U2.COM : 'Information Overload'

Travel day.  London to Auckland (day 1)

Back in the saddle as Team 360 reassembles itself from all corners of the globe.  My flight wasn’t until 21.45, so happily I had the whole day available before heading to Heathrow.

I had some work to do, still editing with Luke, and  Run Wrake  also came to the studio so we could copy the various hard drives of video material for the show.  The digital age brings many blessings but perhaps a double-edged one is the ability to keep every version of every video clip we make.  Seeing that the (comparatively small) amount of video content for this tour was about to fill a 4 TB drive, Luke set about rooting through the folders to see if there was anything that we could possibly live without (the 27 versions of the 'Your Blue Room' film, for example).  I have heard the same from studio sound engineers, where every take of every song can be kept, stored, returned to if necessary.  In U2’s case, the mind boggles.  There really is such a thing as information overload.

Got some bills paid and worked through the rest of my pre-flight 'to do' list which included laundry, renewing the van insurance, buying a book for the flight and hanging a mirrorball in a church bell tower in the City of London (it’s something I do...)

Finally to Heathrow with that transition feeling that always accompanies days like this.  Dials spinning, stepping off the jetty.  This leg is where the travelling starts to ratchet up and it’s a little disorientating to realise that we have almost as many shows to play as we have already played on this tour.  Still, at least I think there’s a good chance that we’re in the final year of the tour now.  But then you never know with this lot.

At the airport I ran into a few other tour personnel.  I rather assumed we’d all be on the same flight, but it turns out that there are many ways to get from London to Auckland.  I’m going via Singapore with three lampies and two video guys.  RIchie’s flight departs and leaves about the same time as ours but he’s going via Bangkok, on his own.  Eoin is going with Emirates through Dubai whilst Smasher heads in the polar opposite direction to New Zealand via L.A.   It’s Steff’s birthday.  He flew in from Belgium this morning and has been at Heathrow for most of the day, enjoying birthday drinks with many of his friends who have passed through at regular intervals.  He got to Heathrow long before I did and yet it seems I’ll beat him to Auckland by three hours, so he must have pissed somebody off in the travel department.  Can you imagine trying to organise this lot?  A global operation indeed.