Let’s get the ‘was-it-good?’ stuff out of the way first. Yes, it was good. It was better than good. It was incredible, fabulous, dazzling. It was whatever adjective you want to throw at it. I can’t recall seeing a more engrossing pop production, ever.
You don’t just get great songs — come on, you’re not going to quibble about ‘Once in a Lifetime’, or ‘Burning Down the House’, or ‘Slippery People’, or ‘Road to Nowhere’, are you? — played by brilliant musicians. You get them presented in a way no one has thought to present a rock show before.
That way was to remove all fixed points from the stage. Usually, the rock show is governed by its architecture: by the positioning of the drum riser, the keyboards, the mic stands, the amplifiers. The big arena pop shows disrupt that — often the band are partly hidden, giving the star and a supporting cast the run of most of the stage — but even then other fixed points must be navigated: props, ramps, walkways.
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