Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/080392/0803440.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 8KB | 181 lines

                                                                                MUSIC, Page 66

THE BANDS OF SUMMER


BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN -- GENESIS -- GRATEFUL DEAD -- BONO OF U2 --
ERIC CLAPTON & ELTON JOHN -- METALLICA & AXL ROSE OF GUNS N'
ROSES -- HAMMER & HIS ENTOURAGE -- LOLLAPALOOZA '92 WITH RED HOT
CHILI PEPPERS -- ICE CUBE -- THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN -- PEARL
JAM & MORE

Touring shows are booming again, as superstars hit the road with
performances in which the sounds are enhanced -- and sometimes
swamped -- by high-tech, multimillion-dollar special effects
and gimmicks, from flooating autos to body piercing.

By JANICE C. SIMPSON


    The event lasts all day. It is part love-in, part crafts
festival and part political rally. On the midway, vendors hawk
everything from T shirts and tattoos to voter-registration cards
and safe-sex instructions. There are demonstrations of body
piercing and Caribbean cooking. Amnesty International,
Greenpeace and the National Rifle Association are there. And --
oh, yes -- there's also a concert. In fact, quite a concert,
with a nine-hour lineup of alternative bands including Red Hot
Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, the Jesu and
Mary Chain, Pearl Jam and Lush.

    The whole thing is such a lollapalooza that that's what
they call it -- the Lollapalooza '92 tour. The show, which
began on July 18 and will play 30 cities through Sept. 13, has
already sold out in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver,
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New York City, where it
took just 30 minutes for fans to snap up all 36,000 tickets.
Lollapalooza, now in its second season, is the cutting edge of
summer concert action, and it is pioneering the new byword of
touring: value-added. Superstars aplenty are plying the circuit
this summer -- Phil Collins, Hammer, Bruce Springsteen and
Elton John, among others -- but almost all of them, like
Lollapalooza, are burnishing their marquee appeal with a little
something extra.

    Like high-tech, multimillion-dollar special effects. The
Irish band U2, which used to pride itself on its spartan,
no-glitz performance style, has invested $2.5 million in an
extravaganza it calls the Zoo TV Outside Broadcast, to be
unveiled when the group begins a 15-city U.S. swing that will
run from Aug. 11 into November. Dates are still being added, but
the tour will also hit Toronto and Montreal. The show employs
nine screens, with the two largest measuring 20 ft. by 30 ft.,
three dozen 27-in. television monitors and a satellite dish.
During the concert, the screens will carry a random,
computer-triggered mix of prerecorded material, live feeds from
the satellite and shots of the onstage performance. Lead singer
Bono will make impromptu phone calls that will be broadcast over
the speaker system. (Hello? David Letterman?) The recipients
could range from the White House to a local pizza parlor. And
check out the show's lighting, some of which comes from the
headlights on six German Trabant automobiles suspended by giant
cranes at heights of up to 40 ft. above the stage.

    Phil Collins and his band Genesis, which played to crowded
stadiums in 22 U.S. cities before heading to Europe at the end
of June, spent an estimated $6 million to put together its
eye-popping spectacle. At the center of the production,
literally and figuratively, are three giant mobile video
screens, called Jumbotrons, that together span 60 ft. Filmed
images and computer-animated visuals flash on the screens to
illustrate some of the songs. They alternate with live close-up
shots of the band that make it possible for people in the very
last row of a 60,000-seat stadium to see as much as those in the
VIP section up front. "Audiences are sophisticated visually
today with the special effects they see on TV and in movies,"
says Marc Brickman, production designer for the Genesis tour.
"You've got to find a way to keep them involved with live
performances."

    Involved is one thing, overwhelmed is another. Hammer
originally stocked his show -- which began April 9 and is
scheduled to appear in an incredible 137 cities before it ends
Sept. 7 -- with 130 speakers, 124 computerized lights, two video
screens and 48 musicians, dancers and backup singers. The result
was too many moments when finding Hammer amid all the hubbub
was like searching for the children's book character Waldo in
convoluted drawings. Where's Hammer? "Without the screens you
could lose track of him," concedes his agent, Phil Casey, "but
that's the way the man likes to do it." Even so, Hammer has
trimmed some of the excess, cutting back to 94 speakers and 70
computerized lights.

    Whether all the pizazz amounts to creativity or clutter,
promoters insist that it is economically essential. After a
record season in 1990 -- when fans shelled out $1.1 billion to
see rock legends like the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and the
Grateful Dead, current and old favorites like Depeche Mode,
Billy Joel and David Bowie, and upcoming sensations like New
Kids on the Block -- the summer touring business went down the
tubes last year. The recession zapped the middle class, which
constitutes the bulk of concert audiences. People were forced
to cut back on luxuries like $25 tickets to rock shows.
Furthermore, few major performers had new albums to promote;
hence the big names had little commercial motivation to hit the
road.

    The one large exception was Lollapalooza, the surprise hit
of the summer and Rolling Stone's choice for the best tour of
the year. The show was the brainchild of Perry Farrell, the
lead singer of Jane's Addiction, the headline act of last
year's tour. (The other six acts on board spanned the range of
youth music from the rapper Ice-T to the industrial dance band
Nine Inch Nails.) The counter- and multicultural vibes were
evident from the start. "The pro-choice people were on one side,
the pro-life people were on the other," says producer Ted
Gardner of the 1991 midway, "and we had kids in the middle of
them giving out condoms."

    This year a select few megastars are still relying on
their personal drawing power. Springsteen last week opened a
sold out, 11-night run at the Brendan Byrne Arena in New
Jersey, the first of at least nine stops on a U.S. tour. His
show offers no giant TV screens, no light show, no special
effects. Furthermore, it is in a 20,000-seat indoor arena rather
than the usual summer venue of an outdoor stadium. Yet his
followers hardly seem to mind. After all, Springsteen has not
toured since 1988.

    "People are always going to find the money to see the
spectacular superstar artists," says New York promoter Mitch
Slater. Second- and third-tier acts, however, are still having
trouble. Linda Ronstadt reportedly canceled her summer outing,
Kiss has postponed its tour, and Ringo Starr is having a hard
time filling the house.

    Other performers are opting for a high-concept strategy
instead of the high-tech approach. Elton John and Eric Clapton
have teamed up for a joint tour that will play stadiums in New
York and Los Angeles this month. Heavy-metal masters Guns N'
Roses and Metallica, who recently completed separate arena
tours, have joined for a circuit of stadium concerts in 22
cities across the country, through Sept. 4. The combined show,
with an opening act by Faith No More and full sets from
Metallica and Guns N' Roses, lasts 5 1/2 hours, at the end of
which Guns N' Roses vocalist and lead delinquent Axl Rose is
still hopping and gyrating tirelessly. "It was considered by
both bands that this would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put
on this kind of spectacular show," explains Cliff Burnstein,
who, with his partner Peter Mensch, manages Metallica.

    And yet, after all the hype and hoopla, what is the most
popular act on tour so far this year? It is -- yes -- the
Grateful Dead, who have been touring virtually nonstop since the
1960s and whose legions of devoted fans (known as Dead Heads)
continue to turn out year after year. The group takes a
decidedly low-tech, no-fuss approach to performing, and maybe
there's a lesson here. In any case, it certainly seems to
exemplify a novel concept: just play good music.