"The band are rehearsing now," explains Bono to the Sydney Morning Herald. " I'm getting out of it by talking to you, which is great because I really can't stand rehearsals. I really do find it very hard to sing those songs unless there's people there."

Tomorrow night, Tuesday, there will be 50,000 people there as the band kick off the final leg of the tour.

Today, Monday, they ran through the new set again - looks different and the same from the one they were playing when they were last on stage in Argentina in March.

We won't spoil the surprise (the set list will be posted here straight after the show) but no surprises about two of the tracks which will feature. They performed City of Blinding Lights and Vertigo for the cameras today, part of a whole series of radio and TV interviews they gave.

Will they play more material than earlier on the tour from 'All That You Can't Leave Behind' - which they never toured in Australia ? Will they play 'The Saints Are Coming', one of the two new tracks on 'U218 Singles' ? INcidentally, in an interview with Kathy McCabe of the Adelaide Advertiser, Bono talks for the first time about the other new track on the album - Window on the Skies.

'With soaring strings and a haunting piano melody the tune is remarkably different to the stadium rock sound of their recent smash hit album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. It is huge but in a very different way and for a very different reason; Bono is learning to play piano.

"I think that's going to be our biggest song in a long time. It's a psychedelic pop song with 6/8 timing, you never hear that. It's very, very rare," he says.

"I've been taking piano lessons with my kids and every time I took a lesson, I wrote a song. I had eight lessons and I had eight songs.

"They (his bandmates) were all like 'He'll never have any songs this time' and in I bring eight. Whoa! Of course, they have much improved it."

Read the rest of this interview here

Incidentally, if you're in Australia you won't need reminding that the opening show comes on the same day as the Melbourne Cup, one of the biggest days in the horse-racing calendar. Bono, who has been known to back the odd loser, will be glued to the box. "I don't think I can get to the Cup, because it's a show day, which is really, really annoying. But I will be watching it - this is the best horse race in the world. I'll have the various horse whisperers on the phone from back home telling me how I can lose my money."

Read the Sydney Morning Herald interview here