U2 360
What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where a band’s stage is more important than their music?
The U2 tour opened across the pond, and has been slowly working its way west across America. Tonight it lands in Pasadena, California. And if you think the most important story in the Los Angeles Basin is the proposed football stadium, or gang warfare, or anything with substance, you’d be wrong. Because the entire mainstream media has been hoodwinked by Paul McGuinness and Live Nation. The biggest story in L.A. this weekend is the U2 concert.
Fewer than 100,000 of the nearly 13 million residents will attend, but the hype would have you believe that every resident is focused, that U2’s show is akin to last fall’s Presidential election.
And the story is not the music. Who gives a shit about music? The story is the STAGE!
Having finally popped for one of those new-fangled HD screens, my trusty cathode-ray Sony having finally bit the dust, I fire up the thing at every opportunity, trying to get my money’s worth. Figuring, based on my cable bill, it costs about twenty five dollars every time I hit the on button, trying to lower my cost, however irrational that may seem, on Friday I found myself watching the local news, which is now like viewing a high school production. Did you know that Jennifer is dating Adam? Yup, you can check them out at tonight’s dance! After the football game!
Really, the news when I turned in was high school football. Not a game, but a tragedy. Which I’ll mercifully refrain from detailing here. But then, these two besuited anchors, who despite their cheeriness looked like they both needed a good fuck, to shock them into reality, started waxing rhapsodic about the U2 show.
Yup, there are only 20,000 parking spaces. Take the train, take the bus, take a helicopter. LEAVE NOW!
Actually, they’re promoting tailgating. Get there around noon, to be sure you don’t miss a note. Wait a second, they have football games at the Rose Bowl all the time, they sell out and the whole county doesn’t take a massive shit. Why, if U2 is there, is it such a crisis?
Credit Colonel Parker. That’s what Arthur Fogel and Paul McGuinness have built here. A massive story that an unquestioning press is buying hook, line and sinker. It’s almost balloon-boy redux. Hell, like little Falcon said, THEY’RE DOING IT FOR THE SHOW!
And the linch-pin is the stage.
It gets a full page in today’s L.A. "Times". In color.
A paper so thin it almost floats away, with a pop critic that lives in Alabama is devoting an entire page to the inner-workings of U2’s stage set. This is like dedicating a full page to the "Hannah Montana" TV set.
But it’s pretty impressive. It’s 170 feet tall. Modeled after the inane Theme restaurant at LAX that no one ever goes to. You see the picture and you…want to go.
We’ve been trained that everything is national. That there are no more local stories. But whereas no one cared about the national roll-out for U2’s latest album, this city by city unveiling of their traveling show is making headlines. It’s like the circus has come to town.
In today’s "New York Times", there are album reviews? Why would I read them? Like I’m going to trust these critics? Like online isn’t the bible here?
In other words, the U2 camp is savvy enough to know that music is no longer the selling point. You’ve got to deliver spectacle. Bigger and better.
And since, unlike Madonna, they don’t want to prostitute the music, don’t want to dance and employ changing sets, they’re utilizing the old concept of the Fillmore East light show and pumping it up with STEROIDS!
How many ways is this tour wrong?
After touring all summer, it is still not in profit.
The carbon footprint supersedes a whole field of cattle, never mind jets and cities.
It’s inefficient.
But it has achieved its goal.
Which is getting people to pay attention.
The missteps with U2 this year have been legion. When people were paying attention, at awards shows, the band played the lame "Get On Your Boots".
And taking the money instead of the hype, playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates instead of the Yankees, U2 made a deal with BlackBerry as opposed to Apple.
But they got it right with the live show. They’ve accomplished the one thing integral to success in today’s music business, getting everybody to pay attention.
Not enough people listen to the radio. No one watches MTV for music. Writing on records is too voluminous to follow.
But everybody seem to be interested in their stage set.
News organizations focus on the new and novel. People don’t want to be left out. And fans, aware of previous extravaganzas, don’t want to miss out on this one time event either.
So, even though the TV station said falsely that the gig had sold out in four hours, at the same time other news outlets were stating that the band hoped to fill the Rose Bowl and set a new attendance record, the goal has been accomplished.
You’ve got to spend money to make money. By laying out so much dough, erecting something so fantastic, U2 has managed to focus every community it plays in upon them.
But what do they do next? Take over Manhattan? Play on the moon?
