It’s not often you get to photograph a band twice, in the same venue, playing the same album, 30 years apart. So as U2 returned to Croke Park with the Joshua Tree tour yesterday I couldn’t resist.
In 1987 I travelled to the Dublin stadium lightly. Two cameras, two lenses and a pocket full of 35mm black-and-white film. Manual-focus lenses and manual-exposure cameras. No motor drives. No internet.
The object of the exercise: to photograph the band on stage. A relatively plain background on a bare stage.
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How different it is three decades later. These days a photographer arrives laden with camera bodies, a selection of lenses, cables, chargers, a laptop and more.
Now, with an enormous stage and high-tech screens that have become as much parts of the show as the band, it can be a struggle to capture the scale of the event in still images. A far cry from that evening in 1987 when security chucked basins of water over the crowd to help keep the fans cool.
But what a joy to be here again, to rekindle that moment and attempt to capture it for the next 30 years.
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This time around we’re much farther from the stage – there’s no longer a place in the pit for photographers – so long lenses are required. The music is as good as ever, if not more polished, like the show and performance.
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The band haven’t aged much in the three decades, but this photographer has. Must be the rock’n’roll lifestyle.
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