PopMart Tour

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PopMart Tour
World tour by U2
Locations America, Europe, Australia, Asia, South Africa
Supporting album Pop
Start date April 25, 1997
End date March 21, 1998
Legs 4
Shows 94[1]
U2 tour chronology
Zoo TV Tour
(1992-1993)		 PopMart Tour
(1997-1998)		 Elevation Tour
(2001)

The PopMart Tour,[2] often referred to as simply PopMart, was a concert tour by the Irish rock band U2. The tour took place from 1997 to 1998, in support of the group's 1997 album, Pop. Much like the band's previous Zoo TV Tour, PopMart was an elaborately-staged, multimedia tour. PopMart featured a lavish stage design, complete with a 165 wide LED screen, a 100 foot-high golden arch, and a large mirror-ball lemon. The band performed in costumes that departed from their traditional image. PopMart, though the second-highest grossing tour of 1997, was marred by technical difficulties and mixed reviews from critics and fans over the tour's extravagance. The tour was depicted on the concert film PopMart: Live from Mexico City.

Contents

[edit] Background

The PopMart Tour began its development in late 1995, by U2 stage designer Willie Williams. U2 re-entered their Dublin recording studio in October 1995, shortly before releasing their side project with Brian Eno, entitled Original Soundtracks 1. The band started to work on their ninth studio album, which was set to be finished by July or August 1996, and released in October 1996.[3] Around the same time, in late 1996, Williams began developing concepts for the band's next tour.[4] Among the proposed themes for the tour included "U2000", a concept based around the end of the millennium, and "Discothèque", a concept involving a large mobile disco. One of Williams' ideas was inspired by facades of American post-war suburban outlet stores. With the help of stage architect Mark Fisher, Williams designed a fantasy "entertainment outlet", and decided to create a tour with a "consumerism" theme.[5]

[edit] Set design and construction

The PopMart stage, including the B-stage, the LED screen, the golden arch that supported the overhead sound system, the Lemon mirror ball, and the olive and martini stick.
The PopMart stage, including the B-stage, the LED screen, the golden arch that supported the overhead sound system, the Lemon mirror ball, and the olive and martini stick.

After producing the band's previous tour, Zoo TV, which featured a complex setup involving 36 different video screens,[6] Williams did not want to produce another video-based show unless it was going to be completely different that its predecessor. Fisher had just returned from a trip to Japan, where light-emitting diode (LED) video screen technology was being developed for the first time. The first LED screen had recently arrived in the United States, and was built for the State Fair of Texas in 1995. Williams developed the idea to make a large LED screen by spacing its pixels further apart, thus creating a larger image. A prototype was designed with LED pixels placed 75 mm (3 in) apart on a cargo net, which worked successfully.[7] Instead of creating a set for the tour, Williams suggested the idea of creating an LED screen onto a fabric sheet, which would be hung like a curtain around the back of the stadium. It was later decided that it would be much easier to have control over the screen if it was hung in its own frame.

For the stage's public address (PA) system, Fisher designed a system with speakers mounted on top of two large antler-like structures in front of the video screen. Williams took this concept and changed the antler design into one large parabolic arch. To further develop the concept, Fisher drew a version of the concert stage transformed into a supermarket, which later appeared in the Pop album artwork.[5]

[edit] Promotion

While still in the recording studio, U2 began planning the tour in early 1996, along with band manager Paul McGuinness. After creating tour promotion offers with three separate parties, a deal was made with Toronto-based concert promoter Michael Cohl for $100 million.[3] Cohl expected a total five to six million attendees at over 100 concerts, beginning in April 1997. He also expected the tour to gross $260 million, almost $20 million more than The Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge Tour, which was the highest grossing tour at the time.[8]

Going along with the tour's satirical theme of consumerism, the band announced their tour on February 12, 1997 by holding a press conference at a Kmart discount store in New York City. Hundreds of reporters from record companies, radio stations, television networks, newspapers, and magazines were in attendance at the conference, whose location was not revealed until the night before. Upon their arrival at the store, U2 got up on the stage assembled in the store's lingerie department, and performed "Holy Joe," a B-side from the "Discothèque" single, which had been released nine days prior.[9] The entire event was broadcast live through television, radio, and internet sources.[10] Following the performance, the band answered questions for a half hour. It was announced that the tour was to include 62 stadium shows in North America and Europe, beginning in Las Vegas, Nevada on April 25, and ending in Seattle, Washington on December 12.

[edit] Concert setlist

Out of the 93 concerts performed during the PopMart Tour, each show had a similar setlist, with 21–24 songs performed by the band at each show. The concerts began with U2's remix of M's "Pop Muzik" played through the PA system. During the song, the band members would walk through the crowd with bodyguards, similar to the beginning of a boxing match. The band would then walk onto the end of the B-stage, heading towards the main stage, where they would begin the show.

PopMart from seats at the far end of a venue. Giants Stadium, May 31, 1997.
PopMart from seats at the far end of a venue. Giants Stadium, May 31, 1997.

[edit] Main set

Each concert opened with a performance of "Mofo." Following "Mofo" at every show, the band performed "I Will Follow," "Even Better Than the Real Thing," "Gone," "Last Night on Earth," and "Until the End of the World." As the group performed, the audience was bombarded with images and colors, all designed towards the show's ironic embrace of tackiness and pop-ular culture.

Each show featured "Staring at the Sun" during the middle of the set, and many shows featured "New Year's Day," and "All I Want Is You." "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," "Pride (In the Name of Love)," and "Bullet the Blue Sky" (often preceded by "Miami") were also played at every show. Those songs were often followed by an "Edge Karaoke" slot, in which The Edge would sing The Monkees' "Daydream Believer" or a similar song against a cheap karaoke CD, complete with lyrics shown on the giant screen. The end of each main set featured "Please," which segued into "Where the Streets Have No Name."

Bono and The Edge on the giant PopMart video screen.
Bono and The Edge on the giant PopMart video screen.

[edit] Encores

At the end of the main set, before the first encore, the giant lemon moved to the middle of the stage. There a sheet fell off exposing a huge disco ball that lit up the stadium in spinning lights while the Perfecto Mix of "Lemon" played over the PA. The band then would walk out of the giant lemon onto the B stage to perform "Discothèque."

The rest of the first encore typically consisted of "If You Wear That Velvet Dress" and "With or Without You." After another brief break, the band would return to perform "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me," their single from 1995 for the Batman Forever soundtrack, followed by "Mysterious Ways." "One" was always performed following, which ended a handful of shows, otherwise it was followed by one more song. "Unchained Melody," "Wake Up Dead Man," and "MLK" followed "One" to close the show. On a handful of occasions, the show ended with another song, such as "Rain," "Hallelujah," "Mothers of the Disappeared," "40," or "Can't Help Falling in Love." "She's a Mystery to Me" and "Staring at the Sun" each ended a single show, as well.

[edit] Additional songs

A total of 55 different songs were played throughout the tour.[1] Out of the 12 songs on Pop, each song was played in full at least once, with the exception of "The Playboy Mansion," which was only featured as a snippet several times at the end of "Where the Streets Have No Name." "Do You Feel Loved" was only performed during the first six shows, and "If God Will Send His Angels" was performed once by the full band, plus about 20 other times solely by Bono and The Edge. "Bad" and "Desire" were also played at a handful of shows.

[edit] Sarajevo concert

Ticket from Sarajevo concert
Ticket from Sarajevo concert

During the Zoo TV Tour, U2 aired controversial satellite link-ups to Sarajevo. The link-ups were arranged by aid worker Bill Carter, who interviewed ordinary people about their experiences of the ongoing War in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a result of the satellite broadcasts, U2 promised to play in Sarajevo. The Sarajevo show had to wait until the PopMart Tour, when U2 became the first major band to perform in the city after the war had ended.[11] The highly emotional concert was among the highlights of the PopMart Tour. 50,000 people attended and effort was made to make sure all the ethnic groups were present. Also in attendance were several hundred members of the international "Stabilisation Force" (SFOR) who were tasked at that time with upholding the Dayton Agreement. During the encore, Brian Eno got on stage for the band's first ever live performance of "Miss Sarajevo." Luciano Pavarotti, who was guest vocalist on the original recording was not in Sarajevo. However, his vocal was retained. An old style phonograph, complete with amplifying horn, was brought on stage for the song and its stylus was moved into position by Brian Eno to coincide with the tenor's vocal contribution. Unfortunately, the performance of this song did not go as well as planned as the band's timing was off and Bono was having difficulty with his voice. It was in this context that Bono chose to apologize to the audience for the band not being able to "fucking play it."[12] After the Sarajevo show in 1997, "Miss Sarajevo" was not played again until the second leg of the Vertigo Tour in 2005.

This concert was also the first time that the band performed "Sunday Bloody Sunday" in more than four years. It was performed solo by The Edge. Bono stated in the show in Thessaloniki that the band rediscovered the song in Sarajevo.

Despite the subpar performance, a news story said, "For two magical hours, the rock band U2 achieved what warriors, politicians and diplomats could not: They united Bosnia." Trains ran for the first time since the war to enable people to see the concert, though they were stopped again afterward. Bono later called the Sarajevo show "one of the toughest and one of the sweetest nights of my life."[13] Larry Mullen, Jr. called it "an experience I will never forget for the rest of my life, and if I had to spend 20 years in the band just to play that show, and have done that, I think it would have been worthwhile."[14]

[edit] Reception

Although the extravagance of the tour was visually and technically impressive, the early dates of PopMart were, on occasion, marred by subpar performances. The band had booked the tour before the album was finished, and with the planned November 1996 release pushed back until March 1997 to finish the album, valuable tour rehearsal time was lost. This lack of preparation manifested itself in the shows,[15] particularly during the poorly received opening night in Las Vegas where the band lost their timing on the song "Staring at the Sun," stopped playing partway through, and then started over. Nonetheless, the quality of the band's performances improved greatly by the second leg in Europe, evidenced by the "Please" single that features three songs from the first European show in Rotterdam.

Start of the encores, as U2 emerge from the giant mirrorball lemon.
Start of the encores, as U2 emerge from the giant mirrorball lemon.

Despite its cleverness and some positive critical response, many fans felt alienated by the shows; new material from the Pop album didn't go down as well as U2 might have hoped and too many people just didn't seem to get the joke. U2 dressed as the Village People in the "Discothèque" video, and their willingness to mock their serious image continued during PopMart. U2's "big shtick" failed to satisfy many seemingly confused by the band's new image and elaborate sets.[16][17][18] One NME critic later recalled a "ludicrous hullabaloo" that was a departure from "Planet Reality."[19]

Disrupting the performances of many shows, technical problems also arose throughout the tour. As the band was to walk out of the giant mechanical lemon during the encore at the concert in Oslo, Norway, the lemon malfunctioned, temporarily trapping the band inside, and forcing them to escape through the back. This incident was later listed as one of "Rock 'n' Roll's 15 Most Embarrassing Stage Antics" by AOL's Spinner.com.[20] The lemon later malfunctioned at the show in Sydney, Australia where the lemon was not used at all,[21] and also malfunctioned in Osaka, Japan, where the band was again trapped inside, but was unable to escape through the back.[22] In addition to the issues with the mechanical lemon, the large LED television monitor became damaged in Raleigh, North Carolina, which ended up causing the entire concert to be cancelled altogether.[23]

Like the band's previous Zoo TV Tour, PopMart was another huge success in terms of revenue. For example, on September 20, 1997, the band performed in front of over 150,000 people in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and set the new world record at the time for having the most attendees at a concert for a single performer.[24] Although the tour was the second-highest grossing of 1997 (behind The Rolling Stones' Bridges to Babylon Tour) with revenues of just under $80 million, PopMart cost more than $100 million to produce.[25]

[edit] Post-tour

[edit] Appearance on The Simpsons

U2's PopMart show on The Simpsons
U2's PopMart show on The Simpsons

In April 1998, one month after the PopMart Tour had ended, U2 appeared as guest stars on the 200th episode of The Simpsons, "Trash of the Titans." The episode featured U2 performing a PopMart concert in Springfield Stadium where Homer Simpson disrupted the show during a performance of "Pride (In the Name of Love)." The four members of the band and entire PopMart stage were shown in animated form. Bono, The Edge, and Adam Clayton had voice appearances in the episodes, as well as the band's manager, Paul McGuinness, and McGuinness' assistant, Susie Smith. Larry Mullen Jr. was not present for the studio recordings, therefore he appeared in a non-speaking role. U2's guest appearance was later featured on The Phoenix's list of "The Simpsons 20 Best Guest Voices of All Time."[26]

[edit] Live releases

In December 1997, the two PopMart Tour concerts in Mexico City were filmed for various future video and audio releases. In November 1998, PolyGram and Island Records released the video PopMart: Live from Mexico City on VHS and Video CD. The video combined footage from the two concerts, and featured all 25 songs performed at both shows.[27] The VHS and Video CD releases have since been out of print; however, a DVD version was released for the first time in September 2007.[28] In 2000, the album Hasta la Vista Baby! was released exclusively to members of U2's fan club, which featured 14 of the 25 songs from Mexico City on one CD.[29] Released around the same time were the various "Beautiful Day" singles, which featured the live versions of "Discothèque," "If You Wear That Velvet Dress," and "Last Night on Earth,"[30] the latter of which was also featured on the "Elevation" single.[31] The live video of "Last Night on Earth" appeared on the Australian "Beautiful Day" single,[30] and the live video of "Gone" appeared on The Best of 1990–2000 video releases.[32]

In addition to the recordings from Mexico City, live versions of "Please," "Where the Streets Have No Name," and "Staring at the Sun" from Rotterdam, as well as "With or Without You" from Edmonton, were released internationally on the Please: PopHeart Live EP,[33] and later on the "Please" single in the United States.[34] A live video of "Please" filmed in Helsinki, known as the "Live Mural Cut," was featured on the bonus DVD of the special edition release of the album, The Best of 1990–2000.[35]

[edit] External links

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[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Mühlbradt, Matthias; Stieglmayer, Martin. Popmart Tour. Retrieved on 2007-05-02.
  2. ^ The correct capitalization is "PopMart" as opposed to "Popmart," according to U2's official book U2 by U2.
  3. ^ a b Jolson-Colburn, Jeffrey. "U2, Cohl To Take $100 Mil Tour" (reprint), The Hollywood Reporter, Baseline StudioSystems, 1996. 
  4. ^ McHugh, Catherine. "U2's super POPMart Willie Williams pushes at kitxchy cart full of pop culture icons on the band's mega tour", Live Design, Penton Media, 1997-07-01. Retrieved on 2008-06-01. 
  5. ^ a b Scrimgeour (2004), p. 126
  6. ^ Cole, Jenni. U2 - Zoo TV Live From Sydney. MusicOMH.com. OMH Media. Retrieved on 2008-05-30.
  7. ^ Scrimgeour (2004), p. 234
  8. ^ Scheerer, Mark. "U2's new 'POP' culture", CNN, 1997-03-07. Retrieved on 2008-06-04. 
  9. ^ PR Newswire and Island Records (1997-01-17). "U2's New Single Breaks Record on Radio & Records Alternative Playlists". Press release. Retrieved on 2008-05-31.
  10. ^ "U2 announces 'PopMart Tour'", MTV News, 1997-02-12. Retrieved on 2008-05-31. 
  11. ^ U2. Rock on the Net. Archived from the original on 2006-04-28. Retrieved on 2006-10-31.
  12. ^ U2 DISCOnnect POPmart SARAJEVO 1997 (Romanian). U2 Romania (2005-03-24). Retrieved on 2007-04-04.
  13. ^ Mueller, Andrew (1997-09-26). Bono in Conversation. The Independent. Retrieved on 2007-01-15.
  14. ^ U asked U2!. Music News. MSN. Retrieved on 2007-01-15.
  15. ^ Parra, Pimm Jal de la (2001). U2 Live: A Concert Documentary. Omnibus Press, pp. 193-202. ISBN 0-7119-9198-7. 
  16. ^ Carter, Geoff (1997-04-29). U2 live: Play-by-play of the concert. Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  17. ^ Anderson, Kyle (2006-10-04). U2, Brute?. Spin. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  18. ^ U2: Pop. Music Reviews. Rolling Stone (1997-12-18). Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  19. ^ U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind. Reviews: Albums. NME. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
  20. ^ Spinal Tap Moments: Rock 'n' Roll's 15 Most Embarrassing Stage Antics. Spinner.com 3x3. AOL. Retrieved on 2007-05-02.
  21. ^ Mühlbradt, Matthias; Stieglmayer, Martin. 1998-02-27: Sydney Football Stadium, Sydney - New South Wales. Retrieved on 2007-05-07.
  22. ^ Rowlands, Paul (December 2006). Nine Things You Possibly Didn’t Know About U2 and Japan. Interference.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-07.
  23. ^ Mühlbradt, Matthias; Stieglmayer, Martin. 1997-05-29: Carter-Finley Stadium, Raleigh - North Carolina. Retrieved on 2006-04-02.
  24. ^ U2 Play to Biggest Audience Ever. PR Newswire (1997-09-21). Retrieved on 2007-05-07.
  25. ^ U2 Biography. The Rock Radio (April 2005). Retrieved on 2007-01-15.
  26. ^ Stewart, Ryan (2006-03-29). The Simpsons 20 best guest voices of all time. The Phoenix. Retrieved on 2007-05-07.
  27. ^ PopMart Live from Mexico City. U2 Videography. U2 Wanderer. Retrieved on 2007-05-11.
  28. ^ "PopMart Live From Mexico City" DVD Release. Marketwire (2007-07-09). Retrieved on 2007-07-11.
  29. ^ Hasta La Vista Baby!. U2 Discography. U2 Wanderer. Retrieved on 2007-05-11.
  30. ^ a b Beautiful Day. U2 Discography. U2 Wanderer. Retrieved on 2007-05-11.
  31. ^ Elevation. U2 Discography. U2 Wanderer. Retrieved on 2007-05-11.
  32. ^ The Best of 1990-2000. U2 Videography. U2 Wanderer. Retrieved on 2007-05-11.
  33. ^ PopHeart EP (Please). U2 Discography. U2 Wanderer. Retrieved on 2007-05-24.
  34. ^ Please. U2 Discography. U2 Wanderer. Retrieved on 2007-05-24.
  35. ^ The Best of 1990-2000 & B Sides. U2 Discography. U2 Wanderer. Retrieved on 2007-05-24.
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