One more:
"U2 Does Vegas:
The band bets big as it pumps up the pageantry
Copyright ? 1997 The Boston Globe
By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 04/25/97
Stadium tours are fast becoming an extinct species, but Irish stars U2 are defying that trend with "PopMart," a flashy, special-effects-filled super-show that opens in Las Vegas tonight. The tour has already generated more than $140 million in global ticket sales, says U2 manager Paul McGuinness, but has the rock world wondering if the band can possibly live up to the hype.
The stage includes a computerized video screen 56 feet high by 170 feet wide, a 100-foot-high golden arch above that, and a 40-foot, lemon-shaped mirror ball that moves to a second, smaller stage in the middle of the stadium. There are 500 tons of equipment that require 250 tour workers to set up and 75 trucks to transport.
"We think that drama and spectacle are absolutely part of rock 'n' roll," McGuinness said this week from Las Vegas. "And those people who thought we were going to strip things down and go back to basics are in for a big surprise."
U2's over-the-top philosophy is explored in an hour-long ABC-TV documentary tomorrow, airing at 10 p.m. on WCVB-Channel 5. Titled "U2: A Year in Pop," it will incorporate one or two songs from tonight's opening show ("Waiting for the Sun" and/or "Last Night on Earth," both from the band's new "Pop" album).
The rest of the documentary was made available to reviewers this week and, frankly, it's not that galvanizing. There's some eye-catching footage of the band on various concert tours, but the nerdy, tediously personalized narration by actor Dennis Hopper (a U2 friend) is grating. It seems like one long infomercial, not surprising since McGuinness served as executive producer.
But what jumps out from the documentary is just how confident the band is that "PopMart" will blow away any rock tour before it. That includes U2's own "Zoo TV" tour five years ago, which boasted multiple jumbo TV screens, a towering antenna, and even several automobiles hanging from the rafters.
"This show is going to walk all over `Zoo TV,'" says U2 singer Bono in the documentary. "It's not going to be as hyperactive. It's not going to be as smartass. It's going to be something the likes of which no one has ever seen before."
That kind of talk might be pushing the self-important-meter too much, but U2 has never been a bashful band. Ever since coming out of the spiritual zenith of 1987's "Joshua Tree" album (which sold 15 million copies to become the band's bestseller), band members have been on a mission to become the high-tech avatars of stadium rock. That they're a little cocky about it is part of the game.
Here's McGuinness on "PopMart" vs. "Zoo TV":
"This is bigger, better, faster, higher. I think it has a distinct difference from `Zoo TV.' This has more of a flow ... and is twice as spectacular."
Says Bono: "It doesn't seem that many people have taken up the challenge of `Zoo TV.' It feels like we're going out against ourselves in a weird way."
Adds McGuinness on the phone from Las Vegas: "The Rolling Stones are really the only other act who do anything on this kind of scale. I suppose Pink Floyd as well, but their case is a bit different because they don't even want to be seen on the stage. They are accompanying the visuals, and they admit that pretty freely."
Cynics are saying that the motive for U2's hype - and the reason the band is doing tomorrow's TV documentary - is to boost ticket sales that, while impressive, have not been as spectacular as those for "Zoo TV." That tour played three sold-out nights at Foxboro Stadium. "PopMart" is coming to Foxboro for two nights, July 1 and 2. Tickets still remain, though McGuinness says he's certain a third show will be added as momentum builds.
In the New York area, though, U2 did four stadium shows last time (two at Giants Stadium, two at Yankee Stadium), but this year the band is booked only for two at Giants Stadium, says Performance magazine senior editor Bob Grossweiner. "It still comes down to the music," Grossweiner says. "I don't think some U2 fans like their new album - and they know it's going to be rammed down their throats in concert."
Indeed, U2's new "Pop" has struggled on the charts and is currently sitting at No. 13 on Billboard's Top 200, though it rose one notch in the last week. It's a more somber, serious album than the band's glitzy, kitschy "PopMart" special effects would suggest. But McGuinness says he's still pleased with the way tickets have sold.
"Some markets are stronger than others, and some are really strong, like Chicago," he says. "I think we will clearly get three shows at Soldiers Field there. And I'm not worried about Boston, where I think we'll go to a third show. And Philadelphia will go to a second show, and New York to a third show.
"Because all the statistics are so freely available nowadays, people are in a way treating this as a test of whether or not the record industry and the music industry are in good shape," says McGuinness. "And U2, who used to just be required to save the world, are now being asked to save the industry. This is not what we signed up for."
U2 has reportedly been guaranteed $100 million-plus for the tour from Toronto promoter Michael Cohl, who also did the Stones' last two tours. It's evident, however, that U2 has spent lavishly on "PopMart." The real coup is the huge video screen, a definite advance on the smaller Nightstar screens (not Jumbotrons) that U2 used for "Zoo TV."
"The Nightstar screens were very hard to deal with, very cumbersome," says McGuinness. "They were 5 feet deep, and they were projection screens with internal projectors. What we've been able to do this time is build something that when you're standing up close to it is like a garden fence. And in its strips of steel are about a million pixels. Apparently something happened with the technology of the pixel in the last year that brought it under control and gave it true color. So we found these people who basically cracked the pixel in Montreal [Saco Controls Inc.], and they produced the control systems."
On this screen the band will flash computer graphics prepared over the past three months, along with excerpts of work by such godfathers of pop art as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. One example is Lichtenstein's "Whaam!," about a fighter plane shooting down another fighter plane. Animation has been added to make it appear that a flame is chasing one of the planes to the back of the stadium, McGuinness says.
"When I visited Roy [Lichtenstein] and described what we'd like to do, he said, `Oh, I'd love to see that. I'd pay money to see that.' And I said, `Well, we were actually thinking of paying you some money, Roy, if this is agreeable to you."'
A controversial part of the "PopMart" stage is the golden arch that rises overhead (and to which the sound-speaker stack is attached). Some observers have wondered if it's a parody of McDonald's golden arches, but McGuinness says no.
"The McDonald's people are sort of sniffing around. They're aware of it - and they're notoriously litigious. They jump all over people who they think are infringing on their trademark," says McGuinness. "But I'm not worried about it. I don't think there's any question of that here. It looks more like the Arch of the West in St. Louis. It's just a parabolic curve."
The speaker system hanging from the arches is also unique, he says. "Instead of being in two stacks, side from side, the PA is hung from the arch. And because you're hearing the sound from one direction instead of two, it's extraordinarily clean and crisp. It's like a great big jukebox.
"All I can say is, prepare to have your mind blown."
i can't decide, pop mart for it's wacky eccentric design and elevation for it's raw rockish feel
