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It's the early 1970s.

And a force is sweeping through rock

with a sound big enough to fill football stadiums.

Its name, Led Zeppelin.

A group that will become the first gladiators of Stadium Rock.

# It's been a long time since I rock-and-rolled

# It's been a long time since I did the Stroll

# Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back, let me get it back

# mm-baby, where I come from

For the next 20 years, stadium rock will be an elite club

with only a handful of ambitious bands can hope to join.

Do you believe in rock 'n roll?

For this groups, size really does matter.

It is arrogance with a cock.

These are performers who specialize in driving audiences wild.

It's the greatest job in the world!

But they will discover through a global stadium rock show

that their music isn't just being listened to around the world

but might also help change it.

We had the whole planet.

And it turns out that the 'lingua franca' of the world

is not English, it's rock 'n roll.

This is the story of the age of Stadium Rock.

When a succession of great artists

took the music onto a global stage

and played for the higher stakes possible.

You are sort of like the Aztec Sun Prince.

You're there in your palace but you know

when the year's up, the priest is gonna come,

drag you out, take you up the pyramid and cut your heart out with a knife.

# ...of the world.

# There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold

# And she's buying a stairway to heaven

Led Zeppelin came to America at the end of the 60s,

and by 1973 were playing to audiences of over 50,000 people.

On stage, singer Robert Plant, combined power and intimacy

to create a magical vibe that defined stadium rock.

# And she's buying a stairway to heaven

Great stadium rock is really about the universal.

It's about having those songs that the whole world wants to sing.

Sometimes it lacks the subtlety and refinement that gets critics excited

and they tend to be quite harsh about stadium rock,

it's almost become a term of abuse.

And yet, the great stadium rock bands take it beyond a big show,

they take it into the realm of spirit and substance.

But I've got some good news. Listen!

# If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,

# It's just a spring clean for the May Queen

I remember seeing Led Zeppelin and it was really a religious experience.

It was so perfect,

and so much everything that I would ever want to aspire to be.

Backstage, Zeppelin's manager, Peter Grunt,

scourge of concert promoters around the world,

would be working his own kind of magic.

Don't fucking talk to me, it's my bloody act!

I think I'll leave you anytime. You couldn't even give them a starting line.

You are the fucking controller of the thing, aren't you?

For concert promoters, Grunt was an intimidating and infamous figure.

But he would have a lasting impact on the business of rock.

You rented it and you controlled it.

Isn't selling fucking pirate posters.

Led Zeppelin were a monumentally important band.

They literally changed the economics.

They said, we'll take 90% and you'll keep 10%,

to the promoters, which was an inversion

of the way it had always worked.

And they had the nerve and the toughness to do it.

And they were such a powerful draw, that having 10% of Led Zeppelin

was still worth it to the promoters.

The big bands of the era followed Zeppelin's lead,

both The Who and The Rolling Stones

found the emphasis of their career shifting from making records

to filling the largest spaces possible.

These were, as it were, slightly old guard,

these were people who had been big towards the end of the 1960s.

But they in turn inspired new generations.

# I see a little silhouette of a man

# Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango

# Thunderbolt and lightning - very very frightening me

# Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo Figaro - magnifico

1975 was the year the group Queen emerged onto the world's stage.

'Bohemian Rhapsody' brought comparisons with the epics of Led Zeppelin.

On tour in Japan, they were hailed as visiting gods.

We got on the plane, a young, up-and-coming, hopeful group in England,

and we got off the plane in Tokyo like The Beatles.

It was very... blindingly strange.

# Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go

We're completely overwhelmed by what's happened since we came here.

It's never happened to us in any other country.

Most groups, at that point, were very much against

putting on any kind of show.

It was very much like, let's get into our music, man,

and everything else can take a back seat.

We weren't like that. We thought, "No. We entertain people."

# A baby I was when you took my hand

# And the light of the night burned bright

# And the people all stared didn't understand

# But you knew my name on sight

Queen's live act was centered around singer Freddy Mercury,

one of the greatest frontmen in the history of rock.

People actually believed when he first used to come on sort of...

Hell thunderbolts!

And we used to dress somebody up as Freddy and just flash a light,

and now I'm here, now I'm there,

and of course, one of them was him.

It seemed almost like a magic show.

The thing about it that I loved mostly was that

he wasn't asking your permission, he simply was saying,

this is who I am, take it or leave it.

That's what rock... It's putting your chin out and say,

"Go ahead, take your best shot."

Queen's show always ended with the audience demanding more.

And it was this ritual which inspired Brian May

to write the most famous stadium anthem of them all.

There was a place called Bingley Hall, near Birmingham,

which we used to play,

and one night it was packed and heaving and sweaty.

It was an amazing gig.

And when we came off they didn't stop singing.

They were singing to us.

They were singing 'You'll never walk alone'.

And we all looked at each other and thought,

"Something is really happening here. This is a complete interaction."

And that night I woke up in the middle of the night

thinking, what would an audience do if you gave them permission,

what would they do.

They could stand, they could clap, they could sing something

which made them feel they were bonded together,

something which made them feel strong.

# We will, we will rock you

Come on! Sing it everybody!

# We will, we will rock you

I think it was very stripped down bareness of it.

It was just sort of caught people.

You know, "Rock!"

When it was played live,

'We will rock you' would segue into a song of Freddy Mercury's,

the equally bombastic, 'We are the Champions'.

# We are the champions, my friend

# And we'll keep on fighting till the end

The songs would provide an explosive concert finale

for the rest of Queen's career.

'We will rock you' and 'We are the champions'

are triumphalist rock songs.

It is all about the communication, the empathy, the energy exchange,

between thousands of people in a stadium

and that larger-than-life character on the stage.

# We are the champions

That is the essence of stadium rock.

# No time for losers, 'cause we are the champions...

# of the world.

The sports arenas of the USA were stadium rock spiritual home.

And both 'We will rock you' and 'We are the champions'

became an eternal part of their culture.

It was in the 1970s

that American bands created a brand of theatrical rock

purpose-built for these venues.

Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!

American stadium rock is really just rock as grand entertainment.

In America you get a tradition that gives you Aerosmith,

and ultimately gives you Bon Jovi.

Or it gives you Kiss.

Just the theater of rock without any substance.

# You show us everything you've got

# You keep on dancin and the room gets hot

# You drive us wild, we'll drive you crazy

Kiss were four glam rock fans

who hit upon the idea of using makeup

to transform themselves into larger-than-life rock stars.

The plan was to create an illusion.

Because if you can get people to believe what they're seeing

is more than what it is, it becomes more than it is.

# I wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day

Kiss were hated by music critics,

but built up a fan base of millions,

because their shows could successfully entertain tens of thousands of people.

It's not spontaneous. Everything is scripted.

The focus is not necessarily on the music.

The frontman basically is barely playing.

He misses more notes than he hits.

The emphasis is on the spectacle.

I could care less whether 'New Musical Express'

or some other music magazine believes that what we do is valid.

A billion dollars later, they can kiss my ass, baby!

The band was deliberately marketed

outside the ghetto of hardcore rock fans.

This is Kiss. Each sold separately.

And you can put them in any crazy pose you want.

They were, with the Kiss dolls, appealing to people who were 4.

Literally they had no relationship to rock music,

they would not be able to say what rock music was

and they may have owned the Kiss dolls.

They blow fire and spit blood and...

- And that's neat, uh? - Yeah.

At their peak, Kiss earned $50 million a year from merchandise alone.

Their products could be found everywhere.

Even in the dressing room of the man who would eventually deliver

stadium rock from this glam and platform heel phase,

Bruce Springsteen.

Bruce Springsteen was one of the first people viewed as

being necessary to save rock 'n roll.

He was a good looking guy, writing great songs,

who seemed, more than anything else, relentlessly sincere.

He is the 70s rock Dylan.

# Don't run back inside,

# you know just what I'm here for

# So you're scared and you're thinking

# That maybe we ain't that young anymore

# Show a little faith there's magic in the night

# You ain't a beauty but hey you're alright

# And that's alright with me

# You can hide 'neath your covers and study your pain

Bruce Springsteen and his group the E Street Band,

had no need for costumes or pyrotechnics.

Songs like 'Thunder Road' were widescreen tales

of escape and freedom.

The honesty of the music he played...

You know, there wasn't a lot of fanfare and smoke and mirrors and bullshit.

It was some guys on that stage,

putting their heart and soul into what they were doing.

# Except roll down the window

# And let the wind blow back your hair

# Well the night's busting open

# These two lanes will take us anywhere

# We got one last chance to make it real

# To trade in these wings on some wheels

# Climb in back

# Heaven's waiting on down the tracks

Springsteen wore his heart on his sleeve,

but also tapped into the common experiences of a generation

coming of age in America in the 1970s.

That moment in the 70s

was a moment of crashed expectations in America.

We were told there was no more oil on the ground.

The speed limit had been dropped to 55

and Watergate and the fall of Vietnam were just the icing on the cake.

From now on it's just gonna be work in a rotten job

for not enough money and inflation's going wild,

and you're never gonna be able to have your own house.

It was just like, "The fun is over!"

# It's town full of losers

# And I'm pulling out of here to win

Springsteen came out of the music scene

centered around the troubled New Jersey resort of Asbury Park.

A town scarred by race riots at the start of the 1970s,

and in a downward spiral.

I was a loner. I didn't really fit in very well,

and so it was through music

that I fundamentally connected myself to my world,

to the world that was out there.

I had my... where my ideas and my actions had some impact.

It was basically street music.

That's where it came from.

In 1975, Springsteen had been a struggling figure

on the verge of being dropped by his record label.

But with the album and single 'Born to Run'

he turned his career round in unprecedented fashion.

I knew when I heard that song,

ok, we have a whole new thing going on here.

This is not just a song, this is a movie soundtrack.

# In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream

# At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines

# Sprung from cages out on highway 9,

# Chrome wheeled, fuel injected

# and steppin' out over the line

# Baby this town rips the bones from your back

# It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap

# We gotta get out while we're young

# 'Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

'Born to Run', a street anthem song with real passion,

turned Springsteen into the most talked about performer in America.

Bruce really was uncomfortable with it.

He wanted it but not that way.

He wanted it more in his own terms. He wanted it to go a little slower.

It seemed that it was getting out of hand for him.

When 'Born to Run' hit, Springsteen was still playing theaters,

places that held no more than 2000 people.

Now, as a star turn, he could fill arenas,

venues that held up to 20,000.

But Springsteen drew back,

fearful of losing his personal connection with the audience.

He seemed to be really weary of taking any steps too fast.

He stayed in clubs when he could be filling theaters.

He stayed in theaters for a long time when he could be playing arenas.

He didn't move to arenas until he really knew he could do it right.

You're trying to get around to as many cities as you can.

That's what's best for the fans.

Yeah, you can stay in a club,

and play that club 30 nights in a row,

or you can play 6 nights in the theater,

or one night in the arena, you know what I mean?

# Rosalita jump a little lighter

# Se�orita come sit by my fire

# I just want to be your love, ain't no lie

# Rosalita you're my stone desire

It was on his first major arena tour in 1978

that Springsteen learnt to love the big stage.

When he went out there and it felt good,

it was a delight to him.

He figured out that size was not the obstacle that he thought it was.

That the shape of the building was not the issue.

It was the shape of the music and the shape of what he projected.

And you could see it worked.

The band's three hour set would climax with the song 'Rosalita'.

Springsteen used it as an opportunity to pull out every stop.

It just did everything, you know.

It's all this big story, it was funny, it was silly.

There were many different arrangemental things that just simply

was meant to drive you crazy.

By the end of the 70s it was becoming clear

that stadium rock could embrace both the blue-collar epics of Springsteen

and the camp theatrics of Kiss and Queen.

But on the streets of London

a group had formed who would broaden stadium rock even more

by bringing their own global take to the music,

The Police.

# Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light

# Those days are over

# You don't have to sell your body to the night

The Police are significant because

they actually did bring a new sound to stadium rock.

That there was a reggae tinge to it was different because

when you talk about stadium rock, you are talking about rock;

this are white guys with guitars.

Now, The Police were white guys with guitars,

but they had also clearly heard a few reggae records in their time.

# Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light

Stewart Copeland had founded The Police in 1977,

along with base playing frontman, Sting.

They were soon joined by guitarist Andy Summers.

The exotic rhythms that propelled The Police's early classic, 'Roxanne',

came naturally to Copeland, who'd grown up in the Middle East.

# Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light

Since I grew up with backward rhythm, our rhythms were slightly out of kelter.

Instead of... Roxanne

It was Roxanne...

# Roxanne, you don't have to wear that dress tonight

The base, which goes...

move it over one beat, so it goes...

Real simple.

'Roxanne' was first released in April, 1978,

but would not be an immediate hit.

The British music scene was dominated by punk

and 'Roxanne' simply didn't fit in.

A lot of the hacks then just wouldn't give us a shot.

We were just about finished as a band, you know,

we couldn't get gigs really.

If we got a gig, we'd have to spend all the money hiring the PA

and the van to get there.

As a last roll of the dice,

The Police decided to chance their luck with a self-financed American tour.

It felt different when we came to the US.

It felt like it was a clean slate.

People accepted us just on the music alone.

They didn't care about punk credentials or anything like that.

They just reacted to the music.

# And all this guilt will be on your head

# I guess you'd call it suicide

# But I'm too full to swallow my pride

# I can't, I can't, I can't stand losing

# I can't, I can't, I can't stand losing

# I can't, I can't, I can't stand losing

They responded to our music, and just city by city,

incrementally, tour after tour.

You know, people imagine that it happened suddenly. It wasn't.

It was a lot of shows. It was step by step by step.

They drove around in a van.

They played every crappy bar and kept coming back, and back, and back.

I knew people who thought The Police were from Boston,

because they played in the New York to Boston corridor so much.

The Police at the far corner of the store, here to say "hello".

Come over to meet them...

The group's progress in the US

immediately reflected back in their British record sales.

And within a year of going to America

the band would be a number one act in the UK.

But Stewart's brother, Miles, the group's manager,

had a plan that would take them global.

There were two things that were really important.

Number one is, when you interview the group,

most groups had the same thing to say.

How did you get your name, what did you do,

it was always the same story.

Yeah, we formed this little group and friends

we went playing at the Marquee Club and we did this and that...

I heard that one before, ok?

So, to put the group in situation

where they've done something nobody else has done,

means that any time they do an interview,

the interviews are much more interesting.

Secondly, if you would put them in a situation

where the photographs are gonna be interesting.

You've got a picture of them in Delhi wearing maharaja suits,

you go, "Wow! The Police are touring the world. My God! They're in India.

"They're in Egypt. They're... God!"

It just created this mystique of excitement.

The Police's 1980 world tour saw them play countries

where few Western rock acts had ever performed.

# I can't, I can't, I can't stand losing

# I can't, I can't, I can't stand losing

This morning we left Bombay

and we will be landing in Cairo in about three hours.

I think we should just... get off, you know, let's go.

It was fantastic fun.

Everywhere was total mayhem as we went around and enjoyed this

but as well as the fun of it it was very press worthy.

It's nice to be here in Athens.

By 1981, The Police had built an international following,

and the band's enormous potential was starting to be recognised

by the rock establishment.

Freddy was very taken, you know.

And he got hold of a video of The Police and said,

"Look. Look at this guy. Look at Sting. Look what a showman he is.

"This guy is gonna be the next whatever it is, you know."

The Police were not the only ones looking beyond Britain and America for success.

Having scored an American #1 with 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love",

Queen received an offer to play in South America,

a continent totally ignored by the big rock bands.

I remember they guy who wanted to promote us,

he came over and said, "Look, I tell you.

"You can play football stadiums down here",

and we went, "Yeah, come on...

Argentina, Brazil, they've never heard of us. "

And he says, "No. I promise you you will fill football stadiums everywhere you go."

Fred, how do you feel playing and singing before 200,000 people?

I haven't done it yet.

# Another one bites the dust

The tour would take them to Argentina and Brazil,

countries then under military dictatorships.

# Another one bites the dust

There was a great fear among governments that

a large number of people gathered together would be a dangerous force politically.

# How do you think I'm going to get along

# Without you when you're gone

There was a sort of squad of military in front of the stage,

a lot of rifles everywhere and

so we raised the English and the Argentinean flags simultaneously

each side of the stage.

In only a few years time, stadium rock would align itself with political causes.

But for now, Freddy Mercury had a more old fashioned idea

of the role of the entertainer.

He was completely apolitical.

And he was always insistent on the fact that we had nothing to do with politics.

We should stay out of it completely and hopefully thereby above it.

By the time the tour reached Brazil

they were playing to over 130,000 people.

Their stadium moment had arrived

and the band connected with their huge audiences

in a spectacular way.

# Hurry back hurry back,

# Don't take it away from me,

# Because you don't know what it means to me

That experience in Argentina and Brazil echoes down now.

Generally if I meet someone in the street

and they get very emotional and teary, and want to put their arms around me,

usually it's an Argentinean

or a Brazilian.

And I feel the same... all that feeling comes back,

an amazing bond that we had in South America at that time.

# I want to break free

# I want to break free

It was just as well that Queen had built up

an enormous fan base in South America,

in the US their career would go into rapid decline.

Largely as a result of one of their videos.

# I've got to break free

# God knows

# God knows I want to break free

I was out there at the time doing some interviews

and I remember when you put this video on people would go suddenly

blanche.

And go, "Well, we'll move swiftly on."

As if the fact that we dressed up as girls and lampooned Coronation Street

they just didn't get the joke.

A lot of America really wasn't ready for that kind of thing.

And they dropped the record like a stone.

# I don't want to live alone

Freddy did say, "Well, I don't know about America.

"I suppose I'll have to fucking die before we get to be there again."

And, you know...

not far off really.

As Queen discovered to their cost,

it was essential to understand the American market.

And in the early 80s, few were better at this than The Police.

In 1983, they delivered a record that would take America by storm.

# Every breath you take

# Every move you make

# Every bond you break, every step you take

# I'll be watching you

We all knew that it was a hit.

We all knew that that was the best song

Sting had every written up until that point.

He had a knack of writing a song that ostensibly was about this,

but you listen closely to the lyrics and really it's about that.

You know, it's a song about voyeurism and stalking,

but it sounds like a love song.

# Oh, can't you see

# You belong to me

'Every Breath You Take' became The Police's first American #1,

and the band embarked on a 9 month tour

that saw them played the most hallowed turf in rock,

Shea Stadium, where The Beatles had performed to 56,000 people in 1965.

In 1983, The Police played to over 70,000.

I remember walking out introducing the group,

and I go, "Ladies and gentlemen. And now..."

And the place erupted.

And I'm hearing this "Oahhhh!" from the crowd, you could feel the wind of this.

And you're thinking, "Oh my God!"

These guys are gonna have that for 2 hours.

This is called 'Synchronicity'.

It is an incredible buzz.

You just feel this very positive energy coming towards you.

It's like... a wave. You kind of absorb it.

It's very empowering.

It's a great experience. It's a drug.

Shea Stadium sold out within hours

and the show marked the coronation of The Police

as the new kings of stadium rock.

That's when we went into the stratosphere.

At that point we're no longer the cutting edge of the latest new thing.

We now own America.

The Police were now in a position to enjoy the spoils of their victory.

# Giant steps are what you take walking on the moon

We would finish the last song

and three limousines are right up against the stage.

And my limousine has my cold drinks, my towels, everything I need,

'cause I come off soaking wet, I mean, just heart pounding, head exploding.

The t-shirt salesmen, they're just having money throwed at them.

10 dollar bills, 15... they make change, and the money goes into a big trash bin.

They grab all those bags of loot and throw them on the plane with us.

As it's taking off we can see that whole part of the state

that's just jammed with cars trying to get out of the stadium.

And we throw the bags like that and it was just like Ebenezer Scrooge

swimming in his money,

I swear to God it was a green blizzard in our plane.

The 'Synchronicity' world tour

saw the band play to millions of fans at over a hundred shows.

We were a huge cash cow while it was going,

so we're like the three treasures protected inside a fortress.

I was saying to Stewart the other day,

it's like you sort of return to the mind of a child, you become very simple.

Every move you make you're sort of catered to it.

What's that over there? Whatever it is they'll bring it here

so I can have a look at it.

I want a... and there's three guys going, "What?"

And I want a... string quartet.

And I began to feel that I was loosing my ability to

be a human being in the human world.

There's only one way to get out of there,

which was the meltdown of the golden cage.

# In my life, yeah, yeah,

Sting was talking about possibly to end the band.

I think at that point we were so confused and glutted with it all

that we went "Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's end it all."

What a great idea.

By the time the tour came to an end in 1984,

The Police had decided to call it a day.

The Police peaked at a time when the record industry was booming.

Gorged on multi-platinum records by Michael Jackson, Prince, and others.

Every major artist would have to work out

how to navigate this brave new blockbuster world.

And Bruce Springsteen was no different.

John Landau, his manager and producer, was pushing him to really go out,

and one time try to be as far reaching, as successful,

as blockbuster as he could be.

The stadiums were beckoning Bruce.

But first, he needed a killer single that would prepare the way.

"Ok, what is the single?" Well, you listen to the radio

and say, ok, that's what's going on

and you try, basically, to do your version of what might fit in to that.

# I get up in the evening

'Dancing in the Dark' was the lead single for the new album 'Born in the USA'.

It had a rhythm track influenced by Michael Jackson

and Bruce even consented to appear in his first proper video.

At last, Springsteen was willing to see

just how far he could go.

# Hey there, baby I could use just a little help

# You can't start a fire

# You can't start a fire without a spark

# This gun's for hire

# Even if we're just dancing in the dark

At that point I said, "Well, I'm here, let me see what happens,

"let me see where it goes, let me see what my limitations are."

You know, you take the ride...

I would have regretted terribly if I felt like I had that opportunity

and hadn't made the most of it, or hadn't taken it

to where I thought I could.

'Born in the USA' would become one of the most successful records of the 1980s.

Its songs dominated the American charts for nearly two years.

It had a ridiculous, ridiculous fate

of having seven top ten singles.

To promote the album, Springsteen embarked on a 15-month world tour

*** him finally move up to play stadiums.

The first day, one of the things we did*, we were outside, in day time,

so you could see the massive audience we had.

And that was kind of good fun.

# Born down in a dead man's town

# The first kick I took was when I hit the ground

The title track, 'Born in the USA',

would be Springsteen's most controversial song.

Behind the all American swagger

its lyrics spoke of darkness and disillusion.

# Born in the USA

# (I was) Born in the USA

In that song Bruce had encapsulated

the frustration, bitterness and the disappointment

of so many of the people we'd met who'd served in the Vietnam War.

# And so they put a rifle in my hands

# Sent me off to a foreign land

# To go and kill the yellow man

A lot of people misred the lyrics, and Reagan was king at that point.

Everybody thought this was a nationalistic pro-Reagan song,

that was good for 5-6 million probably, you know.

Amongst those who misinterpreted the song was Reagan himself.

America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts.

If rests in the message of hope in songs of a man

so many young Americans admire, New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen.

You gotta laugh.

You realise you clueless these people that are in charge of things are.

He doesn't know who Bruce Springsteen is, I'm surprised he didn't say

Bruce Springstine or something, who knows?

I probably could've made a record that would've been

more easily understood but it wouldn't have been as good.

The record is right on the money.

There may be some misinterpretations of it out there, you know,

but it was the right record.

'Born in the USA' would go on to sell over 15 million copies in America.

President Reagan was not the only person buying into the idea of Bruce,

the most ordinary mega-star on the planet.

Well, he's one of us. He's part of New Jersey.

He loves Philadelphia, he really does.

He's the boss, you know, we call him 'the boss' and he is the boss.

The people who really love Springsteen, the real believers,

they think that when Springsteen is not in the studio or on tour,

he actually goes back to New Jersey and works in a car wash.

So he becomes this idea, this impossible idea

that makes him messianic.

He wasn't putting on an act or anything,

he really was a kind of regular guy.

And the fact that he was commercially successful

was simply a matter of greatness as far as I'm concerned.

That's it.

For all of 'Born in the USA's huge success

in the overheated rock industry of the 1980s

other artist's albums were selling even more.

The numbers were vast.

And even Dire Straits,

fronted by unassuming Geordie Mark Knopfler,

suddenly discovered they were one of the most popular groups in the world.

# ... and alarm

# You did not desert me

# My brothers in arms

I love the fact that any stuff that I may have done

has influenced so many kids around the world,

because it just happened to be in front of them.

It's not because it was good or anything

it was just because it was in front of them.

And that's what happens.

And you just take your little place in the chain.

# I want my MTV

Dire Straits' 1985 album 'Brothers in Arms'

would sell over 30 million copies.

In large part this was thanks to a monster single,

the unforgettable 'Money for Nothing'.

That's the secret of the whole thing.

It's just to do with the picking.

# Now look at them yo-yos that's the way you do it

# You play the guitar on the MTV

# That ain't workin' that's the way you do it

# Money for nothin' and the chicks for free

'Money for Nothing' was a wry commentary on the slick world of MTV

and the 80s music industry.

But with the song's success, Mark Knopfler soon took his place

in the world he was satirizing.

Everybody wanted to see us. Everybody wanted to have the records.

You reach a kind of critical mass.

It is not a normal existence.

There were certainly periods where I'd be probably drinking too much,

probably having my personality smacked about a bit

by the size of events.

The 'Brothers in Arms' tour saw Dire Straits play 248 shows

in 117 different cities.

They packed out Wembley Arena for 13 nights.

# Here comes Johnny singing oldies, goldies

# Be-Bop-A-Lula, Baby What I Say

# Here comes Johnny singing I Gotta Woman

# Down in the tunnels, trying to make it pay

# He got the action, he got the motion

# Oh Yeah the boy can play

# Dedication devotion

# Turning all the night time into the day

# He do the song about the sweet lovin' woman

# He do the song about the knife

# He do the walk, he do the walk of life, yeah he do the walk of life

The sheer scale of the success

enjoyed by Dire Straits and others at the height of the 80s music boom

would have an important consequence.

The market for rock music had a huge booming from the mid 80s.

Loads of people benefited from that, lots of artists benefited from that,

and you could say a degree of guilt came with that.

A sense of, we have this popularity, we have this audience, this platform.

Is all we're going to do with it just sell more records and tickets,

or can we, should we do something more?

'Money for nothing and chicks for free',

that's the chorus of one of their songs.

But their hearts are in helping to feed those who are starving...

and making great music.

From London, Dire Straits!

On July 13th, 1985,

Dire Straits were in the middle of their run at Wembley Arena,

but took time out to play a charity show over in Wembley Stadium,

that would be seen on TV by a third of the world's population.

We just turned up to do the gig as normal.

We walked across the car park to do 'Live Aid',

but somebody said, there's 700 million people watching or something,

and you just think to yourself, "Wow! I hope I don't mess up. "

Dire Straits did far from mess up.

They took to the stage with Sting

who sang the intro to 'Money for Nothing' as he had on the record.

# I want my, I want my MTV

'Live Aid' marked the moment when the biggest names in rock

realised the could mobilise a global audience in a call to action.

What music does, it's still the Pied Piper.

The Pied Piper didn't get the rats out of the sewers,

or whatever he did lead them to the thing,

it was the music which drew them

to the river to be drowned.

And so rock 'n roll was globalisation's Pied Piper

and it summoned people to the electronic hearth,

this was the world's fireplace now, the television.

Queen were one group Bob Geldof wanted on board,

but the band's Roger Taylor had warned him that Freddy Mercury would be reluctant

to mix music and politics.

Rog said to me that Fred won't want to do it,

so I didn't sell it as a political thing to Queen.

I said, "Fred, of any band in all the world, of any artist,

"you were born for this stage. You. Darling of the world!"

# Buddy you're a boy make a big noise

# Playin' in the street gonna be a big man some day

# You got mud on yo' face

# You big disgrace

# Kickin' your can all over the place

- Sing it! # We will we will rock you

# All we hear is Radio ga ga

# Radio goo goo

# Radio ga ga

We just put our heads down

played hard and let Freddy strut his stuff.

He just managed to dominate, seize the... Wembley,

and take it over and conduct.

# Someone still loves you!

I don't know if it was just me, but I thought Queen,

and this is your old pub-punk-rocker, I thought Queen were amazing.

And I think that's when they specifically marked their stamp

as one of the greatest rock 'n roll bands in their own right.

# We are the champions

# Of the world

'Live Aid' would also be an important watershed for U2,

the last great band to emerge from stadium rock's golden age.

# It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall

# Sunday, Bloody Sunday

# Sunday, Bloody Sunday

During their second number,

lead singer Bono would make his mark with a gesture of high drama.

Bono, in his need to reach out and touch the audience

which he'd been doing in smaller venues and in theaters.

You know, he'd always go running off to do...

this thing that he used to do, which was to drag somebody up and dance.

Springsteen used to do the same thing as well.

Probably a trick that he'd picked up from Springsteen.

He decided to do that at Wembley Stadium...

It took several minutes,

but Bono ended up with a ten-second clinch surrounded by photographers.

The images of his embrace were seen all around the world.

Bono had provided the perfect TV moment,

and that was a TV event.

It wasn't an ordinary live concert.

All their albums were back into the charts.

And that led on to 'The Joshua Tree', the biggest album of their career,

and the moment when they became the biggest band in the world.

If 'Live Aid' had given stadium rock a conscience,

with 'The Joshua Tree' U2 would be the ones who would keep it alive.

Behind the album's iconic imagery

they along held belief in music with a message.

The total package together spoke of something serious and austere.

And kind of heavy.

# And I can see those fighter planes

# I can see those fighter planes

# Across the mud huts where the children sleep

# Through the alleys of a quiet city street

# You take the staircase to the first floor

At the heart of 'The Joshua Tree' was the song 'Bullet the Blue Sky',

a direct response to the Reagan Administration's

covert military operations in Central America.

# Outside is America

# Outside is America

U2's outspokenness made the media sit up and take notice.

But for many stadium rock bands the music was the message.

The bands that were emerging in the 80s, apart from U2,

seemed almost like designer stadium bands.

Bon Jovi take the formula of Bruce Springsteen and reduce it to a pop rock.

They lead into to Guns 'n Roses, it's just all empty bombast.

Big had become sort of synonymous with something bland,

and so probably U2 felt it tainting them through their seriousness,

their perceived seriousness.

As the 80s became the 90s,

U2 decided it was time to lighten up their image.

When they came to tour their futuristic 1991 album, 'Achtung Baby',

the band entrusted lighting designer, Willie Williams,

with the task of dreaming up the most elaborate stadium rock show yet seen,

'Zoo TV'.

It became clear that where we were going had to be

something on a scale that hadn't been seen before.

And I was really pushing for a video art installation on stage

in which they could perform.

What they put together was

the most extravagant multi-media experience.

It felt like an absolute technological 'splend'.

Zoo TV used its video screens as the focus of the show

that was a dark celebration of the modern world.

Let's see what we've got on TV.

The stage set projected films and slogans

and could even pick up local TV stations.

What is this? Soap operas?

Behind Zoo TV sensory overload

was a belief that stadium rock could do more than merely entertain.

It could challenge, provoke or change the way an audience looked at the world.

U2 are artists with a mission.

To them a mass audience is a repository of potential for good.

And a great artist can reach into that audience

and can pull out something better, if you like,

artistically and morally.

The band would even conduct live satellite links with their own reporter

in the then besieged city of Sarajevo.

There's about 10 to 15 thousand refugees that are being

attacked by artillery and they have nowhere to go.

But music remained the core of the show.

After an audiovisual assault,

U2 introduced something new in stadium rock,

the B-Stage, where they performed an intimate set,

totally surrounded by the audience.

# It was a cold and wet December day

# When we touched the ground at JFK

# Snow was melting on the ground

# On BLS I heard the sound

# Of an angel

# New York, like a Christmas tree

# Tonight this city belongs to me

# Angel

With Zoo TV, U2 had created the ultimate stadium rock show.

U2 were the only act that I can remember seeing

who really were great in a football stadium.

You go to see the Stones and they do it,

but you'd much rather see them in an arena,

you'd much rather see them in Madison Square Garden

than see them at Giants Stadium.

U2 actually made the stadium work.

U2 are the best stadium rock band that's ever been.

It doesn't mean they're the best rock band's ever been,

but they have the ambition to fill those spaces with something...

truly remarkable and new and challenging.

Everybody who saw Zoo knows they'll never see the likes of that again.

Transcription and synchronization by Fry.

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