[From the March 6, 1997, "Westwood One Prep" sheet sent out to Westwood's affiliate radio stations]



Bono has reportedly been diagnosed as having an "allergy to alcohol." Apparently Bono's love of the bottle began during the Zooropa tour in 1993, when he began keeping his favorite champagne and bottles of Jack Daniels with him at all times. Doctors have been giving him pills to reduce the swelling and bloating caused by the alcohol allergy. A friend was quoted as saying, "He has been feeling really unwell and he had no idea what caused it. The doctors did a lot of tests -- but when they told him he was allergic to alcohol he was horrified. He loves good wine and he will be devastated if he has to give it up completely." Bono may find some help from bandmate Adam Clayton, who underwent treatment for alcohol addiction two years ago.



Meanwhile, the PopMart tour has not been selling all that well, at least in England. The band still hasn't sold out the 70,000-seat Wembley Stadium, even though tickets have been on sale over a week. A spokesperson admitted that sales were slow, though they did expect the show to eventually sell out. U2 had been hoping to break a sales record held by Oasis when that band sold 250,000 tickets in nine hours last summer. Another embarassing moment for U2 happened a few nights ago at the Virgin Megastore in London, where the store managers opened the store at midnight to handle what they hoped would be a crowd waiting for the new POP album to go on sale. Problem was, only a handful of people showed up. Said Virgin spokesperson Anne Morgan, "We had the store open for over an hour, but hardly anybody turned up. It would've been better if we'd had a signing or some special event to tie in with, but as it was, it was pretty disappointing."







© Westwood One, 1997. All rights reserved.