Newspaper Article

Between rock and a retired place ... Ringing endorsements

Arnold, Gina

2002

Overview

There were many such moments in the 1980s and 1990s, and thanks to my job, I saw them all: giant sarcophaguses opening to emit Iron Maiden, members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers hung by their ankles, Bon Jovi flying, Peter-Pan like, across a hockey stadium ... the list of gross, theatrical excesses goes on and on and on. In the 1990s, clever staging and super hi-tech inventions made arena rock more artful, but no less vulgar. The staging of Madonna, Michael Jackson and the Rolling Stones' shows made Andrew Lloyd Webber stage shows look positively paltry. The rock shows all purported to have some underlying contextual meaning that made the pageantry pointed, but in retrospect, I'm not sure what it meant. U2's \"Zooropa\" tour and subsequent tour-with-the-giant lemon thingy were probably the apex of all this pomposity - but I was lucky enough to be in attendance the night they all got stuck inside the lemon, and the parallel to Spinal Tap was too huge to be ignored. Arena rock seems cheesy now even at its best, but one reason for the obsolescence is simply that it outpriced itself. [Peter Gabriel] tickets cost in excess of $100, with the result that the audience was as staid and bearded and gentrified as Gabriel himself. They'll pay to see Peter, or the Stones, or U2, but when those bands die off or retire, these extravaganzas won't be replaced by similar shows by an ageing Thom Yorke, Beck, or Matchbox 20. At least, I don't think they will. The likes of these shows will never be seen again, and that's a good thing, not a bad one.

• Publisher: Scotsman Publications
• Subject: Gabriel, Peter