Concert History | HP Pavilion — A Reversible Pixel Curtain Preserved Arena-Wide Sightlines

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On 9 April 2005, U2 brought the Vertigo Tour to HP Pavilion in San Jose, with Kings of Leon as the support act. [U2’s own tour archive](https://www.u2.com/tour/date/3345) fixes the date, bill and historical venue name. A [San Jose Mercury News review published the next day](https://www.u2gigs.com/articledetails204.html) records the visual mechanism actually operating in the room: a giant beaded curtain doubled as a screen for colour and video.

The curtain mattered because a conventional solid screen would have closed off part of an arena audience. In a 2005 [Live Design interview](https://www.livedesignonline.com/concerts/experiencing-vertigo), show designer Willie Williams explained that the tour was selling 360-degree views, so large objects above the stage would block sightlines. Seven retractable MiSPHERE panels could be seen from both sides, remained transparent, and rolled away when not needed. [Kinesys’s technical account](https://www.livedesignonline.com/concerts/kinesys-makes-moves-u2-tour) says the motion-control system could lower a screen to its full height in under fifteen seconds.

At HP Pavilion, that turned the air above the band into a video surface without making the people behind it watch the back of a screen. The April 9 session is therefore a record of touring design as seat geometry: image scale, reversibility and rapid deployment were parts of the same solution.

Status note, checked 9 September 2026: [U2’s official news archive](https://www.u2.com/news) documents new band releases during 2026. HP Pavilion was renamed SAP Center in 2013 and continues to operate at the same address, [525 W Santa Clara Street](https://www.sapcenter.com/plan-your-visit).

Coordinate method: the pin, 37.332778, -121.901111, is the centre of the arena footprint, not a claimed stage position. [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q261863) gives that arena centroid; the US Census geocoder returns 37.332134, -121.900520 for the venue’s independently published street address. The approximately 89-metre difference reflects a building-centre point versus an address point. Precision radius: 120 metres, covering the arena footprint.

Cover: [John Pozniak (Gentgeen), “HP Pavilion,” 5 July 2004](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HP_Pavilion.jpg), CC BY-SA 3.0 (also offered under GFDL). The photograph shows the HP Pavilion exterior nine months before the concert; it does not show U2 or the 9 April 2005 performance.