Hampden set for Bon Jovi invasion as 200-strong team were ready for tour date

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Jun 10 2008 Richard Bennett NEXT week rock fans will Pack Hampden park in Glasgow to see Bon Jovi blast out huge hits like Living' On A Prayer and Bed of Roses. Behind the scenes, a dedicated team of more than 200 people will make sure not a speaker or drumstick is out of place. The massive operation was experienced by Rchard Bennett, who joined the team for a day in Germany. IT'S 9.30am on a sunny Saturday in Munich's Olympic Stadium. In just under 12 hours, US rockers Bon Jovi will perform in front of 72,000 fans on a stage that's not yet built, with instruments that are still sitting in a truck and through a PA system that's lying in bits. Over the next eight hours, more than 200 people will transform one end of the stadium into a cutting edge, state-of-the-art rock 'n' roll spectacular, in what backline crew chief Mike Rew refers to as "organised chaos". Tonight's concert is the second of 22 European dates on Bon Jovi's Lost Highway world tour. By the last one at Twickenham Stadium in London on June 28, the band will have played to more than one million fans across Europe. The people responsible for making sure this military-style operation runs smoothly are the six crew chiefs, including veteran roadie and stage manager Mike Devlin, who right now is concerned about the time it's going to take to set up. He said: "During the US shows, we build the stage at one end of the arena and the lights at the other, and then we just roll the stage under the lights. "With the European shows we can't do that, so the logistics of putting the whole thing together become more complicated." (continued on website)

Posted on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:03:29 GMT at http://www.topix.net/who/bon-jovi/2008/0...?fromrss=1