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Mr MacPhisto
Who He Is: A devil who's career as an Elvis-esque cabaret singer is near its end
Last Seen Wearing: Gold suit, ruffly red shirt, gold pants, and the coolest gold spray painted platform shoes!
Description: Black hair, white powdered face, makeup, and red horns (very important detail!)
Mr. MacPhisto debuted on the Zooropa Tour in the summer of 1993 (Outdoor European leg) and continued until the end of the tour in Japan. MacPhisto was created to parody the devil. Bono said of his creation, which was named after Mephistopheles of the Faust legend, "We came up with a sort of old English Devil, a pop star long past his prime returning regularly from sessions on The Strip in Vegas and regaling anyone who would listen to him at cocktail hour with stories from the good old, bad old days." MacPhisto wore a gold suit with gold platform shoes, wore pale make-up and lipstick, and wore devil's horns atop his head. The idea of the horns came from Gavin Friday, according to Bono. He spoke with an exaggerated upper-class English accent, not unlike that of a down-on-his-luck character actor. He would make telephone calls nightly, like the Mirror Ball Man, but the targets would change with the location of the concert. Bono enjoyed making these calls, saying, "When you’re dressed as the Devil, your conversation is immediately loaded, so if you tell somebody you really like what they’re doing, you know it’s not a compliment." The band intended for MacPhisto to add humor while making a point. Said The Edge, "That character was a great device for saying the opposite of what you meant. It made the point so easily and with real humor."
MacPhisto's speech at the Sydney 1993 concert exemplified the character:
Originally posted by BonoMy time among you is almost at an end... Before I go, I have some messages for the world. People of America, I gave you Bill Clinton—I put him on CNN, NBC, C-SPAN. Too tall to be a despot, but watch him closely. People of Asia, your time is coming—without your tiny transistors, none of this [gestures to Zoo TV stage set] would be possible. People of Europe—when I came among you, you were squabbling like children. Now you're all hooked up to one cable, as close together as stations on a dial. People of the former Soviet Union—I gave you capitalism, so now you can all dream of being as wealthy and glamorous as me.
People of Sarajevo, count your blessings... There are people all over the world who have food, heat and security, but they're not on TV like you are. Frank Sinatra, I give you the MTV demographic; Salman Rushdie, I give you decibels. Goodbye "Squidgy," I hope they give you Wales; goodbye Michael... Goodbye all you neo-nazis, I hope they give you Auschwitz.
The "Michael" in the last sentence refers to Michael Jackson.
Originally posted by [urlwww.u2faqs.com[/url]]Who's in the picture on MacPhisto's dressing table in the Sydney video?
It's Mario Lanza in the photo. Mario Lanza was an American opera-style singer in the 1950. He had no formal training but sang in a light operatic style in several MGM musicals. He was touted as "the American Caruso." In fact, Mario was a truck driver from Philadelphia and could handle neither the stress of fame nor MGM's insistence that he sing like Caruso but weigh only slightly more than his leading ladies. He died of a heartattack in his mid 30's. Bono said in an interview with Spin magazine that Mario Lanza's singing impressed him as a child.
Well known for his phone calls, like MirrorBall Man before him, MacPhisto never had much luck!!
Zoo TV Phone Calls
Mr. MacPhisto has forever been immortalised in ZooTV: Live From Sydney, a DVD of the tour. Here's the highlight of his performance in that show:-
Here's the Amazon link for any of you narrow-sighted enough not to own the DVD yet (:N)
This character would subsequently figure prominently in the 1995 music video for "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" from the soundtrack of the movie Batman Forever.
Congrats!
