U2 At The Forum

From: Michael Rapino
To: Bob Lefsetz
Subject: Re:

You like show so far

From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Michael Rapino
Subject: Re

Screen is unbelievable.

They had it backwards. Should have gone on tour before the album. Create word of mouth. Just a few shows. Then sell tickets.

We live in a pull economy not a push one.

Pretty incredible.

And Bono is such a frontman.

From: Michael Rapino
To: Bob Lefsetz
Subject: Re:

Smart idea agree they build buzz on the road connecting not pushing as u say

Yes he is one of the best frontman

From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Michael Rapino
Subject: Re

We live in a live world, not one of recordings. They're kings of live, they should capitalize on that!
_______

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where the kings of rock blow their album release yet triumph live?

One in which those at the top are afraid of a changing paradigm, one in which they believe if you just push hard enough down someone's throat your project will take, one in which those at the top don't realize that the public is in charge and if you entrance the people you're on your way to success.

RUN to get one of the remaining tickets to the U2 show.

And that's what it is, a show, not a concert.

And that's why it was so good.

Nobody wants to hear new music from U2, not even the fans in attendance. It was astounding how silent people were during everything but a few hits, even those in the pit.

Then again, they were astounded by the screen.

Forget the lightbulb. A red herring if there ever was one. We keep reading everywhere that the show begins with one lone bulb. What they don't tell us is it's GIGANTIC! A stage prop bigger than a baseball bat. It's cool, but having read about it one is underwhelmed, like Nigel and his bandmates were with the miniature version of Stonehenge.

But the screen, that screen...

That's why I went. U2's 1992 "Achtung Baby" tour indoors was one of the three best I've ever seen. The band is famous for its production. It's just the last time around they went too big. We read endlessly about the Claw, but it didn't translate beyond the first few rows of the stadium. And stadiums are for sports, for communal audience experiences, they're rarely for music, you've got to see bands indoors, and U2's indoor show was a tour-de-force with no word of mouth because the hype machine killed it. With all the advance press about the production no one is talking about it. Whereas if they'd just done a few shows, people would have been shooting video, talking about it incessantly online, because the show is so COOL!

The new music works at the gig because it's secondary to the production, it's the score to the movie, and oh what a movie.

It's an oldies act. They played too much new material. The silence of the audience was deafening. We were thrilled to hear "I Will Follow" but still didn't find what we were looking for, never mind hear it.

Even the hardest core U2 fans have little depth. Or, I'll say they were not in attendance last night. But when the images begin to fly...

Let me tell you how this works, and words cannot do it justice. There's a stage on each end, with no backline, all the sound reinforcement equipment is flown, around a rig in the center of the arena, you have your own special speakers pointing at you, then again there are sometimes stereo effects. And it's just a band, which is so antique today, it's like going into a time capsule. And then...

Bono starts talking about his mother, and images of her wedding start showing on the screen.

The screen... The screen sits LENGTHWISE, down the center of the arena. You certainly don't want to sit at either end of the bowl, and a high seat is better than a low one. Because it's like being in a stadium movie theatre, watching a film.

So, the screen is gigantic. And it's somewhat transparent. And then...

There's an animated street. Which is cool enough. But then it begins to RAIN!

How did they come up with this shit? The person who did is a creative genius. Credit U2 for finding him.

And there's a narrow catwalk between the two screens. And the band walks in it and sings in it and plays in it and the effect is completely different from the usual concert, you're not there to sing along to your favorite hits, kiss your significant other, but to be wowed by the special effects. Whenever the screen shut down, went blank, the show went flat. Because the screen was the star, the band was supporting it.

Bono was extemporaneous. He was both offhand and rehearsed. Which worked to make the show unique, as opposed to the typical...HELLO CLEVELAND!

And it was cool when they spread out along the walkway between the two stages and did "Sunday Bloody Sunday," but it was not the anthem of yore, just support for the images on screen, of Irish conflict. There was a power that music alone cannot provide.

Maybe this is the future. No one wants to hear a whole album by a has-been band, you've got to find a better way of exposing people. The new tunes were a great soundtrack for the visuals, it worked that way, you didn't care if you didn't know the song, your eyeballs were bugging out.

And, astoundingly the highlight of the show was a new song, "Ordinary Love," which is not on the Apple album, but was featured in that Mandela movie soundtrack. You can hear greatness, you know it right away. And the problem is U2's new album is good, but not great. It needed a hit it did not have. Every band is built upon hits. You need a few as linchpins to keep the whole act together, to keep people coming.

U2 can move forward from here. If it just throws the old paradigm out. If it realizes that recordings are now subservient to live, and that he who creates the best live show wins, financially as well as artistically.

And U2 has the best live show of the decade, probably of the century.

Go.


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