U2 Music Group

U2 has postponed its world tour, which was expected to begin in Miami on March 1, Rolling Stone reported Thursday, citing a "family illness" in the band as the reason. A spokeswoman for the band said she had no additional information, but U2's manager Paul McGuinness posted a statement on the Irish band's website Thursday saying, "We've postponed the announcement of the tour because the routing is still being worked on.

U2, the Irish rock band that for more than two decades has woven commercial success and critical acclaim into a high-minded career, will lead the 2005 class of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The quartet will be joined by the rock band the Pretenders, Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy, soul singer Percy Sledge and the R&B vocal group the O'Jays.

The nation's music retailers are gleeful over the public's early response to new albums by Eminem, U2 and other high-profile acts, but is it going to be enough to reverse a recent downturn that's threatening to make 2004 a disappointing sales year? Until September, it looked as if this could be the year the record business turned around the slump it's been in for several years. Sales were up nearly 10% over 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

A long-lost briefcase full of notes and lyrics that were intended for the 1981 U2 album "October" has been returned, 23 years after it was stolen at a Portland, Ore., concert. U2 frontman Bono made the announcement during an appearance before the World Affairs Council of Oregon this week, saying the returned notes were "an act of grace." Bono had to rewrite the "October" lyrics in the studio, and band members called it their worst recording experience.

"It's one of the most banal couplets I've ever heard," Bono says sheepishly about the words he wrote for one of U2's best-known songs. " 'I want to run, I want to hide ... ' That's not very interesting, but you know what? People don't hear the couplets when we play the song. "They hear something else in the music. They hear a band talking about a special place, a better place, and asking if the audience wants to go there with them."

An unfinished copy of U2's upcoming CD disappeared while the band was posing for the album cover, in a studio outside Nice, France, raising fears it will be pirated on the Internet ahead of its fall release date. About 20 people who were at Tuesday's photo shoot were questioned by police, who said later it was unclear whether the CD's disappearance was accidental or theft.

U2's follow-up to the Grammy-winning "All That You Can't Leave Behind" album three years ago is "nearly finished," singer Bono told a gathering in Dublin recently. "We're in the home straight.... It's filled with big tunes and it's driven by a guitar player who is sick of the sight of me shaking hands with dodgy politicians."

"Growing up in Ireland, I was not fond of flags," Bono said Monday during U2's emotionally charged concert at Staples Center. "Until a few weeks ago, I wouldn't have felt the way I do about that flag either." The singer was staring at a U.S. flag draped over a drum kit, adding that he has long been suspicious of patriotism because of Northern Ireland's history of killings in the name of God and country. But the terrorist attacks of Sept.

Steely Dan, the reclusive studio wizards who left the music scene for 20 years, won the best album award Wednesday at the 43rd annual Grammy Awards, but the duo's long-awaited victory was overshadowed by Eminem, the firebrand rapper whose performance and nominations fed a yearlong furor over his lyrics.

Bono is behind the wheel of his black Mercedes sedan, taking a visitor on a mini-tour of the city as he heads downtown to meet the other members of U2 for dinner. The rock quartet has spent much of the day in its rehearsal studio on the River Liffey preparing for some television appearances, and it's time to relax. U2 isn't fond of performing on TV--they haven't done it in 15 years.