What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where a band’s stage is more important than their music?<\/p>\n
The U2 tour opened across the pond, and has been slowly working its way west across America.\u00c2\u00a0 Tonight it lands in Pasadena, California.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the entire mainstream media has been hoodwinked by Paul McGuinness and Live Nation.\u00c2\u00a0 The biggest story in L.A. this weekend is the U2 concert.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
And the story is not the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Who gives a shit about music?\u00c2\u00a0 The story is the STAGE!<\/p>\n
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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Did you know that Jennifer is dating Adam?\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, you can check them out at tonight’s dance!\u00c2\u00a0 After the football game!<\/p>\n
Really, the news when I turned in was high school football.\u00c2\u00a0 Not a game, but a tragedy.\u00c2\u00a0 Which I’ll mercifully refrain from detailing here.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Yup, there are only 20,000 parking spaces.\u00c2\u00a0 Take the train, take the bus, take a helicopter.\u00c2\u00a0 LEAVE NOW!<\/p>\n
Actually, they’re promoting tailgating.\u00c2\u00a0 Get there around noon, to be sure you don’t miss a note.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Why, if U2 is there, is it such a crisis?<\/p>\n
Credit Colonel Parker.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what Arthur Fogel and Paul McGuinness have built here.\u00c2\u00a0 A massive story that an unquestioning press is buying hook, line and sinker.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s almost balloon-boy redux.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, like little Falcon said, THEY’RE DOING IT FOR THE SHOW!<\/p>\n
And the linch-pin is the stage.<\/p>\n
It gets a full page in today’s L.A. "Times".\u00c2\u00a0 In color.<\/p>\n
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.\u00c2\u00a0 This is like dedicating a full page to the "Hannah Montana" TV set.<\/p>\n
But it’s pretty impressive.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s 170 feet tall.\u00c2\u00a0 Modeled after the inane Theme restaurant at LAX that no one ever goes to.\u00c2\u00a0 You see the picture and you\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6want to go.<\/p>\n
We’ve been trained that everything is national.\u00c2\u00a0 That there are no more local stories.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like the circus has come to town.<\/p>\n
In today’s "New York Times", there are album reviews?\u00c2\u00a0 Why would I read them?\u00c2\u00a0 Like I’m going to trust these critics?\u00c2\u00a0 Like online isn’t the bible here?<\/p>\n
In other words, the U2 camp is savvy enough to know that music is no longer the selling point.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to deliver spectacle.\u00c2\u00a0 Bigger and better.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
How many ways is this tour wrong?<\/p>\n
After touring all summer, it is still not in profit.<\/p>\n
The carbon footprint supersedes a whole field of cattle, never mind jets and cities.<\/p>\n
It’s inefficient.<\/p>\n
But it has achieved its goal.<\/p>\n
Which is getting people to pay attention.<\/p>\n
The missteps with U2 this year have been legion.\u00c2\u00a0 When people were paying attention, at awards shows, the band played the lame "Get On Your Boots".<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But they got it right with the live show.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve accomplished the one thing integral to success in today’s music business, getting everybody to pay attention.<\/p>\n
Not enough people listen to the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 No one watches MTV for music.\u00c2\u00a0 Writing on records is too voluminous to follow.<\/p>\n
But everybody seem to be interested in their stage set.<\/p>\n
News organizations focus on the new and novel.\u00c2\u00a0 People don’t want to be left out.\u00c2\u00a0 And fans, aware of previous extravaganzas, don’t want to miss out on this one time event either.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
You’ve got to spend money to make money.\u00c2\u00a0 By laying out so much dough, erecting something so fantastic, U2 has managed to focus every community it plays in upon them.<\/p>\n
But what do they do next?\u00c2\u00a0 Take over Manhattan?\u00c2\u00a0 Play on the moon?<\/p>\n
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