HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
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By Carrie Alison, Chief Editor
2005.01
I had two tickets for U2’s ZooTV concert in Miami on Oct. 3, 1992 for about two minutes late one Sunday afternoon. Public Enemy was scheduled to open and as a big fan of Flavor Flav, I had excitedly told my crush-of-the-moment, and anyone else who would listen, that I was attending that show. My father, a longtime U2 fan, was excited to take his youngest daughter to share the U2 concert experience, but as he looked at the show time on the ticket, he told me in no uncertain terms, “Carrie, we can only stay for about five songs because I have to work the next day.” We ended up not going to the concert.
Understandably, I was crushed, and would have to wait another five years before attending my first U2 concert—PopMart in Jacksonville on November 12, 1997.
Since that day 12 years ago, I have erected a shrine to ZooTV in my mind’s treasure trove. I eat up any filmed occurrence of that tour, buy every book and search out any magazine from that era. I simply can’t get enough. Yes, I’m one of those incessant fans; insistent that U2 release the famed 1994 Sydney concert on DVD, just so that my collection can be complete and I can indulge my ZooTV yearnings anytime I want to.
Enter Diana Scrimgeour, and her newly released coffee table book, “U2 Show.”
A respected live photographer and journalist, Scrimgeour has worked with the Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, Robbie Williams and many others. Her experience with U2 on their PopMart and Elevation Tours culminates in “U2 Show,” an authorized and fascinatingly detailed and vibrant depiction of each U2 tour from the ground up thanks to beautiful photography and insightful articles penned by show and lighting designer Willie Williams.
Like 2003’s comprehensive exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum curated by longtime U2 friend Jim Henke, and “U2 Faraway So Close!” by U2 insider BP Fallon before it, “U2 Show” creates its own must-read experience for U2 fans by giving them what they want—enumerable photo essays for each tour including rare and previously unseen photographs, production information from Williams, and interviews with the ultimate U2 insiders—including manager Paul McGuinness, producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell.
The attention to detail in “U2 Show” is stunning. The book is divided by tour and closes with the most complete index of U2 personnel yet. Each section features a history lesson from Williams and photos documenting each tour. Looking over the early years, you are broadsided by the fact that the members of U2 were indeed very young men when they took on the world—still just in their early 20s at their triumphant Red Rocks appearance on the “War” tour in 1983—yet they perform with the seasoned confidence of grown men.
As U2 grew in popularity around the world, so did its approach to touring. Each tour grander in size, scale and mission, culminating into what was the band’s most sophisticated outing to date—the “Joshua Tree” tour, which utilized the latest in lighting technologies to create the most dramatic effects possible to boldly highlight tracks such as “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “Exit.” For her photo inclusions during this period, Scrimgeour offers beautiful still photography from the filming of “Rattle and Hum” and a smattering of black & white LoveTown tour shots with BB King along for the ride. Remembers Williams, “These proved to be exhilarating shows, the relationship between U2 and their audience having developed into an extremely powerful source of energy.”
The ZooTV tour found U2 with a sense of humor and a pair of devil horns. Gone were the dour faces of the ‘80s; the frown was turned upside down as U2 learned “to lie.” ZooTV was all about visual excess, sex and the smell of success, along with some of U2’s most brash and daring musical stylings yet, all in a richly hued swath of red, blue, silver and black tones that transfer beautifully on film. The ZooTV section opens with what is one of the most memorably iconic images from the most intentionally iconoclastic of tours—a photo of The Fly’s silhouette haphazardly dancing in front of a vidi-wall during show opener “Zoo Station.” The chosen photos for the book during this period highlight the grand scope of the “Outside Broadcast” leg of the tour—the stage design, the hanging Trabants, the vidi-walls, and Bono’s adopted alter-egos—The Mirrorball Man and MacPhisto. “It was all real: from the Trabants to the phone calls to the TV pictures,” writes Williams. “We let luck play a part and we took our chances as to what might appear from night to night.”
Although it was chaotic and fraught with bad reviews and giant lemons, PopMart gets its due in “U2 Show” by inviting fans and casual observers to take a step back and reassess our thoughts on the tour. Sure, “Pop” the album was arguably a mixed bag, but what break from any mold isn’t? In pictures, PopMart grows in stature and gains context; it was ahead of its time in theory and sarcasm, and perhaps that is to U2’s credit. Audiences for better or worse were not in on the joke that U2 was making about commerce as art. We were all so swamped by the look of that big golden arch, mammoth LED screen and olive swizzle stick that we couldn’t comprehend that U2 was forecasting (and embracing) the pop music revolution that artists like *NSYNC and Britney Spears would come to represent, and the monstrosity of “performance art” that followed them. The images of Bono clad in a boxing robe and muscle shirt, Adam Clayton looking straight out of Woody Allen’s “Sleeper,” and The Edge rocking a Space Cowboy ensemble, seem so much more now then when they were current, which is ironic, as pop culture in general is all about what is now. With “U2 Show,” PopMart finally gets the respect it deserved.
Rounding out the tour retrospective section is a long look at 2001’s mega-successful Elevation tour that put U2 firmly back in the populace’s hearts and minds, and U2 fans quite literally in U2’s “heart” with the use of a heart-shaped ramp as part of the set design. The selected photography highlights the tour’s use of the openness of space, the idea that we were all part of the show itself; that it was all about U2 and its adoring audience, and not the past theatrics of ZooTV or PopMart. In his note on the tour, Williams acknowledges that Elevation had to be “a distillation of everything U2 had done to date.” Unlike the imagery of past tours, it begged to be treasured, the awesome sight of the members of U2, now in their 40s, in full flight was something to behold and cherish. Quite possibly U2’s greatest live endeavor, the Elevation tour grew to personify the meaning of the album—it truly was all about getting down to beauty of basic essentials, in favor of just singing at the top of your lungs with tens of thousands of others in the raw and magnetic presence of U2.
The final portion of “U2 Show” shines the spotlight on the wheels that keep the U2 machine turning, featuring detailed essays written by band management officials, agents, tour management and personnel, and those involved with album recordings and production.
As a fan, it’s easy to get excited about a book like this. But then again, U2 has always had the great foresight to authorize their talented friends to release books about the zoo that is U2—“U2 at the End of the World” by Bill Flanagan, widely regarded as “the U2 bible” amongst fans, and “Stealing Hearts at a Travelling Show” by Irish graphic design powerhouse Four5One. Perhaps one day Lanois, Eno, and producer Steve Lillywhite will join forces to write a book about the U2 recording process, and all bases will have been covered. Until then, “U2 Show” will be the only show in town worth seeing again and again for many years to come.
For more information on Diana Scrimgeour, visit http://www.dvscrimgeour.com.
By Carrie Alison, Chief Editor
2005.01
I had two tickets for U2’s ZooTV concert in Miami on Oct. 3, 1992 for about two minutes late one Sunday afternoon. Public Enemy was scheduled to open and as a big fan of Flavor Flav, I had excitedly told my crush-of-the-moment, and anyone else who would listen, that I was attending that show. My father, a longtime U2 fan, was excited to take his youngest daughter to share the U2 concert experience, but as he looked at the show time on the ticket, he told me in no uncertain terms, “Carrie, we can only stay for about five songs because I have to work the next day.” We ended up not going to the concert.
Understandably, I was crushed, and would have to wait another five years before attending my first U2 concert—PopMart in Jacksonville on November 12, 1997.
Since that day 12 years ago, I have erected a shrine to ZooTV in my mind’s treasure trove. I eat up any filmed occurrence of that tour, buy every book and search out any magazine from that era. I simply can’t get enough. Yes, I’m one of those incessant fans; insistent that U2 release the famed 1994 Sydney concert on DVD, just so that my collection can be complete and I can indulge my ZooTV yearnings anytime I want to.
Enter Diana Scrimgeour, and her newly released coffee table book, “U2 Show.”
A respected live photographer and journalist, Scrimgeour has worked with the Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, Robbie Williams and many others. Her experience with U2 on their PopMart and Elevation Tours culminates in “U2 Show,” an authorized and fascinatingly detailed and vibrant depiction of each U2 tour from the ground up thanks to beautiful photography and insightful articles penned by show and lighting designer Willie Williams.
Like 2003’s comprehensive exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum curated by longtime U2 friend Jim Henke, and “U2 Faraway So Close!” by U2 insider BP Fallon before it, “U2 Show” creates its own must-read experience for U2 fans by giving them what they want—enumerable photo essays for each tour including rare and previously unseen photographs, production information from Williams, and interviews with the ultimate U2 insiders—including manager Paul McGuinness, producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell.
The attention to detail in “U2 Show” is stunning. The book is divided by tour and closes with the most complete index of U2 personnel yet. Each section features a history lesson from Williams and photos documenting each tour. Looking over the early years, you are broadsided by the fact that the members of U2 were indeed very young men when they took on the world—still just in their early 20s at their triumphant Red Rocks appearance on the “War” tour in 1983—yet they perform with the seasoned confidence of grown men.
As U2 grew in popularity around the world, so did its approach to touring. Each tour grander in size, scale and mission, culminating into what was the band’s most sophisticated outing to date—the “Joshua Tree” tour, which utilized the latest in lighting technologies to create the most dramatic effects possible to boldly highlight tracks such as “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “Exit.” For her photo inclusions during this period, Scrimgeour offers beautiful still photography from the filming of “Rattle and Hum” and a smattering of black & white LoveTown tour shots with BB King along for the ride. Remembers Williams, “These proved to be exhilarating shows, the relationship between U2 and their audience having developed into an extremely powerful source of energy.”
The ZooTV tour found U2 with a sense of humor and a pair of devil horns. Gone were the dour faces of the ‘80s; the frown was turned upside down as U2 learned “to lie.” ZooTV was all about visual excess, sex and the smell of success, along with some of U2’s most brash and daring musical stylings yet, all in a richly hued swath of red, blue, silver and black tones that transfer beautifully on film. The ZooTV section opens with what is one of the most memorably iconic images from the most intentionally iconoclastic of tours—a photo of The Fly’s silhouette haphazardly dancing in front of a vidi-wall during show opener “Zoo Station.” The chosen photos for the book during this period highlight the grand scope of the “Outside Broadcast” leg of the tour—the stage design, the hanging Trabants, the vidi-walls, and Bono’s adopted alter-egos—The Mirrorball Man and MacPhisto. “It was all real: from the Trabants to the phone calls to the TV pictures,” writes Williams. “We let luck play a part and we took our chances as to what might appear from night to night.”
Although it was chaotic and fraught with bad reviews and giant lemons, PopMart gets its due in “U2 Show” by inviting fans and casual observers to take a step back and reassess our thoughts on the tour. Sure, “Pop” the album was arguably a mixed bag, but what break from any mold isn’t? In pictures, PopMart grows in stature and gains context; it was ahead of its time in theory and sarcasm, and perhaps that is to U2’s credit. Audiences for better or worse were not in on the joke that U2 was making about commerce as art. We were all so swamped by the look of that big golden arch, mammoth LED screen and olive swizzle stick that we couldn’t comprehend that U2 was forecasting (and embracing) the pop music revolution that artists like *NSYNC and Britney Spears would come to represent, and the monstrosity of “performance art” that followed them. The images of Bono clad in a boxing robe and muscle shirt, Adam Clayton looking straight out of Woody Allen’s “Sleeper,” and The Edge rocking a Space Cowboy ensemble, seem so much more now then when they were current, which is ironic, as pop culture in general is all about what is now. With “U2 Show,” PopMart finally gets the respect it deserved.
Rounding out the tour retrospective section is a long look at 2001’s mega-successful Elevation tour that put U2 firmly back in the populace’s hearts and minds, and U2 fans quite literally in U2’s “heart” with the use of a heart-shaped ramp as part of the set design. The selected photography highlights the tour’s use of the openness of space, the idea that we were all part of the show itself; that it was all about U2 and its adoring audience, and not the past theatrics of ZooTV or PopMart. In his note on the tour, Williams acknowledges that Elevation had to be “a distillation of everything U2 had done to date.” Unlike the imagery of past tours, it begged to be treasured, the awesome sight of the members of U2, now in their 40s, in full flight was something to behold and cherish. Quite possibly U2’s greatest live endeavor, the Elevation tour grew to personify the meaning of the album—it truly was all about getting down to beauty of basic essentials, in favor of just singing at the top of your lungs with tens of thousands of others in the raw and magnetic presence of U2.
The final portion of “U2 Show” shines the spotlight on the wheels that keep the U2 machine turning, featuring detailed essays written by band management officials, agents, tour management and personnel, and those involved with album recordings and production.
As a fan, it’s easy to get excited about a book like this. But then again, U2 has always had the great foresight to authorize their talented friends to release books about the zoo that is U2—“U2 at the End of the World” by Bill Flanagan, widely regarded as “the U2 bible” amongst fans, and “Stealing Hearts at a Travelling Show” by Irish graphic design powerhouse Four5One. Perhaps one day Lanois, Eno, and producer Steve Lillywhite will join forces to write a book about the U2 recording process, and all bases will have been covered. Until then, “U2 Show” will be the only show in town worth seeing again and again for many years to come.
For more information on Diana Scrimgeour, visit http://www.dvscrimgeour.com.
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