Unforgettable Fire Tour
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Unforgettable Fire Tour | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Tour by U2 | ||
| Start date | 29 August 1984 | |
| End date | 7 July 1985 | |
| Legs | 6 | |
| Shows | 111 | |
| U2 tour chronology | ||
| War Tour (1982-1983) |
Unforgettable Fire Tour (1984-1985) |
A Conspiracy of Hope Tour (1986) |
The Unforgettable Fire Tour was a concert tour by Irish rock band U2, which took place in 1984 and 1985 in support of group's album The Unforgettable Fire.
The tour's opening night was on 29 August 1984 at the Town Hall Auditorium in Christchurch, New Zealand. The first leg took place for 19 shows at halls in New Zealand and Australia through late September. The second leg consisted of 21 shows in halls and arenas in Western Europe, and ran during October and November 1984. The third leg was a short series of 10 one-night stands in halls in major United States cities in December 1984, intended to gain positive notices in the press and provide a teaser of things to come for fans. The fourth leg was a return to Western Europe for 13 shows in January and February 1985, hitting cities that had been missed on the second leg. The fifth leg was a major tour of the United States and Canada, comprising 40 shows and running from late February to early May 1985, now playing in arenas, with multiple nights in many of the locations. The sixth and final leg was a return to Western Europe for 8 outdoor festival shows in late May through early July 1985. The tour's final performance was on 7 July 1985 at the Rock Werchter festival in Werchter, Belgium.
The initial leg Down Under is sometimes dubbed the U2 Under Australian Skies Tour, since it occurred before The Unforgettable Fire was released on 1 October and had more in common with the late 1983 live album Under a Blood Red Sky than with the rest of the tour. Typically only "The Unforgettable Fire" and "Pride (In the Name of Love)" were played from the upcoming album at these shows. For this reason, some U2 tracking sites consider this leg to be a "pre-leg" or some such, and for the whole Unforgettable Fire Tour to have five not six legs.
Also, following the final full show, U2 made less-than-full-length appearances at two festivals or events, including their breakthrough two-song performance at Live Aid on 13 July 1985 at Wembley Stadium. Some tracking sites count these as part of the tour, but they are not counted here. (Rock tours do not have "official" definitions of these kinds of things.)
Especially during the long North American leg, the tour found U2 consistently playing in arenas for the first time, and sometimes for multiple nights. The group had reached the level of popularity where this was possible, but had not yet broken out into widespread fame and familiarity among the general rock and pop audience; that would come in 1987 with the release of The Joshua Tree. The Unforgettable Fire Tour popularity level is sometimes referred to as "mass cult", and is similar to, say, what Bruce Springsteen had on his River Tour before Born in the U.S.A. or what Metallica had on their Damaged Justice tour before their Black Album. It made for intense concerts in this instance, because it provided a very large but fully devoted audience, with fans standing on chairs for the entire performance and continuing "40" refrains long after the show was over.
The Unforgettable Fire had drastically altered U2's sound, adding layers of keyboards and aural ambient "soundscape" to The Edge's trademark guitar. Presenting this on tour brought on a sea change in U2's on-stage performance. Eschewing the option to augment the four-man band with additional visible musicians, instead tape loops, offstage synthesizers, and other such mechanisms were used, a practice that has continued to this day. Results on this tour were mixed: some Unforgettable Fire numbers were not even attempted (one of which, "4th of July", was used as background music as the group took the stage) while some that were, were not as dense and precise as on record. In contrast, "Bad"'s backing track gave it a percolating, hypnotic presence which, combined with Bono's spoken introductions, wrapping of his microphone cable around his arm in imitation of a junkie looking for a vein, and intense singing during the song's slowly building but powerful crescendoes, quickly made it the centerpiece of the shows. One such "Bad" performance, from National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham on 11 November 1984, was released on the Wide Awake in America EP in May 1985, and was chosen by many radio programmers for airplay over the studio version. "Bad" was also the highlight of the Live Aid performance mentioned above, and has continued to be played up through the band's Vertigo Tour.
As with all U2 tours from 1983 on, the stage and lighting design for the Unforgettable Fire Tour was done by Willie Williams. In this case, the stage was plain and the lighting was very austere, mostly all white except when use of colour would be meaningful.
Red Rockers and Lone Justice split the opening act assignment during the long North American leg.
