Seven ages of Rock -Episode 5 (We are the Champions) part 5

I chosed only episode 5,because its the one with Queen ^_^ -naturally :)
I will continue with all episodes of this documentary

Seven Ages of Rock was a BBC Two series, co-produced by BBC Worldwide and VH1 Classic in 2007 about the history of rock music.

One of the first big bands of stadium rock was Led Zeppelin, who played to audiences of 50,000. They were so successful that they could take 90% of the revenue, leaving only 10% for the promoters, who were used to taking the largest slice of the pie. But in the case of Led Zeppelin even 10% was worth their while. Queen took this even further and played for audiences of 130.000, filling big stadiums. This was in part due to the act they put on. In the US, Kiss took that even further, ignoring the music and focusing purely on the act. They made their money largely from merchandise, which was bought by children who knew nothing of Rock and Roll and the merchandise alone gave them a revenue of 50 million dollars per year. In the US, Bruce Springsteen also became one of the icons of stadium rock, almost against his own will. He kept playing clubs when he could have been playing theatres and he kept playing theatres when he could have been playing stadiums. But ironically, it was exactly this 'regular guy' attitude that made him big.

When The Police had made it in England, they first financed their own tour of the US (where for a while they became the biggest band) and then started going to countries where few other western bands had gone before. Queen did something similar by touring South America and filling huge football stadiums. And in Japan they were received like The Beatles. This was all topped by Live Aid, which was heard by a third of the world population. Bob Geldoff: "It turned out the lingua franca of the world was not English, but Rock and Roll."

U2 was the last great band to emerge from stadium rock. Zoo TV brought the TV on stage. And they introduced another new phenomenon, the B stage, in the middle of the audience, where they were totally surrounded by them, thus reversing the ongoing development of the bands getting ever further separated from their audiences.

The VH1 version of this episode did not mention Peter Grant or 90/10 deal with concert promoters, the "designer bands" of Aerosmith, Guns 'n' Roses, and Bon Jovi, nor having any of them playing. It did not show Queen playing Hyde Park and did not have them playing Another One Bites the Dust or I Want To Break Free, with no discussion on the politics of playing in South America. The discussion of the Police is reduced and Walking on the Moon is not played. The Angel of Harlem is also not featured.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• seven
• ages
• of
• rock
• croatian
• sedam
• razdoblja
• roka
• Queen
• Led
• Zeppelin
• Kiss
• Bruce
• Springsteen
• The
• Police
• Dire
• Straits
• U2
• stadium
• glam
• 2007
• subtitle

[wildsmiley]

@BlueMonk25 I was 12. Wish I saw them at the time.

[BlueMonk25]

@djrichiea Damn right!..too bad was only 7 when ZOO TV came about!

[ceridwengwyon]

thank you for posting it!

[Mindcrime80]

empty bombast.....i hate music critics,long live empty bombast!! for them the only good rocker is a leftist who is usually ipocritically "involved",better if he doesn't have a clue how to play(not the case of u2 by the way).we need more Kiss and less coldplay,and if somebody wants to inform himself,there are plenty of history books which nobody reads anymore.

[u2feeder]

the end clip of U2 has to be the BEST intro to where the streets have no name ever! it is soo powerful!

[djrichiea]

Series like this justify your license fee. Great stuff from the BBC. I saw Zoo Tv in Dublin and London in the summer of 93. I've been to many live shows since, but Meil Mccormacks was right. We'll never see the likes of that again, Mick jagger remarked at the time that the games was over. U2, he said, had elevated the bar, in terms of live shows, toa level where noone could even see it. I've seen the u2 360 show twice and while it's brilliant, Zoo tv will always be the daddy!

[Peppinen]

afr00

Grazie mille per la condivisione!

Bel doc.!

[David199306]

Great documentary :)