Martin Wroe and me in the pretend U2 experience for the Rolling Magazine back in the day
U2’s Innocence + Experience, Part 2
What is in this article?:
- Ric Lipson On U2’s Innocence + Experience, Part 2
- Moving Parts
Co-designing the set for U2’s Innocence + Experience tour with Es Devlin, Ric Lipson of Stufish Entertainment Architects says there were many ideas over the two years of the design process that ended up being cut in their physical respects, but most of the initial ideas held fast in some format, the initial themes at least translating into the video content.
"For example, at one point we prototyped a flying room that had internal projection that would fly around the arena with projected members of the band within," Lipson says. "There were going to be four of these. This idea went away after we tested it at 1:1 scale and found its reference in the show when you see the video for ‘Song for Someone,’ where Bono sings to his younger self who is seen in environment of his bedroom and living room. Another idea was for a very large lightbulb that would hang over the round stage at the far end of the area that would blow apart at one point in the show to reveal 1970s junk and furniture. This was replaced by the idea of the tsunami at the end of the song ‘Until the End of the World,’ which sees the innocence of Cedarwood Road washed away by a tsunami of water that has exploded out of a video lightbulb."
Lipson says that the show starts with the notion of the innocence of a single lightbulb. As the story developed during the design phase, it informed the shape of the stage to facilitate the narrative: the theme of going from home to the world and then back again, "the journey from 'Innocence' to 'Experience,'" says Lipson. "The layout of this show meant we had to reinvent the way the sound was done for concerts in an arena. The size of the screen and other core elements such as followspots, together with the massive structure of the screen and quantity of cable to make it all work, meant that this is one of the heaviest arena shows ever. The show is no smaller than any other of the U2 arena shows. Compared to the stadium shows that Stufish has designed over the last 23 years with Mark Fisher and Willie Williams, this is not as large as 360, but it is still large and very complex to make all of the elements work so well together."
