisible," for a musical reimagining resulting in a completely new recording of each track, to include the arrangements and, in some cases, new lyrics.
"Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman" is produced by Imagine Documentaries, Tremolo Productions, and Dave Letterman's Worldwide Pants. For Imagine Documentaries, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Sara Bernstein and Justin Wilkes are executive producers; Séamus Murphy-Mitchell is producer; and Meredith Kaulfers and Mike Sweeney are co-executive producers. For Tremolo, Morgan Neville is director and producer, and Caitrin Rogers is executive producer. For Worldwide Pants, Tom Keaney is executive producer, and Mary Barclay is co-executive producer. For Disney Branded Television, Marc Buhaj is vice president, Unscripted and Nonfiction, and Marjon Javadi is vice president, Documentary Films and Docuseries.
Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. met as teenagers at Dublin's Mount Temple School and in 1978 U2 was formed. From the beginning, U2 were marked out by their drive and ambition, forming as a band - as they've said - "before they could play."
Forty years later, U2 is acknowledged as one of the best live acts in the world. The band has toured the globe countless times, released 14 studio albums, sold over 170 million albums and won numerous awards, including 22 Grammys and Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience award. U2 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 and have twice been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song: in 2003 for 'The Hands That Built America' for Gangs of New York, and in 2014 for 'Ordinary Love' for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
U2's fourteenth studio album Songs Of Experience - the companion release to 2014's Songs Of Innocence - was released in December 2017 debuting at #1 on the Billboard 200, setting U2 apart as the only band in history to have topped the chart in four successive decades.
In 2018, the U2 hit the road with the eXPERIENCE + iNNOCENCE Tour, an arena production which saw the band continue to push the creative boundaries of technology and engineering. And following 2017's acclaimed stadium run with The Joshua Tree Tour - the record-breaking smash hit tour celebrating the band's seminal 1987 album The Joshua Tree - The Joshua Tree Tour took U2 to New Zealand, Australia, and Japan, as well as brought "the biggest band in the world" (The Guardian) to Singapore, Seoul, Manila and Mumbai for the very first time. In November, 2019, the band released a track in collaboration with A.R. Rahman titled 'Ahimsa', which was performed live at Mumbai's D.Y. Patil Stadium. In 2020, SiriusXM and U2 announced the launch of U2 X-Radio, a complete immersion into the work and influences of the band from the Northside of Dublin, all curated by U2. And in May 2021, Bono and The Edge collaborated with Dutch DJ Martin Garrix to create the track 'We Are The People,' the official anthem for the UEFA 2020 European Football Tournament.
Songs Of Surrender - a collection of 40 seminal U2 songs from across the band's catalogue, re-recorded and reimagined for 2023 in sessions spanning the last two years, will be released in full on Friday 17th March.
