IT would be fair to say that U2 don't do things by half.

Their Vertigo world tour is set to net them 175 million euros, which will prove to be an even bigger money-spinner than their 2001 Elevation tour.

And 70,000 fans in Cardiff will be helping them laugh all the way to the bank when the U2 machine hits the Millennium Stadium on June 29 on the last leg of their UK dates.

By the time Bono and his boys finish the tour at the end of the year they will have played to 3.3 million people.

They've sold 115 million albums since their formation at Dublin's Mount Temple High School in 1978 - at the instigation of Larry Mullen who pinned an ad to a bulletin board.

There's little denying that U2 have cemented their reputation among the greatest rock acts in history. Moreover, by learning to roll with the punches down the years, together they have shared memorable victories, and rare defeats, of an extraordinary career.

Remarkably, more than two decades later, they remain intact. No one has left U2; no new member has ever joined.

Their biggest gig of the year will undoubtedly be Live8 next month but for now they are concentrating on the small matter of their Euro tour.

Three years after forming, U2 went from strength to strength, chiefly due to their relentless touring and blistering live performances which regularly saw Bono go to extraordinary lengths to capture the audience's imagination: scaling PA stacks without a safety net, teetering along the lip of theatre balconies, turning his back to the front rows and then free-falling into a sea of hands.

Their first three Steve Lillywhite-produced albums - Boy (1980), October (1981) and War (their first UK No 1 in 1983, yielding the breakthrough hits New Year's Day and Two Hearts Beat As One) - redefined rock.

Early in 1984, U2 made the surprising announcement that experimentalist Brian Eno (David Bowie, Talking Heads) and his protg Daniel Lanois were to produce their fourth studio album.

Recorded in the suitably cavernous ballroom of Slane Castle, near Dublin, The Unforgettable Fire offered a new, expansive, cinematic U2 sound as evidenced in Pride (In The Name Of Love), their biggest hit up to that point in both the UK and the States.

The seemingly never-ending tour that followed witnessed the band sell out New York's Madison Square Garden and make their pivotal appearance at Live Aid in 1985 before headlining Amnesty International's Conspiracy Of Hope Tour the following year.

At the close of the 80s, few could have predicted the transformation that U2 would undergo with the dawning of the '90s.

A collection, U2: The Best of 1980 - 1990 came in 1998 and sold more than 13 million.

The band returned to the studio with Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno to record All That You Can't Leave Behind.

Released in October 2000, it went to number one in 32 countries, with the first single Beautiful Day also taking the top spot in the UK.

Their latest album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, simply confirmed them as rock's world leaders.

They will be supported in Cardiff by The Killers.