Stephen Booth Photography Rock and Roll Eyecandy – Australian Music Photography

U2 – 360 – 8th December 2010

That's a 360 degree panorama of the setup for U2's 360 Tour that played in Brisbane at the start of December. Click the photo for a bigger version. I think it was more over the top than the Vertigo stage from the previous tour in 2006:

That had the enormo wall of video, but didn't have the awesome all singin all dancing alien battleship thing from this year:

Nuts.

I'm not the worlds hugest U2 fan, and I'm certainly not a music critic, I'll leave that well alone.  U2 have just sort of always been there I suppose, I don't own any of their records, but have seen them three times now, The Rattle and Hum tour, Vertigo and now 360. They certainly don't muck about with the staging and spectacle, the band are obviously great at what they do, and the fans seemed to be having an ace time.

It's always a fun show to shoot, though I was reminded once again how choreographed productions on this scale are, out of necessity I suppose? Not much room for spontaneity amongst all that sequenced machinery.

In another life I worked as production manager on film projects in the UK, organising logistics, budgets, locations and all that, I couldn't help thinking of  the army of roadies, techs and support staff  behind the U2 show, here are a few fun facts*  from The Internet (* may or may not actually be facts).

The 360 Tour - which continues until mid 2011 includes 108 shows on 7 continents and is expected to gross US$750,000,000 all up. The production costs about US$750,000 a day to keep running, box office for an average night is around the US$6,000,000 mark. By the end of 2010 the tour is expected to have sold around five million tickets.

The tour has 3 complete stages, each takes 7-8 days to build and dismantle. Around Europe and The US these 3 stages are leapfrogged around the continent. Each of the 3 stages weighs 220 tons, and supports 170 tons of video screens, lights, audio gear and frikkin lasers.

The production has 137 touring crew and picks up another 150 locally at each venue. It takes 38 trucks to move each of the 3 stages. They have modified several stadiums to fit it all in, as you do, and at some shows in Europe they spoke to the crew of the International Space Station, live. The whole thing is just epic really - the scale of it is totally mind boggling.

Got something similar in mind? StageCo. can probably sort you out.

Check out the gallery below for more U2 photos as well as a few of Jay-Z.

All Photos©2010 Stephen Booth, All Rights Reserved.