We’re not even five months into the year and it’s already shaping up to be a busy one for U2.
So far, they’ve released two six-song EPs in 2026 – Days Of Ash in February and Easter Lily six weeks later. Now it looks like they’re preparing for the release of a new single by shooting a video on the streets of Mexico City.
They’ve shared some footage on social media of the shoot, which sees them play on the roof of an old bus in the streets in front of cheering fans. The track is called Street Of Dreams and appears to have a chorus that goes: ‘La calle, calle de los sueños / All the doors are open on the street of dreams’.
In a subsequent post, the band revealed that the shoot hadn’t been without some difficulty: “The thunder and rain crashed the generator for the film shoot, which meant a bewildered but welcoming neighbour let the U2ers crash their apartment at dinner time and out to their balcony.” Whilst the band were sheltering, the crowd below had a bit of a sing-song, belting out Vertigo and Desire as they waited for the shoot to start again.
There’s no news yet on a release date for the single, or the album, from which it’s presumably drawn, though some observers have noted that September 25 – a Friday coincidentally this year – marks the fiftieth anniversary of the band’s first ever rehearsal.
In other U2 news, the site of a famous free gig the band gave in San Francisco in 1987 is to be redeveloped.
It’s the Vaillancourt Fountain (below), a brutalist structure that is part of the city’s Justin Herman Plaza. U2 were in town in November 1987, about to play two shows at the Oakland Coliseum, but before that they gave a free gig, playing on two flat-bed trucks, to 20,000 fans in front of the fountain. The event was titled ‘Save The Yuppies’ due to the fact it was just weeks after the infamous Black Monday stock market crash of October that year.
Footage from the gig – including the band’s cover of All Along The Watchtower - made its way onto the Rattle And Hum movie and soundtrack that was released the following year. You may recall that at Bono ended the gig in a very Bono way – he climbed the fountain and sprayed ‘Rock N’ Roll stops the traffic’ on it.
Anyway, it’s been discovered that the fountain contains asbestos and lead and according to a city official speaking on local TV station KGO has "become kind of an attractive nuisance." And so it has to go.
