Madonna: Behind the video
No, he's not the pop diva's latest boy toy. He's ``the video guy.''
Backstage, the 36-year-old engineer from Milton Keynes, England, works multiple keyboards in a booth that is a virtual traveling TV station. This is where he pushes her buttons. Using software from San Jose's Adobe Systems, he sets in motion multiple video streams that fill giant screens hovering over, around and beneath one-inch plexiglass stages the preening Madonna dances on.
``The biggest one is at the end. You mess up and the show wouldn't end properly. That's the one I always worry about,'' Harvey said hours before Madonna's second San Jose performance Wednesday night at the HP Pavilion, and minutes before the 47-year-old cultural icon breezed by for a sound check. (Her arrival followed a quick security sweep: Everyone was asked to clear the walkway to the stage.)
Harvey, with spiky, red-tinged hair and sporting a ``The Who'' T-shirt, would slip unnoticed through any fan gauntlet. But he is much more than a tech roadie. In this multimedia age, Harvey is someone Madonna would not want to miss the bus -- or jumbo jet. With ``Confessions'' tour ticket prices that start over $100 -- stage-hugging seats to Madonna's shows go for $350 -- fans expect an experience more akin to a Broadway extravaganza than a pop singer strumming a guitar on a stage.
And in this video-everywhere world, where 9-year-olds are posting their own cinema vérité on Web sites like YouTube, a performer, especially of Madonna's stature, who doesn't offer a seamless and sophisticated big-screen experience is like a singer out of tune.
``The audience expects a multimedia artist because they are multimedia consumers,'' observed Tom Randolph, president of FrameFree, which makes digital imaging software used by bands, DJs and club owners. ``The new bands, the Indies, have to do it or else they won't stand out.''
The Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View recently updated its sound and screen system, and put new screens over plaza restrooms and dining areas, on the lawn and on stage.
``It's theater,'' Harvey observed.
Video accompanies 21 of Madonna's 22-song concert and includes a montage of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Saddam Hussein and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, a sketch of the New York skyline that appears to be drawn real-time as she sings, ``I Love New York,'' and a rider falling off a horse, referencing her 2005 accident. (There are also X-ray and MRI images of her bones taken after the accident, an inside Madonna joke, Harvey said.)
By John Boudreau
Mercury News
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