He's back! Willie Williams is back on the road with U2 and has started penning his unique, behind-the-scenes tour journal for U2.Com Subscribers.

Willie, U2's longtime Show Designer, is at the Grammy's with the band this week before heading down to Mexico and the opening night of Vertigo '06.

Here's a couple of extracts of his latest entries to whet your appetites.

On Preparing for the Fourth Leg.

'Phone call with Bono this morning to talk about the Grammys and the live show. He sounded in great form, almost like he had taken some time off, hard though that is to imagine. Regular readers will know that U2 performed at the Grammy Awards last year. It's no secret that in most cases TV awards shows are where rock and roll goes to die, but the Grammys people are more savvy and helpful than most and we were all pleased with last year's result. It's the same team organising the forthcoming show, so I'm as confident as is possible that we'll get through it OK. Plus, Bono has a plan, which always helps.........'

At An Industry Awards Do in London.

'...clearly the fleet was in and there were rakes of people there whom I know and love dearly. Smasher, the Vertigo tour's video director, had Eurostarred in from Belgium, but the surprise of the night was running into Pete, a sound engineer with whom I did two Stiff Little Fingers tours around 1981. We became quite pally on the tour (when you're doing 35 club dates in France in 36 days its sink-or-swim) and I haven't seen him since, though remarkably, with the exception perhaps of marginally fewer teeth, he was entirely unchanged.
It all turned out to be shockingly A-list, which frankly is a little depressing as I would hate people to start taking these events seriously, but I could see that this had potential to be a very enjoyable night. It was a sit down dinner for over 500 roadies and I found myself seated next to Harvey Goldsmith and Bob Geldof, neither of whom I'd properly met before but they were both very engaging. Geldof is every bit as entertaining dinner party company as you'd imagine and I particularly enjoyed hearing his take on some of the political jaunts, as I only ever hear Bono's side of the stories. Bob's a little more...direct, perhaps....'


Willie Williams's Road Journals are just one of the benefits you get when you become a subscriber to U2.Com. To take a free tour of our Subscribers Site and to find out about all the other exclusives, check this.