SIMPLE MINDS
VERONA
Verona is the culmination of years of planning, negotiation and development.
Filmed on one night last September in the northern Italian town, it is the first ever footage of Simple Minds
available for the home video market.
Since their inception in the late seventies, Simple Minds have proved themselves as one of the most exciting
live bands, their fans and the media have called on them to make a live concert video since they first gravitated to the arena
circuit, but they have always shyed away from teh idea until they were sure that the time was right.
Since they met up with director Andy Morahan, and he worked on their promo videos, there has been a feeling that
the combination of artist and director might be right for the project. Looking at their tour itinerary for the
Street Fighting Years Tour of 1989, they realised that the final venue on the tour would give them just the opportunity to
shoot the spectacular live film they had always planned.
The amphitheatre in Verona is a tremendously preserved relic of the Roman Empire. In the time of the Caesars, they closed all the exits
and flooded t he amphiteatre to stage mock sea battles between roman galleons. Some two thousand years later the
amphitheatre was to accommodate a modern epic... Simple Minds - on film.
On the day of the shoot, the UK video industry was up in arms... and in London, no-one could hire a fire rate video camera and crew,
they were all on their way to Italy on some sort of mysterious assignment. It wasn't until the units returned home that
everyone learned of the vast live music video project which had taken place.
Sixteen 16MM cameras, plus various hand-helds and super-eights had filmed the basic live performance and had captured the essential
atmosphere of the event. After months of editing and sound-mixing, the finished film was finally ready, with a release date set for
May 18th.
From that point the project had to be set-up; using the Nelson Mandela Concert at Wembley Stadium
in mid-April as the
logical launch point, a marketing campaign was conceivd which would emphasise and promote the cover photograph of
Jim Kerr
as the initial image of the film. Carefully selected coverage in music papers, the national press, video and music trade press
and on bus fronts and in tube stations, combined with striking in-store promotional materials and a national television campaign
have helped build the swelling interest amongst the Simple Minds' fans into huge expectancy within the music
buying public at large.
"Verona", the finished programme, is every bit the spectacular film that the band had hoped for and the public had expected.
It captures the excitement and exhilaration of attending a unique concert by one of the world's greatest rock bands. "Verona"
is the music video of 1990.
Thank you for attending this screening of the film and should you have any questions about "Verona" please feel free to contact
me or anyone else at Virgin Music Video.
MATT VOSS
MUSIC VIDEO MANAGER
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