Constructed Arena Stardom. Rock Concert as a Globalizing Media Spectacle, 1965–2013

This article-based dissertation observes the change in the audiovisual popular music performance from 1960s to the date. It focuses on the arena tours of Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, U2, and Peter Gabriel, and the related stage design work by Mark Fisher and Robert Lepage.

The main question is, how the gargantuan media spectacles began, how they became professional and reached global appeal during 1965–2013. The emphasis is on how the changing staging constructed new kind of arena stardom and audiovisual culture. The study close reads the key events of some case study concerts, combined with the analysis and historical contextualisation of the related popular media sources.

By observing the cultural history of the arena rock, the dissertation analyses the commercial, technological and political changes that made the global spread of stardom possible. As a result of this change, nearly anyone can become a star, and nearly any cultural phenomenon can become popular. But even today the arena concerts are a zenith of the stardom phenomenon, an extreme manifestation of global entertainment culture.

Special attention is paid to the relations of different media technologies, and to the question of how parts of the audiovisual concert experience are actually prerecorded. The stage designing combines the thearical gestures and performance with the larger premeditated audiovisual thematic constructions. These include the disposable architecture of the gigantic concert stages, the combination of lighting and surfaces, reflected with popular imagery, and the historical or nostalgic references within the actual audiovisual narratives of each tour.