BRUSSELS - The two concerts in Baudouin Stadium are much more than a musical event. This technology is the future of the live events.
Jake Berry shines. The production manager of the 360 ° tour expects to have nice weather in Brussels and he heard that today will be even better. The first U2 concert in Brussels will be perfect.
Behind him, on one half of football, is “the claw” up, colloquially known as the enormous stage. It is 65 meters wide, 27 meters high, with a “cigar” in the middle which, 45 meters high above the stadium overlooking Baldwin. Tonight, this bizarre structure, almost walked away from a comic strip, the main character in a U2 concert.
The 360 ° tour was launched last year in Barcelona and was immediately hailed as a revolutionary step for the live entertainment. “Bigger is not,” Berry put on a high chest. Somewhat misplaced, since the characteristic of U2 is that the ‘sky’ never ‘the limit’ is. The band always wants to evolve, innovate, continue.
Between Irish supergroup and some Flemish companies over the years has grown a warm story that both parties have pushed forward. The stages of Stageco have been used on pretty much all world tours since 1992, all U2 video screens made in Belgium, and every concert of the band live is portrayed by XL Video, from Ghent.
Frederic Opsomer Technologies of Tait is the man behind the innovative oval video screen, and fold-in and also transparent. Whether it’s been down more often than that for the first time in Barcelona, I ask him? “You’ll see tomorrow,” he grins. But seriously: “When that screen to expand the stage, this should be a moment of magic. The idea is that you will be surprised, not that spectacular a yo-yo is. “
Hedwig De Meyer, the patron of Stageco, hesitates, but calls “the claw” still “the strafste we ever did.” Special thanks to U2: “The producer Willie Williams showed me at the end of the Vertigo tour has a picture of a spider-like structure, asking if I could make such a stage.
That’s the good thing about that band. Of course U2 is a good customer, but he always asks again for a revolution. Live entertainment has become essential for the income bands and so we need to innovate, and it is good that such large developments help pay bands. “
The two Brussels concerts are the 16th and 17th in the second part of the European tour. Constant three stages on the road in Europe right now are the last parts in Paris again in one of forty trucks loaded, while the stage in San Sebastian is built to be ready by September 26.
Its steel structure is heavy and costs a lot to transport, but according to him, the greatest environmental nuisances caused by millions of fans who come to the concerts. That’s in line with what guitarist The Edge said. He thinks it is unfair to rock ‘n’ roll laden with sins that others commit regularly. Soccer Matches example.
Tonight U2 plays about 25 songs, interspersed with about half as many quotations from other songs. Except that the summer weather and music fans will carry, the main thrill in life, however, that anyone anywhere a good view of the live action, and to each other. The revolutionary 360 ° to the production is that a football stadium for concerts once a living place is slowly.
Both concerts were sold out. Interpol is the schedule.
Promoter Live Nation advises the public to carpool to and asked to come to Brussels.