So U2's 360 Tour will be done by July 30, at its New Brunswick, Canada show. By then it will have proved to be the biggest tour in history, playing to more than seven million fans and grossing more than $700 million.
But according to this story by Billboard, its vestiges will remain through the claw–that weird, crustacean-like structure on four legs that held the expanding video screen and elaborate lighting effects over the stage. U2's management is planning to sell three of the 29,000-square-foot steel structures as venues.
U2 tour director Craig
Evans told Billboard.biz that the claw “represents too great an
engineering feat to just use for [the tour] and put away in a warehouse
somewhere,” so the U2 camp is looking into installing them into different places around the world and have
them installed as permanent venues. Apparently, countries four different continents are interested–we say, Orange County should make a bid!
After the jump, five OC spaces that would greatly benefit by hoisting the U2 claw overhead.
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1. The Great Park in Irvine
Here's an idea for the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, which has more than 1,300 acres to fill. If they want to “set a new standard for
great metropolitan parks around the world,” the claw is it! Here's us connecting the dots–as a permanent venue, it would be perfect for that multi-day festival Goldenvoice is cooking up at the Great Park. Think about it: it'll have a Great Canyon, a Great Big Balloon, a Great Big…Claw. (If it ever gets finished, that is.)
2. The OC Fair
While there's an iconic ferris wheel that sneaks its way into every photo of the fair ever taken (case in point: our recent cover), all that could change with the claw.
At the very least, it would give us something else to look at. Maybe if we had the claw it would do justice to every tribute band that ever played the venue. And, you know, the Pink Floyd experience + the claw would probably be way better with LSD + alien-crustacean legs involved. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!
3. Triangle Square
As a replacement for the superstores of the '90s (Niketown, Virgin Megastore) that abandoned the Costa Mesa strip mall, the gargantuan claw would give shoppers something to look at other than shuttered storefronts. It would also draw people to “the place where businesses go to die.”
4. Disneyland
If Disneyland bought the claw they could rename and redecorate it to fit a variety of Disney themes!
Ideas: a Little Mermaid-themed Sebastian's Claw section would be a hit. “Under the Sea” would waft through its legs continuously, they could move the Blue Bayou in there and serve specials on lobster and crab, an eight-legged Ursula ride, etc. etc.
Or they could use it as an ultra-elite Toy Story themed-venue, with a bunch of the Pizza Planet aliens running around as bouncers/cast members, saying “The Claw is our Master! The Claw chooses who will go and who will stayyyyyy!”
5. Henry Nicholas' sex dungeon
Remember when ex-Broadcom CEO and bajillionaire Henry Nicholas was charged
by a former employee with using company funds to finance (among other things) drug-fueled
orgies in a sex lair underneath his sprawling Laguna Niguel mansion and keeping a brothel's worth of prostitutes on
the payroll? Just imagine what Nicholas could do with the U2 claw in that bunker. (Actually, maybe you shouldn't. Eww.)
