Mission U.K.’s New Video Form: Surveillance Rock

When hot British rocker band Mission U.K. begins its American tour April 16, the band will have cameramen on hand to film the shows. Hardly surprising, right? But the video crew won’t be documenting the band’s performance.

They’ll be filming the security guards.

Hired by local promoters to keep order, security guards have emerged as controversial figures in recent years, with fans complaining that instead of keeping the peace, they often provoke trouble with overzealous, confrontational behavior.

“We’ve been taping the band’s shows for about six months and, for the most part, the idea has worked,” said Pamela Burton, Mission U.K.’s co-manager. “There’s definitely a difference in the way the security guys operate. They almost second-guess themselves. You can sometimes actually see them start to make a move and then stop, as if they’d said to themselves, ‘Oh, yeh, I’m on camera!’ ”

Burton said that the band instituted the policy because its members, especially lead singer (and Bono look-alike) Wayne Hussey, felt strongly that security guard excesses had sometimes interfered with the group’s intense rapport with its fans. (Mission U.K. fans often hurl themselves at the stage or form triangles by standing on top of each other’s shoulders during the show.)

“We’ve always had problems, even when we last played in L.A. in 1988 at the John Anson Ford Theatre,” Burton said. “A security guard got really heavy with a fan and hurt him--really hurt him. Wayne stopped the show and wouldn’t go back on stage until the security guard had left the building.”

One night last year, Mission U.K.’s road crew was filming the group when another altercation broke out. Hussey grabbed the camera and filmed the guards involved in the melee. Since then, members of the crew, or co-manager Tony Perrin, have regularly filmed all shows.

The filming policy has served as an effective deterrent. Burton said the group had only two incidents on its entire British tour. One was just last weekend in Birmingham, England.

“It was horrendous,” Burton said. “A security guard tried to pull a kid off his friend’s shoulders and knocked him, head first, to the ground, where he split his head open. We have it all on film. I’m sure if the incident comes to court, our film could be entered as evidence.”

So how will American promoters react to this new kind of pop surveillance? Burton acknowledged resistance, if not outright opposition, from some promoters.

However Avalon Attractions’ Moss Jacobs, who is handling the band’s May 11 date at the Hollywood Palladium, says he doesn’t anticipate any problems. “We have enormous confidence in our security people, who have always done a tremendous job at our shows,” Jacobs said. “I don’t think the presence of cameras will have any effect on the quality of their performance.”

Regardless, Burton insists, “we will absolutely have our cameras rolling when we come to L.A.”

Burton says she’s looking out for the interests of her band--and its fans. “I’m not trying to create a confrontation, I’m trying to avoid one,” she said. “We have great respect for the hard work most security guards do. It’s a tough job. But when our fans pay hard-earned money to see the group, it’s important for them to see the group in the fashion they want, even if that means sitting on each other’s shoulders.

“By filming the shows, we’re trying to create an atmosphere where security guards will use courtesy and a light hand instead of pushing our fans around. It’s a way of saying to security people: ‘Don’t come to a Mission U.K. concert with an attitude. We’re watching you.’ ”