Tony Oros, who co-owner or Park City Productions, which brings Las Vegas-style entertainment to the Intermountain West, said he has always wanted to do a show in Iraq.
He got his wish when he and Fab Rodig, PCP’s other owner, took their U2 tribute band Rattle and Hum to play the military-camp circuit from Kuwait to Baghdad the last two weeks in March.
Rattle and Hum band Oros (Bono), Rodig (bassist Adam Clayton), Phil Wormdah (guitarist The Edge) and Cam Curtis (drummer Larry Mullen Jr.) will perform its first show since returning to United States at the Egyptian Theatre on Wednesday, April 13.
“We will pull out all the stops with video and lighting production, with help from the Egyptian staff,” Oros said.
When the band left for Iraq, Oros knew it was in for a long ride.
The entourage left Salt Lake and skipped across the ocean to Frankfurt, Germany. From there they flew to Kuwait for a one-night stand at the Ali Al Salem Air Base, just outside Kuwait City, Oros said.
“After the show, we took a C-130 four-engine turboprop, military-cargo transport into Camp Adder in Iraq,” Oros told The Park Record. “We then hopped on two Blackhawk helicopters and flew into Camp Echo and did a show there before climbing onto another transport for Camp Marez.
“We did our last two shows while we were based in Saddam Hussein’s compound in Baghdad,” Oros said. “Fab has been in Iraq before, and I have been to Kuwait, but this was the first time in Iraq for me and the other two players,” Oros said. “We were all wide-eyed and jaws-dropped the whole time.”
The band slept in combat housing units or CHUS, but being civilian entertainers, the quartet had their own space like other civilian contractors that pass through the bases, Oros said.
“We still got to see firsthand what the conditions for those men and women were like every day,” he said about the troops. “There were also a couple of incidents that involved some action and nastiness. (The fighting) may not be on the front page of newspapers every day anymore, but the people stationed out there are still taking fire. In some places, they see action every week or two.”
Rattle and Hum was in the right place at the right time to be able to tour Iraq, said Oros.
“The booking gods and what the Pentagon wanted to send over there through Morale Welfare and Recreation (MWR) had lined up accordingly,” he said. “We hooked up with the Department of Defense tours through a production company called AKA Productions.”
Oros and Rodig have worked with AKA Production for more than a decade, Oros said. They were first introduced to the company while working the Los Angeles club scene in the 1990s, before they relocated to Utah.
“I had done dozens of tours through AKA, which has contracts with MWR, so they knew about the product and knew about the U2 Tribute and the other Vegas-style shows we do at Park City Productions,” he said. “So they were able to get us on one of the Department of Defense tours.”
Those tours are similar to USO shows, but also take care of the on-the-ground logistics of providing video games and books in all the bases’ libraries, Oros said.
“It just so happened that it was March and St. Patrick’s Day week, so they were looking for a U2 Tribute show to take to Iraq, and we were right in front of their faces,” he said.
Usually Rattle and Hum do St. Patrick’s celebrations in Las Vegas, said Oros, who cited the title track to the album “Unforgettable Fire” and “Spanish Eyes” as his favorite U2 songs.
“We’ve done big shows in the Luxor and Mandalay Bay and New York New York,” he said. “We took as much as we could from our casino shows to Iraq.”
Since U2 is known for its anti-war, pro-peace activism, Oros felt it would fit the setting better if Rattle and Hum focused on the hits.
“We knew there would be a mixed audience with people who weren’t hard-core U2 fans,” he said. “Eighty to 90 percent of the sets were comprised of the band’s singles.
“‘Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ was a huge sing-along, because even the casual U2 fan knows that song,” he said. “We also tried to keep it to ‘Streets have No Name,’ ‘Beautiful Day,’ ‘Vertigo’ and stuff like that.”
Still, a U2 tribute show would not be incomplete if it didn’t include a little political rant, Oros said.
“Bono will give his political statements within a song when U2 plays live,” he said. “We kept things like that in our show, because you want to give them a show that is the closest thing to something the real band would play.
“If for nothing else, we gave the troops a couple of hours of distraction, and they need it,” Oros said. “Keep in mind, a lot of them were on duty as we were playing. A lot were on patrol and doing a myriad of things.”
In preparation for producing a Rattle and Hum show, Oros and the band members pore through hours of live U2 videos.
“Since the band has been playing for 30 years, there is a lot of material out there where we can grab little nuances here and there,” he said. “We try to stay true to the band members’ mannerisms and song selections. We also stay true to the live arrangements.
“We have noticed U2 does songs differently during different live shows. So we follow that, and that’s fun because it keeps on our toes.
“It’s hard work to make sure we do the show correctly,” he said. “It’s become a responsibility.
“The two best things we hear as a tribute band are: ‘I came in expecting to love you and you were great’ or ‘I came in expecting to hate you and you were great,'” Oros said.
Rattle and Hum will perform at the Egyptian Theatre, 328 Main Street, on Wednesday, April 13. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $8 to $10 and available a www.parkcityshows.com . Specially priced tickets for veterans and military personnel can be obtained by calling (435) 649-9371.