By Miguel Gálvez
LOS ANGELES, CA The challenge is not to make it to the top, but to stay up there, and no other band in the planet has it any clearer than U2. Since the eighties, when they exceeded all the limits of global popularity with their iconic album The Joshua Tree, and their subsequent international tour earned them the title of “Rock’s Hottest Ticket” on the cover of Time magazine, far from merely enjoy the ephemeral intoxication that comes along with fame, they have dedicated themselves to reinvent their band again and again in an effort to remain a relevant group that by now has crossed musical, geographical, ideological, and even technological and chronological boundaries.
It happened during the first minutes of 1990 in a concert U2 offered in their native Dublin. At the dawn of the new decade, Bono surprised everyone when right from the stage said it was time to “Go away and dream it all over again… To forget about the past and celebrate the future.” After a couple of years of silence they returned with Achtung Baby, an album widely recognized as even better than their Joshua Tree, and they embarked on an extravagant and media-intoxicated world tour called ZOO TV, that unlike the simplicity of their shows in the eighties transformed the standard of rock and pop shows in something never seen before.
Thirty-six video screens combined images of the band playing live, satellite connections and flashing text phrases with ironic, almost subliminal, messages. Colorful Trabant cars -The sign of failed communism- hung from the stage to serve not only as an important décor element, but as the lighting system foundation, and a smaller stage placed right in the middle of the crowd allowed by the first time that intimate approach every artist seeks with the fans. The whole stage and show was designed to instill a sensory overload in its audience to show the scope and manipulation of mass media.
For their next tour, PopMart, U2 invested several million dollars to develop a new technology experiment that eventually became an article of common use: The LED screen. The result of this venture was not only one of the first screens of this type, but the largest at the time with 170 feet wide and 56 feet high. This colossal screen was placed behind the stage to project animations and footage of the band playing live. The next tour, Elevation, presented a fully minimalist stage design whose main intention was to put the audience in the middle of the show and as close as possible to the band. During the Vertigo Tour the essence of proximity to the public was preserved and the technological highlight consisted of seven retractable see-through LED based bead curtains that projected images and text without obstructing the view of the band playing live.
Between 2009 and 2011 their 360-degree Tour travelled around the globe with a massive structure 167 feet high holding the audio system and a cylindrical screen, the stage was surrounded by a circular ramp and bridges hovering over the crowd. The 360-degree design and placement of the stage towards the center of the stadium allowed to increase up to 25% the capacity, which helped make this tour the most watched show in history with 7.2 million tickets sold worldwide and the most commercially successful with $736 million in sales; figures that beat the historic Rolling Stones who were en route at the same time.
So after almost 40 years of career, nearly 1200 concerts throughout the world, but especially after that long reputation of best live rock band, for their new tour called Innocence + Experience which launched last May 14 in Vancouver and recently offered five shows in Los Angeles, of which I witnessed three, this time U2 decided to start their new show illuminated only by a single and simple light bulb. The intention according to Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry is to bring the audience to the late seventies Dublin, the city where their career began by playing in school gymnasiums and small clubs when they were just four teenagers unable to perform songs from famous bands, so they had to make their own. The town with loyal friends who have accompanied them for years, friends that in Bono’s words were already there when they found the first loves and the first fights in the playground. That old Dublin that contrasted the innocence of childhood and youth with the violence of an ancient conflict that used violent terrorist acts, in which innocent people lost their lives grotesquely by simply being in the wrong place and time.
And once again, technology that in the future will surely become so common and obsolete, as the LED TV's in our living rooms, helps U2 to bring the audience throughout this autobiographical journey in which they present their new album Songs of Innocence along with hits from their near and distant glorious past, and to prevent monotony they replace around five songs from one night to another, occasionally surprising the crowd with something they have not played in many years.
Regarding the new stage the first thing that stands out is that there is no better or worse place to appreciate the show, just a different view of it. And as the night goes on, the crowd is surprised to find out there are actually four stages that U2 uses throughout the nearly two and a half hours they play.
The first is a traditional stage they call "I" for "Innocence," the second is a small circular stage in the opposite end of the arena, which because of its lighting they called "E" for "Experience." Connecting these two stages there is a catwalk that Bono, Adam and The Edge use to perform just inches away from the fans, and that it turns into a third stage when the whole band performs an extraordinary new version of their hit Sunday Bloody Sunday. High above the catwalk a huge screen projects images to both sides of the venue, and it is on this screen where we can find the fourth stage and one of the greatest innovations that make this show spectacular, because it doesn’t just projects images, it also allows U2 to get inside and play live from the very middle. And combining their live presence with animations especially prepared for each song, the show takes the crowd to the places where Bono grew up and honors the memory of the people killed in the worst terrorist attack in Ireland’s history.
The second major innovation of this tour is found in the way they are managing the audio, because they have placed the speaker system on an elliptical framework hung from the venue’s roof. This ensures that every space in the arena receive the same quality and sound level. Historically, in every concert the audience near the stage was so close to the speakers that sound could be deafening, and those in the back rows were not close enough to receive the optimum audio. But with this new method, which is sure to become the standard, you can hear with great clarity and sharpness every instrument and voice regardless of the location and cost of the ticket.
Writing about the band and their quality of execution would be redundant. Fortunately that obsession with relevance continues to drive their search for new ways to reinvent themselves and to go where no one has gone before. And despite that early youth they seek to rediscover with this new album and tour was left behind many years ago, they still have the raw energy and vitality that turned them into “Rock’s Hottest Ticket” and not even the number of incidents that have accompanied the band in recent months... The door that was completely torn away in a private flight with Bono aboard last November, the catastrophic cycling accident four days later that left Bono with titanium plates and unable to play guitar, the overly criticized and controversial free launch of their new album via Apple, the dead of Larry’s father the same week of the start of this tour, The Edge accidentally falling off the stage at the end of the opening night in Vancouver, or the sudden death of their tour manager on May 27, have managed to overshadow what already is another great tour in U2’s history.
U2 fans in Moncton
City of Moncton put a cap on 80,000 concert attendees: Concert promoter Forecast calls for showers on Saturday Doors open at 3 p.m. Last show of the band’s three-year globe-trotting 360 Tour
“On average, about 35 per cent of our spectator attendees are from Nova Scotia,” said Andre Hudson, president and CEO of Donald K Donald Events, the promoter hosting the event.
Here’s a list of what is and is not permitted into the Magnetic Hill concert site on Saturday:
What not to bring:
• Chairs of any kind.
• Alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages or food (brought from outside).
• Plastic or glass bottles, cans.
• Umbrellas.
• Weapons or fireworks.
• Animals (except for seeing-eye dogs).
• Professional audio or video equipment.
• Banners, flags, laser pointers, flashlights, glow (fluorescent) sticks.
• Large backpacks (camping style).
• Skateboards.
What is permitted:
• One one-litre bottle of water allowed per person.
• Raincoat or poncho.
• Small beach towels.
• Small backpacks, bags, purses (note that all bags will be searched).
• Sunscreen.
Transformed for U2
It’s the biggest rig Lang Park has seen since Sam Backo.
But this monstrous structure will be well gone by the time the Broncos go around next year.
The centrepiece of U2 360° – the Irish supergroup’s current tour – started being assembled at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium yesterday but anyone could be forgiven for thinking a HG Wells novel had come to life.
The four-legged structure boasts 92 speakers as well a 22 metre, 5000 pixel full HD screen, which rises up and down from the height of 30 metres.
The structure takes five days to assemble - one day to lay down the stadium flooring, three days to build the stage and one day to attach the lighting and sound equipment.
Tour director Craig Evans said the size of the production dwarfed any project in which he had been involved.
“The original theory Bono had [of] a show ‘in the round’ the idea was to make it so big that it makes the stadium feel small and creates an intimate feeling in a stadium atmosphere,” he said.
“This show certainly succeeds in doing that. This stage does make the stadium feel small - it will create a feeling of intimacy with the band to the audience.”
With Brisbane suffering through a recent bout of wet weather, stage manager George Reeves said Bono would be pushing ahead with the Suncorp Stadium gigs in spite of any downpour.
“He loves singing in the rain, in fact he loves singing in the rain so much that he sings Singin’ in the Rain every time it rains so even if it’s raining everyone should be prepared to enjoy the show as well,” he said.
That is good news for the small group of U2 fans who began lining up outside Suncorp Stadium as early as Monday morning.
Sydney woman Katie Powell has been to every Australian U2 show since 1993.
She said the band’s recent Melbourne show was very involving and stacked up well against previous tours.
“You are just surrounded all around by it and you see them move around the stage,” she said.
“They don’t stick to one part, everyone in the stadium has a fair view of the show.”
U2 Returning to South Africa
U2 are believed to be returning to South Africa for two shows in February, EntertainmentAfrica.com has learned from a reliable source in the UK.
The Irish supergroup, currently on their 360 Degree Tour, are reportedly set to play stadium shows in Cape Town and Johannesburg - marking the first time the full band have performed in the country since 1998.
The official SA tour announcement is anticipated later in September. In the interim, the local branch of U2’s record company, Universal, has issued a statement saying that the tour “is not confirmed”.
The concert spectacle features a 360-degree stage - allowing the audience to sit on all sides - which makes use of a four-legged 50-metre tall structure called “The Claw”. Holding the record as the largest concert stage structure it holds the speaker system and a cylindrical video screen that hovers above the band, or can be lowered to behind the four performers.
U2 have been out on the road since June 2009 in support of their most recent album, ‘No Line On The Horizon’. They resumed their global tour in Turin, Italy on 6 August following emergency surgery on singer Bono’s back, which forced them to miss a headline performance at the Glastonbury Festival in England and postpone a series of North American dates.
The band last performed in South Africa on their Popmart tour 12 years ago with the typically over the top staging featuring a giant mirrorball lemon, a 30-metre golden arch, and a 3.8m olive on a 30-metre cocktail stick. Bono and guitarist The Edge performed at the 46664 concert in Cape Town in 2003.