Music: [u2tour] **The Age: U2 discuss their latest tour

U2 discuss their latest tour
October 22, 2010

The idea for U2's latest tour came at the end of the band's last visit
to Australia, in 2006.

The idea for U2 360° came at the end of the band's last visit to
Australia, in 2006.

"Bono walked into a meeting and asked if he could play in the round
next time," production manager Jake Berry recalls. "I said, 'Of course
you can."'

Designer Willie Williams, who has worked with U2 since 1982, set to
work with architect Mark Fisher. "I didn't expect to have such a
concrete idea. But an idea dropped into my head about the 360° concept."

He pitched an idea for a stage based on the iconic tower at Los
Angeles airport. "The band loved it," Williams says. "They're still
ambitious and always want to advance the form in some way."

Williams describes the show as the third in a trilogy that follows his
co-creations Zoo TV and PopMart.

"Those two shows were ground-breaking in advancing the form," he says.
"History has turned Zoo TV into something magical. PopMart had the
first large LED screens the planet had seen. It seems mad now because
it's standard practice for rock shows. After that, the floodgates
opened."

The team spent two years working on the logistics of 360°. The tour
would require an investment of about $150 million to become feasible -
a monster gamble for any rock band. Still, it paid off; the tour
grossed $311 million in 2009.

Throughout the tour, there are three stages, or "claws", in motion.
The first is being shipped to Auckland. The remaining video, lighting
and automation come from the six 747s on their way to Australia.

"It's very difficult to take a show like this to Australia and make it
pay," Berry says.

So large is the show, the crew have had to dramatically remodel venues
around the world. In Barcelona, the tiny cobbled roads outside the
stadium made it impossible to load in the equipment. Berry and his
team got permission to asphalt the road. In Dallas's Cowboys Stadium,
existing video screens - including the world's largest - were moved to
accommodate the stage. Many soccer stadiums have required new grass
lawns.

"We have dug out tunnels to get trucks and cranes in the buildings,"
he says. "We've spent some money."

Due to the scale of the show, U2 have purchased carbon offsets but
Berry concedes a tour this size cannot have a clear eco-conscience.

"Carbon offsets were very high on our list," he says. "We're doing as
best as we can with it. With something this large, it's impossible to
be 100 per cent."

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