Touring and performing live shows is an inherent part of the music industry and one of the ways most bands make money and promote their music. Here are two bands who have attempted to change the norm. In the music industry, being unique and creative is the only way of getting ahead and these bands are live examples of this.
Heavy Metal legend - Iron Maiden.
Normally bands tour one or more countries in a span of few months, conventionally, by traveling from one place to the other by road or rail or air.
What sets Iron Maiden apart from the rest is their recent tour called “Somewhere back in time world tour” between February and March 2008, mainly to promote their new compilation “Somewhere Back in Time – The Best of 1980 – 89”.
The Maiden tour plan was something that had never been attempted before. Circumnavigating the globe, the band flew in a specially customized Boeing 757 airliner with their crew and 12 tons of music and stage equipment on board, playing 23 sold out stadium and arena shows in 13 countries in just 45 days, traveling 70,000km and performing to almost half a million fans.
The tour opened on February 1st in
The Boeing 757 was dubbed "Ed Force One”. It is named after Iron Maiden’s infamous mummy mascot “Eddie” and is piloted by Iron Maiden lead singer “Bruce Dickinson”.
On this leg of the tour, the “Iron Maiden: Flight 666" movie was filmed. The film is produced and directed by Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn. The movie was released in 40 countries simultaneously. It was distributed by EMI and Universal.
No band has ever done this. Going on a back breaking world tour, filming it simultaneously, marketing it on a huge scale and then distributing it worldwide. The revenue obtained from such a venture is not available online. But it is without doubt extremely huge, and the publicity is also tremendous.
They also came up with a number of products like video games and merchandise ranging from clothes to shoes and accessories like posters and toys for the tour.
The film, Flight 666 shows that Iron Maiden is one of the front runners in audiovisual entertainment - providing a memorable, big screen experience for their loyal fan base and new Maiden converts worldwide.
Progressive psychedelic rock legend - Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd by the 1970s had achieved phenomenal success. They felt that they
had done everything they had set out to do as a band.
Not pleased with the kind of audience coming to their concerts who were more focused on the hype around rather than the music, Pink Floyd decided to mount their most elaborate stage show in conjunction with the tour of their album “The Wall”. The concept emerged when Roger Waters, the band’s front man started getting extremely frustrated with the audience and it reached a point where Waters spat in the face of a fan who was attempting to climb on stage during one of the shows.
And thus the idea of a wall between them and the crowd. This had never been done before mostly because, even today, it is against the traditional concept that a band needs to be one with the audience and not against them i.e. going against Customer is God concept.
Pink Floyd built a 20 feet high wall between the audience and the band in a theatrical way where towards the end only the band members were seen through small apertures in the wall and eventually even that too got filled blocking the whole band from the audience, clearly stating the sense of alienation that the band was experiencing.
The performance gave the audience value for money with the theatrics and music and gave the band members the privacy they wanted.
The crowd had no option but to stare at the wall and listen to the music which was the primary purpose of the concert.
Animations splashed across the wall depicting emotions and meanings of the songs being played. They were unlike the standard Disney animations and were drawn to stir deep emotions.
The Marching Hammers and the Flower animations are some of the most popular and imaginative ones and animations then weren't as easy as they are today.
The show ended with the destruction of the wall.
Technically challenging 29 live performances were carried out.
The Wall show was later conceptualized into a movie by director Alan Parker having a main character,"Pink" with the songs in the album depicting the emotions of the character making the movie a phenomenal piece of art.
Nobody has attempted to replicate The Wall and to date it is one of the most unique theatrical live performances ever.
Sources:
“Iron Maiden: Flight 666” Movie.
“Making of the Wall” Documentary.
Wikipedia
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