Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 31

ALL EDITIONS MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1987 THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC B15 a j7j7 fg.rn? if At fir 4, 1 lfe My IW- 7 fv the crowd in Sun Devil Stadium comes alive during Saturday night's be a star Buildup to show's start proved rewarding for fans, camera crew VlVx ameirasS there were all those cameras on dollies running across the stage. I don't think the band was 100 percent prepared for how the audience would respond." For one song, Mothers of the Disappeared, the audience had been asked ahead of time to be prepared to sing along in Spanish. Bono had warned his fans during radio interviews prior to the show that if their participation wasn't good enough, the song would be cut from the film. The audience did sing along, but not as fervently as they usually do during U2 concerts. Even so, Moylett 6aid, "the film people are very happy with the results.

They got a couple sections on film that they hadn't gotten before." The two concerts were the last of a nine-month world tour launched by U2 in April at ASU's Activity Center. Because of the audience response at the previous Tempe shows, the band decided to end its tour at ASU and film the concerts for an upcoming documentary. Phil Joanou, who is directing the film, has been following the band since September, filming behind Hp Lead guitarist The Edge's piercing song from The Joshua Tree, the band's hugely successful current album. It is not one of Bono's most lucid 6et of lyrics, but the song has a rousing apocalyptic tenor, which was enhanced by atmospheric red spotlights worthy of Francis Ford Coppola and The Edge's 6earing guitar. Although the crowd sang along without prompting on Sunday Bloody Sunday and Pride (In the Name of Love), it occurred to me how individual U2's statement is overall.

I kept thinking back to Tim LoehrkeThe Arizona Republic One of the cameras filming the U2 concerts was positioned at center stage. Here, it catches the crowd during B.B. King's performance. Michael MeisterThe Arizona Republic Salvador, what it generally means is that the people "who fight the government will win, One complaint voiced after Saturday's show was that it didn't last long enough. "We were here at 3 this afternoon, and we feel they could have played a lot longer," said Bob Bennes, 24, of Tempe, who served as spokesman for a tailgate party charcoaling sausage after the show.

Mary Eich of Tempe, who had accompanied her teen-age daughter and four friends to the show, agreed. "It was over at a quarter 10? That's not a very long sbow, particularly considering the. Talking about the group's formation about 10 years ago, Bono says: "We. didn't know where we were going then. We still don't The only difference is we have about" 200 people working with us who think we do.

ft, show. U2 cam) the scenes. Two indoor concerts in Denver also were filmed. Joanou, who shunned publicity during the filming, said last week that he expected the ASU concert to be a "very big, very difficult shoot. The logistics are really crazy." Because the concerts were filmed at night, four tons of lights were required.

There also were 11 cameras capturing the action, including one in a helicopter that circled the stadium throughout the shows. Another camera, known as a Luma crane, was mounted on a catwalk that ran from the stage out to about the 50-yard line. The crane camera, which was on a 112-foot-long track, raced up and down the catwalk filming the crowd and, during one song, chasing Bono as he ran out into the audience. Throughout the concert, the Luma crane swooped over the audience and hovered only a few feet above their heads. Greg Hoffman, one of five crew members operating the Luma crane, said there are only six cf these cameras in the world.

They are operated electronically, and the cameraman watches the action on a TV monitor. "This camera is perfect for filming concerts," Hoffman said. "You if Michael MeisterThe Arizona Republic leads ring out with urgency. those ubiquitous Beatles songs that appeal so readily and can be sung so easily. It's hard to think of U2 songs being heard in the elevators of20year8hence.

Part music, they are also part miracle play, part epistle. Without Bono's corrosive croon and egalitarian swagger, it wouldn't be the same. For Bono has convinced us that his ego is our ego, that what concerns him should concern us, that what he can do we can do. And that, perhaps, more than anything else, is why rock and U2 has a place in history. can get over and under the stage lights, and it is not as intrusive as the cameras on the stage." Because of all the film equipment, there were large sections of the stadium for which tickets were not sold.

Many of those vacant areas served as dance floors for fans. The Luma crane took up prime seating space in the middle of the stadium floor, but Hoffman said the trade-off was worth it. "What's 500 seats when you consider that millions of people will get to see the movie?" he asked. In fact, only a few people complained about the film equipment blocking their view. Most fans seemed to enjoy the opportunity to be extras in a U2 film.

Whenever the movie lights were turned on or the Luma camera headed in their direction, the fans stood and waved. But not everyone was there because of the filming. "I came to hear the band," said 15-year-old Dorothy Adams of Phoenix, who was dancing with her friends. "So did said James Irwin, 17, also of Phoenix. "I don't really care about the film.

Besides, you probably won't be able to see us, anyway." FANS Continued Love U2son." Others had something to do with the group's songs or the ideas they espouse: "Dream Beneath the Desert Sky," one banner read, quoting the song In God's Country from The Joshua Tree album. Still others said, "Stop the Madness." At the group's merchandising 6tands, four different tour T-shirts and such items as bola ties and tour books were augmented with two shirts noting the Tempe event. The crowd generally stayed dry. It started to sprinkle near the. end of B.B.

King's 40-minute opening set, tried again during the break between sets and again about 10 minutes into U2's set While waiting for the U2 set to begin, Valley resident Jason Colgin compared the group's music to that of groups popular before he was born. "I like U2 because they remind me a lot of the Doors, Colgin, 17, said. Later, in the song Exit, Bono would quote from the Doors' song Riders on the Storm, As the group moved through its 20-song set, the audience didn't seem to mind the sight-line problems caused by the film crew. They loudly cheered the American-flag, fireworks display that opened the second half of the set "All right, Hendrix!" Colgin shouted, jumping to his feet at the sound of Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock recording of The Star-Spangled Banner. Later, it would take three tries for Bono to find a good enough guitarist in the crowd to come up on stage and play a chorus of the encore, People Get Ready, with the band.

After the event, a carload of concertgoers from Albuquerque, N.M., argued about whether the audience guitarist, identified only as Dave from the local group Mad to Tango, was, in fact, a plant Either way, Rob Stroupe, the 24-year-old driver, said, "You know what is different with U2? When you come out, you feel uplifted at the end. (With) other bands, you By HAL MATTERN The Arizona Republic Arizona State University's Sun Devil stadium resembled a surrealistic construction site during the filming of two U2 concerts over the weekend. An elaborate array of catwalks, scaffolding and film equipment loomed above the stadium floor, silhouetted against the eerie stage lights. One camera, mounted on a small crane, swooped over the audience, searching the faces for good reaction footage. Two other cameras, mounted on dollies, chased after lead singer Bono as he danced and pranced across the stage, making it difficult for some fans to see the rock star.

At times, the entire stadium was lighted to accommodate filming. As a result, crowd reaction was less spontaneous than is normal for a U2 concert, apparently because the audience was somewhat distracted by all the filming activity. "You have to remember that this wasn't a regular gig," Regine Moy-lett, the band's tour publicist, said after Saturday's show. "I found the lighting to be kind of weird, and TOUR Continued from B13 chords and piercing leads rang out with all the usual urgency. At a time when so many per- formers augment their stage acts with backup players or electronics, here is a group that still plays it straight.

Apart from a couple of keyboard parts by The Edge, it was standard guitar, Dass, drums and voice. And how powerful that was. Though cameras hovered around the performers, it seemed as if efforts had been made to minimize the intrusion on the audience. Nonetheless, one kept being reminded that "history was in the making." With a huddle of lenses lapping at every drop of his sweat, Bono can hp fnrmvpn if Vii'b mplnHrnmn urna a little affected at times. He at least is drawn naturally to the spotlight, whereas The Edge and Clayton always look rather lost on their forays away from the main stage to the wings, as if they'd much prefer to be wearing paper bags over their heads and be known respectively as the Unknown Guitarist and the Unknown bassist.

Bono made several announcements seemingly intended for the movie as much as anything. Sermonizing about the group's formation about 10 years ago, ne 6aid: "We didn't know where we were going then. We still don't know. The only difference is we have about 200 people working with us who think we do." In the kingdom of the blind, that's enough. Another forceful statement came from Bono against heroin use, and it was slammed home a few minutes later when he strayed into a line from a Rolling Stones song, Sympathy for the Devil: "Pleased to meet you, I hope you guess my name." Later, during a forceful rendition of Pride (In the Name of Love), there was a brief tribute to the Rev.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After an hour, U2 took a five-minute break and then returned with Bullet the Blue Sky, another from B13 feel rowdy after a concert." Two brothers, Virgilio and Marco Aurelio Lopez Ivich, drove from Hermosillo, Sonora, to see both shows. They came away generally happy with Saturday's final encore, a variation on the song Mothers of the Disappeared, in which Bono had the crowd sing a new background-vocal part in Spanish for the song about Latin American death squads. "Could you understand when he told you what to sing?" Marco said.

"I don't think a lot of the crowd could understand him, and they didn't quite sing it. What he said was El pueblo which means the people will triumph. In I i 1.