The Concert
Rock concerts are set to stun, stun with the voltage of their percussion, guitars, keyboards and kliegs. The master of the U2 sound and light show is one Willie Williams, to whom Bono dedicates this time, not surprisingly, the song Yahweh. Let there be light! More light! Ever so more, lights and lights! Willie has been conjuring lightforms for U2 since 1982 and tonight, once again, he is at the top of his game.
The houselights dim at 9:00 to trip the roar of the crowd seconds before the calculated crescendo of illuminations jolts everyone out of their seats. Silhouettes onstage detach from darkness and become band. U2 is in the house. As the first notes rocket off Larry’s drum and Edge’s guitar, the arena lights are ratcheted up, up away up,to expose the crowd to its own mass, shoulder crowding shoulder crowding arm, arms up in the air.
The ceiling is raining shredded light—custom-made, PVC, round mirrored confetti. Meanwhile, the electronic backdrop, 12,000 LED daisy-chained spheres uncoil strands of color that coalesce into a screen of throbbing spirals. From the getgo, and for two hours, Edge’s saw toothed riffs will be matched by the riffs on light—as light spins, swirls and circulates, electricity routed through byzantine currents to
e
le
vate
us
here.
The commanding props of this show are of course that electronic curtain and an Ellipsis stage, round and round, reaching into the audience and flashing colors like a Disney dress. At one moment it is channelling the most profound purple I have ever seen. I am sure Alice Walker’s God is in the house because he would not miss this color purple that I want to wade in, up to my neck. That stage is really a color rimmed and color-brimming frisbee of light simulating a spin into the audience with Bono as cowboy, policeman, captain delirious, whichever hat matches mood. The digitized backdrop, a portable Times Square, pulses with pixels that deliver psychedelic patterns, a strolling man, and the colors of African flags streaming from the riggings to the stage. The more conventional video display screen delivers a staccato of words MEDIA MONEY LOVE TV WORDS, pull words from the ZOOropa tour. Meanwhile, Bono belts it out. Meanwhile, the Ellipsis’ lights race each other in full spectrum dashes. Oooh ooo, we really are in a scene called Vertigo.
But the crowd too wants to sing, and in light, electronic light, now that the BiC lighters have since given way to cell phones. “Ahh those magical gadgets,” cooes Bono as Paul Martin’s number appears on the screen for all to call and convince to raise foreign aid for Africa. The LCD displays of the phones glow a steady baby turquoise. Just at our level, a water bottle vendor, weighed down with his red bag of bottles, is peddling light in his aquafina wares: when he hoists a plastic bottle in the air it is flushed translucent, beacon-blue.
Two blond babes in spaghetti strap tops who did not bring their cameras, make as if they did, raising their plastic beer cups aloft like Bic lighters, the last sips of beer swaying to the hips swaying to the music, ooooh oooh o.. And then in salute, Bono scans the entire crowd with a highpowered hand-held searchlight, pausing for a moment in each section of the rafters to the hooting and hollering of the crowd that blinks and stomps as if refusing to wake from U2’s dynamic dream. We’d rather him elevate us here on the wave of light and song. He will sing, sing a new song.
We will sing…sing a new song. OOOh oooh oooh ooooooh oooooh…..Oooh to fade. The lights retreat, fall silent.
The roadies appear.
The houselights dim at 9:00 to trip the roar of the crowd seconds before the calculated crescendo of illuminations jolts everyone out of their seats. Silhouettes onstage detach from darkness and become band. U2 is in the house. As the first notes rocket off Larry’s drum and Edge’s guitar, the arena lights are ratcheted up, up away up,to expose the crowd to its own mass, shoulder crowding shoulder crowding arm, arms up in the air.
The ceiling is raining shredded light—custom-made, PVC, round mirrored confetti. Meanwhile, the electronic backdrop, 12,000 LED daisy-chained spheres uncoil strands of color that coalesce into a screen of throbbing spirals. From the getgo, and for two hours, Edge’s saw toothed riffs will be matched by the riffs on light—as light spins, swirls and circulates, electricity routed through byzantine currents to
e
le
vate
us
here.
The commanding props of this show are of course that electronic curtain and an Ellipsis stage, round and round, reaching into the audience and flashing colors like a Disney dress. At one moment it is channelling the most profound purple I have ever seen. I am sure Alice Walker’s God is in the house because he would not miss this color purple that I want to wade in, up to my neck. That stage is really a color rimmed and color-brimming frisbee of light simulating a spin into the audience with Bono as cowboy, policeman, captain delirious, whichever hat matches mood. The digitized backdrop, a portable Times Square, pulses with pixels that deliver psychedelic patterns, a strolling man, and the colors of African flags streaming from the riggings to the stage. The more conventional video display screen delivers a staccato of words MEDIA MONEY LOVE TV WORDS, pull words from the ZOOropa tour. Meanwhile, Bono belts it out. Meanwhile, the Ellipsis’ lights race each other in full spectrum dashes. Oooh ooo, we really are in a scene called Vertigo.
But the crowd too wants to sing, and in light, electronic light, now that the BiC lighters have since given way to cell phones. “Ahh those magical gadgets,” cooes Bono as Paul Martin’s number appears on the screen for all to call and convince to raise foreign aid for Africa. The LCD displays of the phones glow a steady baby turquoise. Just at our level, a water bottle vendor, weighed down with his red bag of bottles, is peddling light in his aquafina wares: when he hoists a plastic bottle in the air it is flushed translucent, beacon-blue.
Two blond babes in spaghetti strap tops who did not bring their cameras, make as if they did, raising their plastic beer cups aloft like Bic lighters, the last sips of beer swaying to the hips swaying to the music, ooooh oooh o.. And then in salute, Bono scans the entire crowd with a highpowered hand-held searchlight, pausing for a moment in each section of the rafters to the hooting and hollering of the crowd that blinks and stomps as if refusing to wake from U2’s dynamic dream. We’d rather him elevate us here on the wave of light and song. He will sing, sing a new song.
We will sing…sing a new song. OOOh oooh oooh ooooooh oooooh…..Oooh to fade. The lights retreat, fall silent.
The roadies appear.
posted by EvaB at 6:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home