The uproar began last week. “London will plant trees to reduce the environmental impact of the concerts of U2,” “There are still tickets on sale for the U2 concert.” The news in newspapers and on radio basted in the same direction.’Magnificent’, ‘No Line On The Horizon’, ‘Get On Your Boots’ to demarcate themselves from compelling ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ or ‘One’. Stir the frenzy of information, the Internet, fan sites and blogs spun reports of previous concerts, alignments predictable, particular experiences that conversation flowed in coffee. “Are you going?”, “Got a ticket for the first or the second day?” “Where do you get to sleep?”

It always does. Invariably so each time the band comes from Dublin to Portugal, except for the mythical and contributed so little to show Vilar Moors, was in 1982, was “Boy,” the first album the group released two years earlier, single record is still available in Portugal - “October” of 1981, would arrive later. The reasons for this state of euphoria (natural in many cases, exaggerated in others) are manifold.

The production literally overwhelming in terms of technology and visual impact that the group of Bono makes a point of bringing the world are the starting point, alongside the band’s popularity.

The title, played with the Rolling Stones, the greatest rock band in the world, makes the Portuguese feel great, important, it also invited to participate in the largest concert no less the world. And sticks. Adheres immediately.

Without much thought in most cases or truly “in love with the music that changed his life,” it is not uncommon to hear him say. True mass phenomenon, U2 are high level professionals and not left, at least in Portugal, their claims by alien hands. In each concert celebrates the ecstasy among an audience of thousands. “Today we have become the Portuguese,” Bono yelled at Alvalade XXI 2005 to alight from the first minute of the Portuguese version of the Vertigo Tour. On stage, he, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen of wear left breast the Order of Liberty with the then President of the Republic Jorge Sampaio was knighted. It was not necessary, I believe, but the crowd was grateful and accepted the compliment from Bono in all honesty.

In fact, it is virtually impossible not (s) to take seriously when they are on top of a stage, however they interpret characters and paraphernalia that surrounds them. Its authenticity exists only when in full play. Return to a rebellious youth healthy, happy children who enjoy their favorite toys, a thousand roads mature, hard, less hard, so easy. Adults living the dream that brought them together, come true through this so many times proclaimed naivety of wanting to “change the world.”

The absence of U2 had lasted seven years. Portugal had not seen the Elevation Tour, and in most recent memory was only the Popmart Tour. 60 000 people surrendered to one of the virtual band’s concerts. The spectacularity beginning with the largest screen of LEDs ever built, he shared the stage with a giant yellow arch to remind the logo of McDonald’s, where he established the PA, along with a huge lemon opened to bring out the new fab four . It was the first time that a second stage, placed near the middle of the stage, approached the band to its audience, creating moments of intimacy very implausible in concerts of this size. But everything worked. It was all what the public craved fat in 90 years and is not that the Zoo TV Tour, which landed at Alvalade in May 1993, the first tour of U2 high global and megalomania, had not already experienced the same concepts. The giant screens were already there and there were direct links and real-time, first to RTP, which broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest in a simultaneous broadcast with Ireland, then with the famous telephone call to Teletaxi whose operator failed more turn off the phone, but memorable comic episode, even if they leave a taste of the little remembered with the mythical call to the White House during the same tour. Virtual was attended by Lou Reed “Satellite of Love ‘. However, more than the minutes with the former Velvet Underground, which was in memory was the interpretation of ‘Mysterious Ways’, the dance of seven veils starring Morleigh Steinberg, with whom he later married the Edge, went home of 63 000 people who attended the show. And there is still very likely.

These times or better than what they are now around 100 000 spectators expect to see and live in Coimbra. The 360 Tour is billed as the biggest production ever of the band. U2 have spared no efforts to bring the four corners of the world that never arrived there. The priority, ensure it is the public, but the monumentality of the stage, where the spacecraft, they say, which causes loosening ahs! admiration. The music is a winning bet. It is the 10th production signed by Willie Williams for U2. Already devised shows for stadiums, pavilions for larger and smaller venues. This time the challenge was definitely come off of the hallmarks of both the Zoo TV and Popmart had left to stay for any concert stage. The Elevation Tour was more measured but will work indoors. The ultimate goal was to find new and interesting ways of presenting music, with no way to escape from work, thinking and feelings of the protagonists. The LAX Theme Building, an old and iconic building in the Los Angeles airport, was the starting point, says Willie Williams. A spacious, with four legs and architecturally smooth curves. These legs are today The Claw “the claw”, as is known the structure of the new stage, the landing of such a ship illuminated by a cylindrical screen and surrounded by huge audience from all sides, as the name indicates the tour. It took more than four years for the project is completed. Today it costs $ 750,000 per day (about € 560 000).

Costs pertaining to executive produce each show, with the assembly and disassembly of the stage, task-laden detail. The most important details of the tour. None of them may fail because the show must go on. To avoid unexpected, U2 has three stages and three teams of roadies. That is why even though the general strike in Spain was delayed one day concert in Seville, passing it two days before the first date of Coimbra, there is nothing to fear, at least from a technical standpoint. Remember that the only dramatic moment of U2 360 Tour was the fall of Bono last May in a trial of a concerto, prompting the singer to a recovery three months after an operation forced the column and the group to postpone the American tour for next year. The return to the road and happened in Turin so far no one has complained of his way on stage. Quite the contrary. The surprises have been mainly on music. ‘Angel of Harlem’ is one of the most acclaimed young stars. The tour, well, maybe it broke all records of tickets sold and tops the list of the most successful ever in financial terms.


Demigods and the priests

Nietzsche may have killed the god of Judeo-Christian but pagan gods of rock’n’roll still apparently in good health and cathedrals where they celebrate their worship are not, of course, works of architecture and engineering inferior to those released the masters of gothic Despique a dizzying height for the building that only ended in 1284 with the collapse of the vaults of Beauvais. A ‘space station’ (or ‘claw’), huge gazebo sci-fi, which is the stage / scenario of the tour “360”, U2, will not run, surely, such a risk - the wonders of conceção and technological innovation that required have been proven in more than six dozen concerts before arriving at Coimbra, are sufficient guarantee - the fervor and intensity of the folk masses (Bono dixit) that rivals are taking place there, no doubt, with the Middle Ages.

In fact, the best vantage point is always the sofa, before viewing the DVD: the participation, live in community act of faith is reduced to zero, the multiplication of angles and points of view is far superior to who, in the stadium / arena, remains confined to his half-meter square helpful and sentenced to accompany the liturgy by what he sees projected on the screen (but giant conical screen). Basically, the less that what really counts is the fellowship of the ring of sweating bodies immediately contiguous and merger of the major voices in the choral clipping sound quite similar to those of show business ‘sports car’ that there usually occur , or on the couch choking the lawn, everything is virtual identity.

Since the “Zoo TV Tour” (which, between 1992 and 1993, led the new gospel cyberfiction of “Achtung Baby” to the masses), a U2 concert never ceased to be a meeting point between the state of the art technology, planetarily ecumenical convention of all faiths, sensory overload of epic agitprop in favor of the many causes of ‘human rights’, the glorious scenario of an audiovisual synthesis of eclectic self-help literature and music that has survived from an ancient punk quartet Dublin. In the “360 ° Tour” under the spotlights that gush claw crustacean crowned by a cupola Muslim / Orthodox onion, while demi-object of veneration and priest celebrant, U2, in the words of Bono, assume temporarily the skin other deities: he would be a combination of Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito and Dennis Hopper, Larry Mullen embody James Dean, The Edge had kidnapped the body of Mr. Spock, and Adam Clayton (in fact, a certain light, an almost perfect clone the Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos), slap the face of Clark Gable. And running, walking, flying over the dual circle sometimes altar, pulpit now, leaning over the bridge the approaching swarm of buzzing down there, inspires them the power to the corner with it can repeat that also have not found what you go on demand, it is time to wipe the tears from her face, and immediately following the exhortation self-criticism “of the folk mass Enough!” chant (in ‘Until the End of the World’) “We broke the bread, we drank the wine.” From heaven or video with fireworks, firework, also descend Bishop Desmond Tutu, the martyr of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, the commander Frank De Winne, of the International Space Station, reciting the lyrics to ‘In A Little While’ , a replica of the car-BD of God / Biblical Ezekiel’s mothership and green Islamic peace. “At the altar of the dark star ‘and’ through the Stations of the Cross”, after appealing to a Milky Way of mobile phones with ‘Moment of Surrender’, the show ends.