U2 world tour to kick off in June: report

Irish band U2, on a huge promotional blitz followingtheir appearance at the Grammy Awardsin February, will be launching a world tour June 30 in Barcelona, according to Billboard magazine.

The rockers say they will play up to 100 showsthrough fall 2010, in support ofthe band's first album since 2004, No Line on the Horizon.

An official announcement will be madeMonday.

The band has been a headline magnet of late after playing live on the roof of the BBC in London, having a street temporarily named after them for a week in New York City and performing for five nights on the TVprogram Late Show with David Letterman.

Billboard said U2will begin the first North American leg of the tour in Chicago on Sept. 12, but few other detailswere divulged.

Guitarist the Edge (born David Howell Evans) told the magazine that the band'sKiss the Future tour is going to be "very different."

"It's hard to come up with something that's fundamentally different, but we have, I think, on this tour. Where we're taking our production will never have been seen before by anybody, and that's an amazing thing to be able to say," he said.

Tickets are slated to go on sale in Europe in mid-March and in late March or early April in North America.

The Edgesaid he and his band members frontman Bono, bass guitarist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. never tire of touring and performing for their fans.

"There's such a special thing that goes on between the band and the audience at a U2 show. It's always unique; it's always really uplifting. It's like a kind of semi-religious experience for the band and, I think, for the audience too."