U2 back in Berlin. Innocence + Experience Tour 2015
'Here we are in the heart of Europe, the beating heart of Europe. We see ourselves as a tiny tiny part of your history.'
Over four nights at the end of September 2015, U2 played in Berlin at the Mercedes-Benz Arena on their Innocence + Experience tour. I was there for the first two and, as I've come to expect from a U2 concert, it was an incredible spectacle. I've never seen any other band put on a show like they do.
As Bono hinted, Berlin plays a significant role in their history. At the end of 1990 they began recording Achtung Baby in the Hansa Studios with Brian Eno, who had previously worked there with David Bowie on his Berlin Trilogy in the late 1970s.
U2 hoped to be inspired by the city's new energy so soon after the wall had been pulled down. According to Bill Flanagan's biography of that time, as soon as they arrived on the last ever flight into East Germany, they accidently joined an anti-reunification protest and couldn't make sense of the morbid mood.
This connection was evident in the set lists. They played six songs from Achtung Baby, including Zoo Station for the first time on the tour. Zoologischer Garten was the main railway station in West Berlin. Known as Bahnhof Zoo, it was a bleak place prior to reunification - picking up prostitutes or scoring drugs was as common as catching a train. In his lyrics Bono used it as a metaphor for a reunited Germany and a new Europe. Zoo Station is the first track on Achtung Baby and opened the shows on U2's renowned Zoo TV tour.
I missed out on Zoo TV but I've seen U2 on every tour since. Their shows are more than just regular gigs. From the oversized arch and lemon on Popmart, to the giant claw stage on 360°, there's always something unique and extraordinary about them.
For Innocence + Experience they had a very cool setup; an 'Innocence' stage at one end of the arena and an 'Experience' stage at the opposite end. The connecting walkway between them was itself a stage, so the band could effectively stroll among the audience and that provided me with some good photo opportunities.
Photographing concerts is always challenging, especially when you're there as a regular fan standing in the crowd, rather than professionally with access to the special pit at the front of the stage. Primarily I'm there to watch the band rather than fiddle with camera settings, fire off shots, check exposures, refiddle with settings, take a load more shots, etc. But at the same time I still want some good photos to go with the memories.
Obviously lugging a stash of photography equipment into a crowded moshpit isn't particularly practical. In fact DSLRs aren't usually allowed which means my often overlooked but always dependable compact has its chance to shine.
I use the Sony DSC-RX100 which is a worthy performer. Its continuous auto focus is fast and accurate when tracking moving subjects and excellent noise reduction allows me to use a high ISO / fast shutter speed combination to get well exposed shots without motion blur. I usually have the aperture fully open to help with that - depth of field is not often the priority at a concert.
Constantly changing lighting conditions is a much bigger concern, something a DSLR with auto ISO would cope with far better. My trick is to underexpose by a stop or two. If the light suddenly gets brighter, the shot might still work and even if it doesn't, there's a good chance you'll get some interesting effects. Bono dressed all in black, merging into the shadows for example.
The DSC-RX100 has a modest maximum focal length of 100mm which means you can't zoom in tightly for live action closeups unless you're already quite close. However, wide angle shots of the band on stage can come out very nicely and provide more context. But U2's crowd friendly setup meant I was able to some get pretty sharp closeups when one of the band came towards me on the connecting stage.
In almost every situation I shoot in RAW and the DSC-RX100 has that capability. But at concerts I set my camera to continuous burst mode for a better chance of getting at least one well composed and focused result. That's a lot of data for the buffer to cope with. I'll get maybe 10-12 shots in five seconds before I'm unable to use the camera for an agonising period while the images are saved to the memory card.
Opportunities for the perfect photo of a performer on stage only last for a split-second. Switching to the smaller .jpg format ramps up the burst rate, increasing the odds of capturing one of those moments. Sacrificing the maximum data available from RAW in order to shoot more frames per second is usually worth it.
The intensity and colour of the lights is never the same from one second to the next. Even though you can't edit the white balance or rescue blown out highlights in .jpg files, there's still a good chance of going home with some striking images.
