MUMBAI: Irish rockers U2 played their first-ever concert in India Sunday, with top celebrities and mega-fans converging from across the vast nation to the coastal city of Mumbai.
U2 are the latest in a series of major international acts to tour the South Asian country, with Beyonce, Shakira, Coldplay, Demi Lovato and Bryan Adams among the superstars who have played to packed venues.
Some 35,000 tickets were estimated to have been sold for the concert at the D.Y. Patil Sports Stadium, local media reported, with top Bollywood stars posing for photos before entering the venue.
Ahead of the concert, the band posted on their social media accounts a photo of the words “Ahimsa is the highest ideal.”
“We were shaped and formed by Martin Luther King Jr who was a student of Mahatma Gandhi,” frontman Bono told the NDTV news television channel in September.
“So we come as students to the source of inspiration that is ‘Ahimsa’ — non-violence. Indians gave us this. It is the greatest gift to the world.”
Mumbai is the last leg on The Joshua Tree Tour 2019 — named after the band’s seminal album — which kicked off on November 8 in Auckland.
The Asia Pacific tour, which first started with stadium concerts in North America and Europe in 2017, marks three decades since the Irish group’s “The Joshua Tree” was released.
Released in March 1987, “The Joshua Tree” reached into the roots of Irish and American music and produced classic hits “With or Without You,” “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
Bono, U2 play their first-ever concert in India
Bono, U2 play their first-ever concert in India
- U2 are the latest in a series of major international acts to tour the South Asian country
- Mumbai is the last leg on The Joshua Tree Tour 2019, named after the band’s seminal album
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
