Art-sluza

Showmanship is clearly a shared common element - all have figured out how to make a large stage work for them. Performers like Springsteen, Freddie Mercury and Bono have gone beyond this, sharing a genius for performance that allows them to bond tens of thousands of individuals together - sending them home with a sense that they have been part of something greater than a mere rock’n'roll show. But at the heart of the best of these bands is, dare I say it, a generosity in their music: a sense that everyone is invited to the party.

All of this means that when a band reaches the heights of the stadiums, they face the accusation that they have “sold out”, and risk forfeiting whatever critical kudos they have built up over their career. Bands who are revered by rock purists - The Velvet Underground for example - often barely sold any records during their career. And yet all of the artists featured in the film found their own way to fill large spaces without diluting the essence of what made them great, and in some very rare cases (Queen, Springsteen, U2), I would argue that the large venues magnified what they were projecting rather than diminished it.

In approaching this film, I wanted to get a sense directly from the musicians themselves about how they learned to work these big spaces, how they connected with their audience, and how they dealt with their success.

We got some remarkable interviews. Brian May shared his memories of Freddie Mercury, as well as explaining to us how Queen’s career was built around their interaction with their audience - songs like “We Will Rock You” were specifically written to allow the audience to become one with the band.

Bob Geldof gave us his own perspective of Live Aid, while Gene Simmons charmed us with some of the most outrageous things committed to tape. Mark Knopfler, in a typically modest and understated interview, spoke about how he fought hard to retain his band’s integrity as one of their albums suddenly became one of the most successful in history.

If I had to choose a favourite interview, it would be the one we filmed with Stewart Copeland, the drummer of The Police, who had obviously been thinking quite a bit recently about the ride that he’d taken with The Police over 25 years ago.

Not only had he recently produced a film memoir of his own about the experience (Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out) but had just signed up for their current reunion tour, although we didn’t know this at the time of the interview.

He delivered the most precise and compelling dissection of what immense global success can do to a band and an individual that I have ever heard. Apparently the experience of being in an enormously successful band is like, “being an Aztec sun god. You know it’s only temporary. You’re surrounded by all this luxury and yet you know one morning you’ll be dragged to the top of a pyramid, and the priest will come and rip out your heart.”"

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