U2: Oh, they've got some scaffolding

Yesterday, you'll recall, The Edge was announcing that we'd never have seen anything like the summer U2 tour. But wouldn't got into details.

If only there was a gobby, couldn't-keep-a-secret-in-a-ziploc-bag, member of U2 who might spill the beans.

Hang on, who's that at the door?

Why, it's Mr. Bono. Hello, Mr. Bono, how goes the preparations for the 'seriously, we just want to hear Sunday Bloody Sunday' tour?

"I don't know if we're supposed to say this,

You're Bono. You're the head of the buildings-and-entertainment U2 conglomerate. You presumably don't have to clear things with the press office back in Rotterdam before you make a public utterance.

... but we have ... a way of playing outdoors like no one's ever played."

This is what The Edge told us, Bono. We know this. But what is new? What is the development? Do you have a way of bringing the very birds from the sky to sing backing vocals? Will the moon be lassoed each night, and tugged to earth, showing that The Man In The Moon himself is nodding gently along with The Sweetest Thing? What is new, Bono? We must know.

"Every tour you've ever been to outdoors, you just see a big stack of speakers on the left, a big stack of speakers on the right and then this little stage."

Y-e-s... are you going to put the stage on the top? Are you going to not use speakers, and instead have the sound springing from the ground itself?

Anyone you've ever seen outdoors [always sets up that same way], and why is that?"

Because nobody much cares about where the speakers are, given they're looking at the stage? And because only a halfwit would invest money trying to come up with a different way of arranging the speakers?

"The engineering is the way it is, 'cause unlike being at Madison Square Garden or an indoor venue, you can't hang things. We've sorted this out. We have some magic, and we've got some beautiful objects we're going to take around the world, and we're inside that object. We're hanging from that object, and it frees up those seats behind the stage. They may be the best seats."

Oh. So the big, exciting development is that U2 have found a way of using scaffolding to enable them to make a bit extra flogging some more seats near the stage. Hihterto, I've been cynical about this U2 tour, but surely my grandchildren will want to hear that I saw the very first gig where they managed to monetise the seats at the side front of the stage.