In 1980, when a little known Irish Band called U2 released its first album “Boy”, hardly anyone noticed. Even the first gigs were played in front of only a handful of guests. Today this is completely beyond belief. After hits like “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “New Year’s Day”, “Where The Streets Have No Name”, “One”, “Discotheque” or the Bob Dylan cover “All Along The Watchtower” Larry Mullen Jr., David “The Edge” Evans, Adam Clayton and Paul “Bono Vox” Hewson are now one of the biggest bands in the world. They’ve teamed up with artist like B.B. King, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash, received awards in every country worldwide and met the Pope, the US President and the UNO Secretary-General.
Right now U2 are back on the road with their “360°” tour, with a lighting design by Willie Williams and a set design by Mark Fisher. Previous U2 tours like “Pop Mart” and “Zoo TV” have written a new chapter in the book of modern stage design. Now the band have surpassed themselves with a stage construction known as “Space Station”, so huge that the whole Rolling Stones’ “A Bigger Bang” stage could be fitted beneath it.
Lighting Director Ethan Weber accepted the enormous challenge of operating the lightshow, and has chosen 2 x grandMA full-size consoles, with Lighting Associate Alex Murphy selecting 2 x grandMA lights to run the stage and structure LED fixtures. There are a total of 10 x MA NSP (Network Signal Processors) for lighting control.
Weber says: “The grandMA is a reliable and enjoyable console to program and run. The world-wide support I’ve gotten from MA Lighting has always been great, no matter what size show I’ve been on. It’s also comforting to know that there’s a large network of users that I can call, all of whom are more than willing to share their knowledge and tricks.”
Two grandMA full-sizes, one run in Full-Tracking-Backup-Mode, are controlling the moving and conventional lights. They are assisted by eight MA NSPs for DMX processing, and the fixture list includes 196 x PRG Bad Boys, 156 x Martin Atomic Strobes, 8 x BigLites 4.5, 8 x Novalight Nova-Flower 2Ks, generic channels and fog machines. Another grandMA light with a grandMA light as backup and two MA NSPs are used for LED control. This grandMA light also triggers an M-Box media server used for pixel mapping.
Jake Berry is the tour’s Production Director, Craig Evans the Tour Director. Rocko Reedy works as Stage Manager, Nick Barton as Lighting Crew Chief, Craig Hancock as Lighting System Crew Chief. Alex Murphy is Lighting Associate. Tom Krueger is the Video Director.
The Lighting Technicians are: Russell ‘Bits’ Lyons, Andy Beller, Blaine Dracup, Mick Stowe, Jake Sullivan, Stuart Lee, Jessica LaPoint, Alison Triplett, Chris Keene, Gareth Morgan and Chris Davis. PRG supplied the lighting equipment.
The U2 360° Tour will visit 14 cities across Europe including Barcelona, Milan, Paris, Nice, Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, Gothenburg, Gelsenkirchen, Chorzow, Zagreb, London, Sheffield and Glasgow before finishing at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. The European tour will be followed by dates in North America beginning at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
Photos: Copyright – [email protected]
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