Ex-Manager Paul McGuinness and Life After U2
After looking after the career of U2 since 1978, Paul McGuinness recently decided to step back from his day-to-day duties, handing everything over to Guy Oseary, who also oversees Madonna’s career.
McGuinness was at Midem this week and reflected on how things have been going since going into semi-retirement.
Do you find it hard to take a step back after being in the music industry for so long? Is it a hard to transition to make or are you looking forward to it?
I’ve been looking forward to it. There are other parts show biz that i’m interested in as well. I’m one of the owners of the film studios in Ireland. And a few years ago I was involved in setting up Ireland’s TV3 which i’m not involved in any longer but that was exciting. I certainly intend to remain involved in the entertainment just not managing artists any longer. That’s the big change, I’m not going to do that anymore.Was running the record-setting U2 360 tour the hardest you’ve ever worked as a manager
Oh yeah, it was a giant undertaking. II think it was about 110 shows and as i said we grossed three-quarters of a billion dollars. So the sums of money were staggering. To set it up was staggering. But then the rewards were enormous.
I’ve been looking forward to it. There are other parts show biz that i’m interested in as well. I’m one of the owners of the film studios in Ireland. And a few years ago I was involved in setting up Ireland’s TV3 which i’m not involved in any longer but that was exciting. I certainly intend to remain involved in the entertainment just not managing artists any longer. That’s the big change, I’m not going to do that anymore.Was running the record-setting U2 360 tour the hardest you’ve ever worked as a manager
Oh yeah, it was a giant undertaking. II think it was about 110 shows and as i said we grossed three-quarters of a billion dollars. So the sums of money were staggering. To set it up was staggering. But then the rewards were enormous.
Did you get burned out working on it? Didn’t it run for 2-3 years?
Well it ran for longer than we intended because Bono had a serious back injury so we had to postpone. So everything was bigger. So were setting world records. There was even a record-setting insurance claim.
