Zoo TV Tour
Encyclopedia
The Zoo TV Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock
band U2
. Staged in support of their 1991 album Achtung Baby
, the tour visited arenas and stadiums from 1992 through 1993. To mirror the new musical direction that the group took with Achtung Baby, the tour was intended to deviate from their past and confound expectations of the band. In contrast to U2's austere stage setups from previous tours, the Zoo TV Tour was an elaborately-staged multimedia event. It satirised television and media oversaturation by attempting to instill "sensory overload
" in its audience. To escape their reputation for being overly serious, U2 embraced a more lighthearted and self-deprecating image on tour. Zoo TV and Achtung Baby were central to the group's 1990s reinvention.
The tour's concept was inspired by disparate television programming, the desensitising effect of mass media, and "morning zoo
" radio shows. The stage featured dozens of large video screens that showed visual effects, video clips from pop culture, and flashing text phrases. Live satellite link-ups, channel surfing
, prank call
s, and video confessionals were incorporated into the shows. Whereas U2 were known for their earnest live act in the 1980s, the group's Zoo TV performances were intentionally ironic and facetious; on stage, Bono portrayed several characters he conceived, including "The Fly
", "Mirror Ball Man", and "MacPhisto". In contrast to other U2 tours, each of the Zoo TV shows opened with six to eight consecutive new songs before older material was played.
Comprising five legs and 157 shows, the tour began in Lakeland, Florida
on 29 February 1992 and finished in Tokyo, Japan on 10 December 1993. The first four legs alternated between North America and Europe, before the final leg visited Australasia and Japan. After two arena legs, the show's production was expanded for stadiums for the final three legs, which were branded "Outside Broadcast", "Zooropa", and "Zoomerang/New Zooland", respectively. Although the tour provoked a range of reactions from music critics, it was generally well-received. Along with being the highest-grossing North American tour of 1992, Zoo TV sold around 5.3 million tickets over its five legs. The band's 1993 album Zooropa
, which expanded on Zoo TV's mass media themes, was recorded during a break in the tour, and its songs were played in 1993. The tour was depicted in the Grammy Award
–winning 1994 concert film Zoo TV: Live from Sydney
. Zoo TV is regarded as one of the most memorable tours in rock history—in 2002, Q
s Tom Doyle called it "the most spectacular rock tour staged by any band".
and the supporting Joshua Tree Tour
brought them to a new level of commercial and critical success, particularly in the United States. Like their previous tours, The Joshua Tree Tour was a minimalistic, austere production, and they used this outlet for addressing political and social concerns. The band earned a reputation for being earnest and serious, an image that became a target for derision after their much-maligned 1988 motion picture and companion album Rattle and Hum
. The film and record—which documented their exploration of American roots music
—were criticized as being "pretentious", and "misguided and bombastic", and they were accused of being grandiose and self-righteous. Their 1989 Lovetown Tour
did not visit the United States, and at the end of the tour, lead vocalist Bono
announced on-stage that it was "the end of something for U2" and that "we have to go away and ... just dream it all up again", foreshadowing changes for the group.
" radio programmes inspired the band with the idea of potentially taking a pirate radio
station on tour. They were also interested in using video as a way of making themselves less accessible to their audiences. The band developed these ideas in late 1990 while recording Achtung Baby
in Berlin at Hansa Studios. They watched television coverage of the Gulf War
on Sky News
, which was the only English programming available. When tired of hearing about the conflict, they tuned into local programming to see "bad German soap operas" and automobile advertisements. The band believed that cable television had blurred the lines between news, entertainment, and home shopping
over the previous decade, and they wanted to represent this on their next tour.
The juxtaposition of such disparate programming inspired U2 and Achtung Baby co-producer
Brian Eno
to conceive an "audio-visual show" that would display a rapidly-changing mix of live and pre-recorded video on monitors. The idea was intended to mock the desensitising effect of mass media. Eno is credited in the tour programme for the "Video Staging Concept", and he clarified, "the idea to make a stage set with a lot of different video sources was mine, to make a chaos of uncoordinated material happening together... The idea of getting away from video being a way of helping people to see the band more easily ... this is video as a way of obscuring them, losing them sometimes in just a network of material."
While on a break from recording, the band invited production designer Willie Williams to join them in Tenerife
in February 1991. Williams had recently worked on David Bowie
's Sound+Vision Tour, which used film projection and video content, and he was keen to "take rock show video to a level as yet undreamed of". The band played Williams some of their new music—inspired by alternative rock
, industrial
, and electronic dance music
—and they told him about the "Zoo TV" phrase that Bono liked. Williams also learned about the band's affection for the Trabant
, a German automobile that derisively became a symbol for the fall of Communism. Williams thought their fondness for the car was "deeply, deeply bizarre", but nonetheless, he incorporated it into his ideas for the tour. In May, he brainstormed the idea to construct a lighting system using Trabants by hanging them from the ceiling and hollowing them to carry spotlights.
On 14 June 1991, the first tour production meeting was held, with Williams, the band, manager Paul McGuinness
, artist Catherine Owens, and production managers Steve Iredale and Jake Kennedy in attendance. Williams presented his ideas, which included the Trabant lighting system and the placement of video monitors all over the stage; both notions were well-received. Eno's original idea was to have the video screens on wheels and constantly in motion, although this was impractical. Williams and the group proposed many ideas that did not make it to the final stage design. One such idea, dubbed "Motorway Madness", would have placed billboards advertising real products across the stage, similar to their placement beside highways. The idea was intended to be ironic, but was ultimately scrapped out of fear of being accused of selling out
. Another proposed idea involved building a giant doll of an "achtung baby", complete with an inflatable penis that would spray on the audience, but it was deemed too expensive and was abandoned.
By August, a prototype of a single Trabant for the lighting system was completed, with the innards gutted and retrofitted with lighting equipment, and a paint job on the exterior. Williams spent most of the second half of 1991 designing the stage. Owens was insistent that her ideas be given priority, as she thought that men had been making all of U2's creative decisions and were using male-centred designs. With bassist Adam Clayton
's support, she recruited visual artists from Europe and the United States to arrange images for use on the display screens. These people included video artist Mark Pellington
, photo/conceptual artist David Wojnarowicz
, and satirical group Emergency Broadcast Network
, who digitally manipulate sampled image and sound. Pellington envisaged a collection of text phrases into the visual displays, inspired by his working with artist Jenny Holzer
. The idea was first put into practice in the video for Achtung Babys lead single, "The Fly
". Bono devised and collected numerous phrases during development of the album and the tour. Additional pre-recorded video content was created by Eno, Williams, Kevin Godley
, Carol Dodds, and Philip Owens.
On 13 November, U2 settled on the "Zoo TV Tour" name and the plans to place video screens across the stage and build a lighting system out of Trabants. McGuinness led a trip to East Germany to buy Trabants from a recently closed factory in Chemnitz
, and in January 1992, Catherine Owens began to paint the cars. As she described, "The basic idea was that the imagery on the cars should have nothing to do with the car itself." One such design was the "fertility car", which sported blown-up newspaper personal ads and a drawing of a woman giving birth while holding string tied to her husband's testicles. Williams and Chilean artist Rene Castro also provided artwork on the cars.
of 1982–1983. In place of U2's austere and minimalist productions of the 1980s, the Zoo TV stage was a complex setup, designed to instill "sensory overload
" in its audience. The set's giant video screens showed not only close-ups of the band members performing, but also pre-recorded video, live television transmissions (intercepted by a satellite the group brought on tour), and text phrases. Electronic, tabloid-style headlines ran on scrawls at the ends of the stage. The band's embracing of such technology was meant as a radical departure in form, and as a commentary on the pervasive nature of technology. This led many critics to describe the show as "ironic".
Several versions of the stage were used during the tour. The first two legs were indoors and used the smallest of the sets, which included four Vidiwalls (Philips
-branded giant television screens); six painted Trabants suspended above the stage; 36 television monitors; and a B-stage, a small remote platform connected to the main stage by a ramp. A seventh Trabant by the B-stage doubled as a DJ
booth and a mirror ball
.
To redesign the set for the North American outdoor stadium leg—dubbed "Outside Broadcast"—Williams collaborated with stage designers Mark Fisher
and Jonathan Park, both of whom had worked on The Rolling Stones
' Steel Wheels Tour
stage set. The set was expanded to include a 248 by stage, and the Vidiwalls were supplemented by four larger mega-video screens. Williams faced difficulties in designing the outdoor lighting system, as the stage did not have a roof. He settled on using the venues' house spotlights and strategically placed lights in the structure behind the band. The spires of the stage, intended to resemble transmission towers
, were tall enough that the Federal Aviation Administration
required them to have blinking warning lights. The stage's appearance was compared to the techno-future cityscapes from Blade Runner
and the works of cyberpunk
writer William Gibson
. The B-stage was located at the end of a 150 feet (45.7 m) catwalk. The larger set used 176 speaker enclosures, 312 18 inches (45.7 cm) subwoofer
s, 592 10 inches (25.4 cm) mid-range speakers, 18 projector
s, 26 on-stage microphones, two Betacam
and two Video-8 handheld video cameras, and 11 Trabants suspended by cranes over the stage. The outdoor stage used for the 1993 legs of the tour was smaller due to budget concerns, and it discarded the Trabants hung from cranes, instead featuring three cars hanging behind the drum kit. All of the projection screens were replaced with "video cubes", as the projectors were not bright enough for the European summer nights, when daylight remained later into the evening.
To realise the video production ideas, the equivalent of a television studio control room—costing US$
3.5 million—was built for the tour. Beneath the stage, Dodds, the video director, operated a system custom-built by Philips called CD-i
. It used five broadcast camera systems, 12 Laser Disc players, and a satellite dish, and it required 12 directors, 19 video crew members, and two separate mix stations
to operate. Despite the production's complexity, the group decided that flexibility in the shows' length and content was a priority. Guitarist The Edge
said, "That was one of the more important decisions we made early on, that we wouldn't sacrifice flexibility, so we designed a system that is both extremely complicated and high-tech but also incredibly simple and hands-on, controlled by human beings... in that sense, it's still a live performance." This flexibility allowed for improvisations and deviations from the planned programme. Eno recommended that the band film its own video tapes so that they could be edited and looped into the video displays more easily, instead of relying entirely on pre-sequenced video. Eno explained, "their show depends on some kind of response to what's happening at the moment in that place. So if it turns out they want to do a song for five minutes longer, they can actually loop through the material again so that you're not suddenly stuck with black screens halfway through the fifth verse." The band shot new video for the displays over the course of the tour.
The 180-person crew traveled in 12 buses and a chartered jet known as the Zoo Plane. For the American stadium shows, 52 trucks were required to transport 1,200 short ton
s (1,089 tonne
s) of equipment, 3 miles (4.8 km) of cabling, 12 forklifts, and a 40 short tons (36 LT) crane; the million-dollar stage was constructed in a 40-hour process with the help of 200 local labourers. The sound system used over one million watts and weighed 30 short tons (27 LT).
Rehearsals for the tour began in December 1991 at The Factory in Dublin. During this time, Eno consulted the band on the visual aspects of the show. The band found it challenging to recreate all the sounds of the new album. They considered using additional musicians, but their sentimental attachment to a four-piece prevailed. They left Dublin on 19 February 1992 to set up at Lakeland Civic Center in Lakeland, Florida
for rehearsals before the opening show at the venue on 29 February.
Unlike many of the group's previous tours, which began ahead of or coincident with the release of a new album, Zoo TV started four months after Achtung Baby was released, giving fans more time to familiarise themselves with the new songs. By opening night, the album had already sold three million copies in the US and seven million worldwide. The first two legs of the tour, 32 shows in North America and 25 in Europe, were indoor arena shows. While the band had toured North America every year between 1980 and 1987, they were absent from the North American tour circuit for over four years before Zoo TV. The US concert business was in a slump at the time, and the routing of the first two legs generally allowed only one show per city. This was intended to announce the band's return to major cities, to gauge demand for ticket sales, and to re-introduce the notion of a "hot ticket" to concertgoers. Tickets for the opening show in Florida sold out over the phone in four minutes, demand exceeding supply by a factor of 10 to 1. To combat ticket scalping
, the band avoided selling tickets in box office
s as much as possible, preferring to sell over the telephone instead. Several cities' telephone systems were overwhelmed when Zoo TV tickets went on sale; Los Angeles telephone company Pacific Bell
reported 54 million calls in a four-hour period, while Boston's telephone system was temporarily shut down.
In Europe, ticketing details were kept secret until radio advertisements announced that tickets had gone on sale at box offices. In many cases, tickets were limited to two-per-person to deter scalping. Due to the production costs and relatively small arena crowds, the European arena leg lost money. McGuinness had planned larger outdoor concerts in Berlin, Turin, Poland, and Vienna to help the tour break even, but only the Vienna concert occurred.
Both the Outside Broadcast stadium leg in the second half of 1992, and the European stadium leg in 1993—called "Zooropa"—were tentatively planned and dependent on the success of the arena tour. While their playing stadiums was motivated by pragmatic concerns, the group saw it as an artistic challenge as well, imagining what Salvador Dalí
or Andy Warhol
would do with such spaces. Rehearsals for Outside Broadcast began in Hersheypark Stadium
in Hershey, Pennsylvania
in early August 1992; a public rehearsal show was held on 7 August. Technical problems and pacing issues forced refinement to the show. Six days before the official leg-opening Giants Stadium
show, the group delayed the concert by a day, due to the difficulty of assembling the large outdoor production and the destruction of the largest screen in a windstorm. By the time Outside Broadcast began, Achtung Baby had sold four million copies in the US. Tickets for the Zooropa leg went on sale in November 1992. The leg, which began in May 1993, was the band's first full stadium tour of Europe and marked the first time they had visited certain areas. Scheduling for the 1993 "Zoomerang" stadium leg in the Pacific afforded the band more off-days between shows than previous legs, but this amplified the exhaustion and restlessness that had set in by the tour's end.
Although the tour was listed as co-sponsored by MTV
, the group decided against explicit corporate sponsorship; band members, especially drummer Larry Mullen, Jr., were uncertain that the tour would be profitable. The daily cost of producing the tour was US$125,000, regardless of whether a show was held on a given day. An attempt to convince Philips to donate the video equipment was unsuccessful, and the band had to pay for it themselves. In order to defray the heavy expenses of the Pacific shows, U2 asked for large guarantees from local promoter
s up front, rather than sharing the financial burden as they had in the past. This sometimes caused promoters to raise ticket prices above usual levels, which in turn sometimes resulted in less than full houses. Profit margin was a slim four to five percent at most sold-out shows.
played records. For the 1992 legs, Irish rock journalist and radio presenter BP Fallon
filled the role. Originally hired to write the Zoo TV tour programme, he played music from inside a Trabant on the B-stage, while providing commentary and wearing a cape and top hat. His official title was "Guru, Viber and DJ". He hosted Zoo Radio, a November 1992 distributed radio special that showcased select live performances, audio oddities, and half-serious interviews with members of U2 and the opening acts. At the group's suggestion, Fallon eventually published a book about the tour entitled U2 Faraway So Close. Paul Oakenfold
, who became one of the world's most prominent club DJs by the decade's end, replaced him later on the tour.
Beginning with the group's 24 May 1992 show, Fallon played "Television, the Drug of the Nation" by hip-hop artists The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
as the last song before the venue darkened and U2 took the stage. U2 saw the song, a commentary on mass media culture, as encapsulating some of the tour's principle themes. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy became one of the supporting acts for the Outside Broadcast leg, and after their supporting stint, "Television" was retained as the pre-show closer until the tour's conclusion. After the venue darkened, one of several audio-video pieces was played to accompany the group taking the stage. During the Outside Broadcast leg, the piece was one by Emergency Broadcast Network that reorganised video clips of American President
George H. W. Bush
to make him sing Queen
's "We Will Rock You
". A different piece, created by Ned O'Hanlon and Maurice Linnane of Dreamchaser video productions, was used on the 1993 legs; it wove looped video from Leni Riefenstahl
's films Triumph of the Will
and Olympia
with various video clips featuring war and news.
", Bono entered as his primary stage persona, "The Fly", appearing silhouetted against a giant screen of blue and white video noise
. "The Fly
" usually followed, with the video monitors flashing a rapidly-changing array of textual words and aphorisms. Some of these included "Taste is the enemy of art", "Religion is a club", "Ignorance is bliss", "Watch more TV", "Believe" with letters fading out to leave "lie", and "Everything you know is wrong". (During the first week of the tour, media outlets incorrectly reported that the words shown included "Bomb Japan Now", forcing the band to issue a statement denying the claim.) Before "Even Better Than the Real Thing
", Bono channel surfed through live television programming, and during the song, as random images from television and pop culture flashed on screen, he filmed himself and the band with a camcorder
.
In a Zoo Radio interview, The Edge described the visual material that accompanied the first three songs:
"Mysterious Ways
" featured a belly dance
r on-stage. For the 1992 indoor legs, Florida resident Christina Pedro was the dancer. Tour choreographer Morleigh Steinberg assumed the role starting with the Outside Broadcast leg. "One
" was accompanied by the title word shown in many languages, as well as Mark Pellington
-directed video clips of buffalo
s leading to a still image of David Wojnarowicz
's "Falling Buffalo" photograph. For "Until the End of the World
", Bono often played with a camera, kissing the lens and thrusting it into his crotch, a stark contrast from his more earnest stage behavior of the past. Beginning with Outside Broadcast, the band began playing "New Year's Day
" afterwards. During "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World
", Bono danced with a young female fan from the crowd (a ritual he had done more solemnly on past tours), shared camcorder video filming duties with her, and sprayed champagne. At this point in the show, Mullen sometimes sang a solo performance of "Dirty Old Town
".
The group played its Achtung Baby songs almost exactly as they had appeared on record. Since this material was complex and layered, most numbers featuring pre-recorded or offstage percussion, keyboard, or guitar elements underlying the U2 members' live instrumentals and vocals. U2 had used backing tracks in live performance before, but with the need to sync live performance to Zoo TV's high-tech visuals, almost the entire show was synced and sequenced. This practice has continued on their subsequent tours.
Zoo TV was one of the first large-scale concerts to feature a B-stage, where performances were intended "to be the antidote to Zoo TV". Here, the four members played quieter numbers, such as acoustic arrangements of "Angel of Harlem
", "When Love Comes to Town
", "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
", and Lou Reed
's "Satellite of Love
". Many critics compared the B-stage performances to "busking
" and singled them out as the shows' highlights.
After leaving the B-stage, U2 often played "Bad
", with performances of "Bullet the Blue Sky
" and "Running to Stand Still
" following. For "Bullet the Blue Sky", the video screens displayed burning crosses and swastika
s; during "Running to Stand Still", Bono mimed the actions of a heroin addict from the B-stage, rolling up his sleeves and then spiking his arm during the final lyric. Afterwards, red and yellow smoke flares came out from either end of the B-stage, before the band re-grouped on the main stage for U2 classics played straight. "Where the Streets Have No Name
" was accompanied by sped-up video of the group in the desert from The Joshua Trees photo shoot. U2 often finished their set with "Pride (In the Name of Love)
" while a clip from Martin Luther King, Jr.
's famed "I've Been to the Mountaintop
" speech was played on the video screens. The group was initially unconvinced that the leap from the rest of the show's irony and artifice to something more sincere would be successful, but they thought that it was important to demonstrate that certain ideals were so strong and true that they could be held onto no matter the circumstance. The group alternated performances of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
" in acoustic form on the B-stage with using it to close the main set.
booth" were displayed on the set's screens between the main set and the encore. Concertgoers were encouraged to visit the booth prior to the concert and say whatever they wanted. These "confessions" varied from a woman flashing her breasts to a man revealing he had killed his friend in a car accident. Once the encore began, Bono would return as a different alter ego—Mirror Ball Man in 1992, and MacPhisto in 1993. Performances of "Desire"—accompanied by images of Richard Nixon
, Margaret Thatcher
, Paul Gascoigne
, and Jimmy Swaggert—were meant as a criticism of greed; cash rained the stage and Bono often portrayed Mirror Ball Man as an interpretation of the greedy preacher described in the song's lyrics. Bono often made a crank call from the stage as his persona of the time. Such calls included dialing a phone sex
line, calling a taxi cab, ordering 10,000 pizzas (the Detroit pizza parlor delivered 100 pizzas during the show), or calling a local politician. Bono regularly called the White House
in an attempt to contact President Bush. Though Bono never reached the President, Bush did acknowledge the calls during a press conference.
"Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
" and "With or Without You
" were frequently played afterwards. Many concerts ended with Achtung Babys slower "Love Is Blindness
". Beginning with the 1992 European arena shows, it was often followed by Bono's falsetto take on Elvis Presley
's long-time show-closing ballad, "Can't Help Falling in Love
", culminating in Bono softly stating that "Elvis is still in the building". Both songs presented a quiet, introspective conclusion to the show, in contrast to the dynamic, aggressive opening; the group also wanted to move away from its long tradition of ending concerts with fan sing-along favourite "40". The night finished with a single video message being displayed: "Thanks for shopping at Zoo TV".
On 11 June 1992, Benny Andersson
and Björn Ulvaeus
of ABBA
appeared on-stage in Stockholm for the first time in years to perform "Dancing Queen
" with the band, which U2 had frequently performed on the tour up to that point. Other guest performers on the tour included Axl Rose
, Jo Shankar, and Daniel Lanois
.
On 19 June 1992, during the European indoor leg, U2 played the "Stop Sellafield" concert in Manchester, alongside Kraftwerk
, Public Enemy, and Big Audio Dynamite II, to protest the operation of a second nuclear reactor at Sellafield. For the group's performance, the stage was made to resemble their Zoo TV stage. The following day, the band participated in a demonstration organised by Greenpeace
in which protesters landed on the beach at Sellafield in rubber dinghies and displayed 700 placards for the waiting media.
At the first Outside Broadcast show on 12 August 1992 at Giants Stadium, Lou Reed performed "Satellite of Love" with the band; he and Bono dueted using their contrasting vocal styles. Bono re-confirmed the singer's influence on the band by announcing, "Every song we're ever written was a rip-off of a Lou Reed song." For the second show and the remainder of the tour, a taping of Reed singing the song was used for a virtual duet between him and Bono.
Novelist Salman Rushdie joined the band on stage in London's Wembley Stadium on 11 August 1993, despite the death fatwā
against the author and the risk of violence arising from his controversial novel The Satanic Verses
. In reference to the novel's satanic references, Rushdie, when confronted by Bono's MacPhisto character, observed that "real devils don't wear horns". In 2010, Clayton recalled that "Bono had been calling Salman Rushdie from the stage every night on the Zoo TV tour. When we played Wembley, Salman showed up in person and the stadium erupted. You [could] tell from Larry's face that we weren't expecting it. Salman was a regular visitor after that. He had a backstage pass and he used it as often as possible. For a man who was supposed to be in hiding, it was remarkably easy to see him around the place."
during the siege of Sarajevo
/Bosnian War
. The transmissions were arranged with help from American aid worker Bill Carter
. Before their 3 July show in Verona
, Italy, the band met with Carter to give an interview about Bosnia for Radio Televizija Bosne I Hercegovina. Carter described his experiences helping Sarajevo citizens while surviving the dangerous living conditions. While in Sarajevo, Carter had seen a television interview on MTV in which Bono mentioned the theme of the Zooropa leg was a unified Europe. Feeling that such an aim was empty if ignoring Bosnia, Carter sought Bono's help. He requested that U2 go to Sarajevo to bring attention to the war and break the "media fatigue" that had occurred from covering the conflict. Bono wanted the band to play a concert there, but their tour schedule prevented this, and McGuinness believed that a concert there would make them and their audience targets for the Serbian aggressors.
Instead, the group agreed to use the tour's satellite dish to conduct live video transmissions from their concerts to Carter in Sarajevo. Carter returned to the city and was able to assemble a video unit. The band had to purchase a satellite dish to be sent to Sarajevo and had to pay a £100,000 fee to join the European Broadcasting Union
. Once set up, the band began satellite link-ups to Sarajevo on nearly a nightly basis, the first of which aired on 17 July 1993 in Bologna
, Italy. To connect with the EBU satellite feeds, Carter and two co-workers had to traverse "Sniper Alley
" at night to reach the Sarajevo television station, and they had to film with as little light as possible to avoid the attention of snipers. This was done a total of ten times over the course of a month. Carter discussed the deteriorating situation in the city, and Bosnians often spoke to U2 and their audience. These grim interviews deviated from the rest of the show, and they were completely unscripted, leaving the group unsure of who would be speaking or what they would say. U2 stopped the broadcasts in August 1993 after learning that the siege of Sarajevo was being reported on the front of many British newspapers. Though this trend had begun before the first link-up, Nathan Jackson suggested that U2's actions had brought awareness of the situation to their fans, and to the British public indirectly.
Reactions to the transmissions were mixed, triggering a media debate concerning the ethical implications of mixing rock entertainment with human tragedy. The Edge said, "A lot of nights it felt like quite an abrupt interruption that was probably not particularly welcomed by a lot of people in the audience. You were grabbed out of a rock concert and given a really strong dose of reality and it was quite hard sometimes to get back to something as frivolous as a show having watched five or ten minutes of real human suffering." Mullen worried that the band were exploiting the Bosnians' suffering for entertainment. In 2002, he said, "I can't remember anything more excruciating than those Sarajevo link-ups. It was like throwing a bucket of cold water over everybody. You could see your audience going, 'What the fuck are these guys doing?' But I'm proud to have been a part of a group who were trying to do something." During a transmission from the band's concert at Wembley Stadium, three women in Sarajevo told Bono via the satellite transmission, "We know you're not going to do anything for us. You're going to go back to a rock show. You're going to forget that we even exist. And we're all going to die." Some people close to the band joined the War Child
charity project, including Brian Eno. Writer Bill Flanagan believes that the link-ups accomplished Bono's goal for Zoo TV of "illustrating onstage the obscenity of idly flipping from a war on CNN to rock videos on MTV". U2 vowed to perform in Sarajevo someday, eventually fulfilling this commitment
on their 1997 PopMart Tour
.
", "Mirror Ball Man", and "MacPhisto". Additionally, during performances of "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Running to Stand Still", he appeared on-stage wearing a military utility vest and cap, and a microphone headset. As this character, he ranted and raved in an act he said was set in the Vietnam War
.
The group decided to alter their image by being more facetious, and it was an attempt to escape their reputation for being overly serious and self-righteous. Bono said, "All through the Eighties we tried to be ourselves and failed when the lights were on. Which is what set us up for Zoo TV. We decided to have some fun being other people, or at least other versions of ourselves." The Edge said, "We were quite thrilled at the prospect of smashing U2 and starting all over again." The group viewed humour as the appropriate response to their negative perception and that although their message would not change, they needed to change how they delivered it to their audience.
sunglasses, given to him by wardrobe manager Fintan Fitzgerald, to lighten the mood in the studio. Bono wrote the song's lyrics as this character, composing a sequence of "single-line aphorisms". He developed the persona into a leather-clad egomaniac, describing his outfit as having Lou Reed's glasses, Elvis Presley
's jacket, and Jim Morrison
's leather pants. To match the character's dark fashion, Bono dyed his naturally brown hair black.
Bono began each concert as The Fly and continued to play the character for most of the first half of the concert. In contrast to his earnest self of the 1980s, as The Fly, Bono strutted around the stage with "swagger and style", exhibiting mannerisms of an egotistical rock star; he publicly stated, and adopted the mindset, that he was "licensed to be an egomaniac". He often stayed in character away from the tour stage, including for public appearances and when staying in hotels. He said, "That rather cracked character could say things that I couldn't", and that it offered him a greater freedom of speech.
suit with matching shoes and cowboy hat. The character was meant to parody greedy American televangelists, showmen, and car salesman, and was inspired by Phil Ochs
' Elvis persona from his 1970 tour. Bono said that he represented "a kind of showman America. He had the confidence and charm to pick up a mirror and look at himself and give the glass a big kiss. He loved cash and in his mind success was God's blessing. If he's made money, he can't have made any mistakes." As the character, Bono spoke with an exaggerated Southern American accent
. Mirror Ball Man appeared during the show's encore and made nightly prank calls, often to the White House. Bono portrayed this alter ego on the first three legs of the tour, but replaced him with MacPhisto for the 1993 legs.
of the Faust
legend. Initially called "Mr. Gold", MacPhisto wore a gold suit with gold platform shoes, pale make-up, lipstick, and devil's horns atop his head. As MacPhisto, Bono spoke with an exaggerated upper-class English accent, similar to that of a down-on-his-luck character actor. The character was created as a European replacement for the American-influenced Mirror Ball Man. The initial inspiration for MacPhisto came from the stage musical The Black Rider
. Realisation of the character did not come about until rehearsal the night before the first of the 1993 shows. According to Bono, "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."
Bono continued making crank calls as MacPhisto, but the targets would change with the location of the concert. Many of them were local politicians that Bono wished to mock by attempting to engage them in character as the devil. He 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." A female Cardiff fan who was pulled on-stage questioned Bono's motives for dressing as the devil, prompting the singer to compare his act to the plot of the C. S. Lewis
novel The Screwtape Letters
.
, from February to May 1993 during an extended break between the third and fourth legs of the tour. The album was intended as an additional EP
to Achtung Baby, but soon expanded into a full LP. Recording could not be completed before the tour restarted, and for the first month of the Zooropa leg, the band flew home after shows, recording until the early morning and working on their off-days, before traveling to their next destination. Clayton called the process "about the craziest thing you could do to yourself", while Mullen said of it, "It was mad, but it was mad good, as opposed to mad bad." McGuinness later said the band had nearly wrecked themselves in the process. The album was released on 5 July 1993. Influenced by the tour's themes of technology and media barrage, Zooropa was an even greater departure in style from their earlier recordings than Achtung Baby, incorporating further dance music influences and electronic effects into their sound. A number of songs from the album were incorporated into the subsequent Zooropa and Zoomerang legs, most frequently "Numb
" and "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
", with "Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car" and "Lemon" worked into the encore during Zoomerang, and "Dirty Day
" in the main set during the same.
was broadcast live to the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards
. The band performed "Even Better Than the Real Thing" while VMA host Dana Carvey
, dressed as his Wayne's World
Garth persona, accompanied the band on drums in Los Angeles. A Zoo Radio special included live selections from 1992 Toronto, Dallas, Tempe, and New York City shows. Portions of another 1992 show were taped and broadcast later that year in the United States as a one-hour Fox network television
special on Thanksgiving
weekend; the broadcast featured William S. Burroughs
' reading of the sardonic poem "Thanksgiving Prayer". Several shows, including the 11 June concert in Stockholm and 27 October concert in El Paso, were broadcast into the homes of fans who had won contests. In October 1992, U2 released Achtung Baby: The Videos, The Cameos, and a Whole Lot of Interference from Zoo TV, a VHS
compilation of nine music video
s from Achtung Baby. Interspersed between the music videos were clips of so-called "interference", comprising documentary footage, media clips, and other video similar to what was displayed on tour.
Two November 1993 Zoomerang shows in Sydney were filmed as part of a worldwide television broadcast. The 26 November show was to be a rehearsal for the production crew for the official filming the following night. However, Clayton, who began drinking excessively on the latter stages of the tour, suffered an alcoholic blackout
from the previous night and was unable to perform. Bass guitar technician
Stuart Morgan filled in for him, marking the first time any member of U2 had missed a show. Clayton recovered in time to play the second night, which was broadcast and was the only show used in the resulting video release. The concert was broadcast in the United States on tape-delayed pay-per-view
. U2 originally planned to produce the concert with MTV for a January 1994 "triplecast" that would offer three different perspectives of the show on three different channels. However, the group canceled the "triplecast" after realising they had not fully developed the concept. The concert was subsequently released as the concert video Zoo TV: Live from Sydney
in 1994, and the double CD Zoo TV Live
in 2006 to subscribing members of U2's website. The video won a Grammy Award
for Best Long Form Music Video
in 1995.
praised the special effects for supplementing the music. The reviewer wrote, "The often-surrealistic effects always served the songs, not the other way around." The review concluded, "this magnificent multimedia production will serve as a pinnacle in rock's onstage history for sometime to come". Edna Gundersen
of USA Today
said that U2 was dismantling its myth and wrote that the show was "a trippy and decadent concert of bedazzling visuals and adventurous music". Hot Press
Bill Graham said of the show, "U2 don't so much use every trick in the book as invent a whole new style of rock performance art." For Graham, the tour resolved any doubts he had about the band—particularly about Bono—following their reinvention with Achtung Baby.
Other critics indicated befuddlement as to U2's purpose. The Asbury Park Press
wrote that the long string of Achtung Baby song presentations that opened the show made one forget about the band's past, and that "almost everything you knew about U2 a couple years ago is, in fact, wrong now". The Star-Ledger
said that the band shortchanged its music with its video presentations and that especially during the opening sequence, "one was only aware of the music as a soundtrack to the real 'show'". It concluded by saying that the group had lost the sense of mystery and yearning that made it great and that they had succumbed to the style of music videos. Jon Pareles
of The New York Times
acknowledged that U2 was trying to break its former earnest image and that they were a "vastly improved band" for being "trendy" and "funny"; still, he commented, "U2 wants to have its artifice and its sincerity at the same time—no easy thing—and it hasn't yet made the breakthrough that will unite them."
The stadium legs of the tour received more consistent praise than the arena shows. Critics noted that while the show and its setlist were largely the same as before, the tour mostly benefited from the increased scale. The New York Daily News
said that the stage "looked like a city made of television sets—an electronic Oz" and that "glitz was used not as a mere distraction (as it has been by so many video-age artists), but as a determined conceit". Gundersen also made the comparison to Oz
, saying that even though the band was dwarfed by the setting, their adventurous musicianship still shone through. She concluded that the group had "deliver[ed] a brilliant high-wire act" between mocking and exploiting rock music clichés, a comparison also made by stage designer Williams. Robert Hilburn
of the Los Angeles Times
said of the outdoor American leg, "Zoo TV is the yardstick by which all other stadium shows will be measured." David Fricke
of Rolling Stone
said that the band had "regained critical and commercial favor by negotiating an inspired balance between rock's cheap thrills and its own sense of moral burden". He praised the band for "retool[ing] themselves as wiseacres with heart and elephant bucks to burn". Fricke noted that the increased visual effects for the Outside Broadcast leg increased the shows' "mind-fuck" factor. Many critics described the tour as "post-modern". The writers of Rolling Stone, in a best-of-1992 issue, named U2 co-winners of "Best Band", while awarding the Zoo TV Tour honours for both "Best Tour" and "Worst Tour".
The Independent
praised the Zooropa leg, with the reviewer stating, "I came as a sceptic, and left believing I had witnessed the most sophisticated meeting of technical wizardry and mojo priestcraft ever mounted." Dave Fanning
of The Irish Times
praised the Zooropa leg, stating, "If this is the show by which all other rock circuses must be measured, then God help the new music." Fanning observed that the group, particularly Bono, exhibited "style, sex and self-assurance". Billboard
wrote, "No one is dancing on the edges of rock'n'roll's contradictions as effectively these days as U2." The stadium legs had their detractors, as NME
called the shows a "two-hour post-modernist pot noodle advert made by politically naive, culturally unaware squares with the help of some cool, arty people". Graham thought that the scale of the stadium shows led to more predictability and less interaction with the audiences.
, "U2 had 'lost it' and that Bono had become an egomaniac". Many Christian fans were offended the band's antics and believed they had abandoned their religious faith.
By the outdoor legs, many fans knew what to expect, and Pareles observed that Bono's admonitions to never cheer a rock star were greeted with idolatrous applause; he concluded that the show's message of skepticism was somewhat lost on the audience and that, "No matter what Bono tells his fans, they seem likely to trust him anyway." By the end of the tour's first year, U2 had won over many fans. In a 1992 end-of-year readers' poll, Q
voted U2 "The Best Act in the World Today". The band's almost clean sweep of Rolling Stone
s end-of-year readers' poll—which included "Best Artist", "Best Tour", and Bono as "Sexiest Male Artist"—reconfirmed for the magazine they were "world's biggest rock band".
and New Kids on the Block
's 1990 Magic Summer Tour
. Ticket sales in America and Europe for the year 1992 totaled 2.9 million. The Zooropa stadium leg the following year played to more than 2.1 million people over 43 dates between 9 May and 28 August. In total, the Zoo TV Tour played to about 5.3 million people. The band incurred heavy expenses to produce the tour, leading to only a small profit. According to McGuinness, "We grossed $30 million in T-shirt sales. Without those we'd be fucked." Bono later said, "When we built Zoo TV, we were so close to bankruptcy that if five percent fewer people went, U2 was bankrupt. Even in our irresponsible, youthful and fatal disregard of such material matters, it was terrifying."
, and they began partying more than they had in the past. During parts of the tour, the band attracted the fashion crowd; Clayton's romantic relationship with supermodel
Naomi Campbell
and Bono's friendship with supermodel Christy Turlington
made them the subjects of unwanted tabloid attention. By the time of the Zoomerang leg, Clayton's relationship with Campbell was fracturing and he was drinking frequently. After missing the group's 26 November 1993 show in Sydney from an alcoholic blackout, Clayton quit drinking altogether. The incident resulted in tensions within the group in the tour's final weeks. The Edge began dating the belly dancer Morleigh Steinberg during the tour, and the two later married in 2002.
The tour's two-year length, then U2's longest, exhausted the band as the final legs unfolded. Following the conclusion of Zoo TV, U2 took an extended break from recording as a group. Mullen and Clayton moved into Manhattan
apartments in New York City, where they sought out music lessons to become better musicians. The Edge and Bono spent most of 1994 living in newly-renovated houses in the South of France.
After the tour, although The Fly character was retired, Bono began to wear tinted glasses, similar to his Fly sunglasses, in most public appearances. The glasses have since become a stylistic trademark of the singer in both his musical and activist roles. The Fly and MacPhisto characters appeared in the animated music video to U2's 1995 song "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
" from the soundtrack to Batman Forever
. Author Višnja Cogan wrote that "the video crystallises and concludes the Zoo TV period and the changes that occurred". Director Joel Schumacher
attempted to create a role for Bono as MacPhisto in Batman Forever
, but both later agreed it was not suitable.
As the tour drew to a close, the group entered prolonged discussions about creating a Zoo TV television channel in partnership with MTV. This never materialized, but in 1997, MTV ran a brief mini-series called Zoo-TV, which featured Emergency Broadcast Network
extending their tour role in creating contemporary surrealist satirical video. U2 endorsed the effort as a representation of what the tour would have been like as a news magazine, but their direct role was limited to providing half-financing and outtakes from the Zooropa album. Wired
magazine said the series "pushe[d] the edge of commercial—even comprehensible—television".
U2's subsequent concert tour, 1997's PopMart Tour
, followed in Zoo TV's footsteps by mocking another social trend, this time consumerism. Paul McGuinness said the group wanted "the production [of PopMart] to beat Zoo TV", and accordingly, the tour's spectacle was a further shift away from their austere stage shows of the 1980s; PopMart's stage featured a 150 feet (45.7 m) LED screen, a 100 feet (30.5 m) golden arch, and a mirrorball lemon. Although critics were much less receptive to PopMart, Bono considers the tour to be their best: "Pop(Mart) is our finest hour. It's better than Zoo TV aesthetically, and as an art project it is a clearer thought."
The Pixies' stint as a support act produced a controversy that partially contributed to their break-up. In July 1992, Spin featured a controversial cover story titled "U2 On Tour: The Story They Didn't Want You to Read", which detailed author Jim Greer
's travels on the tour's first weeks with his unidentified girlfriend (who turned out to be Pixies' bassist Kim Deal
). The article featured their criticisms of U2 for the supposed poor treatment the Pixies received. Both U2 and the Pixies disagreed and were livid at Deal, particularly Pixies frontman Black Francis. In 1993, following tensions within the group, Francis announced the Pixies had dissolved.
In 2005, during their Vertigo Tour
, the group often played a mini-Zoo TV set—"Zoo Station", "The Fly", and "Mysterious Ways"—as part of the first encore; performances of "Zoo Station" included the interference in the background visual effects, and "The Fly" used flashing text effects on the LED screens similar to the Zoo TV visuals.
The Zoo TV Tour is regarded as one of the most memorable tours in rock history. During the Zooropa leg of the tour, Time
called Zoo TV "one of the most electrifying rock shows ever staged". In 1997, Robert Hilburn wrote that "It's not unreasonable to think of it as the Sgt. Pepper's
of rock tours." Actor Dennis Hopper
, narrating the 1997 TV documentary A Year in Pop, said, "There were other tours by other bands in the intervening years, but none of them came close to the sheer sensory overload of Zoo TV." In 2002, Qs Tom Doyle called it "still the most spectacular rock tour staged by any band". In 2009, critic Greg Kot
said, "Zoo TV remains the finest supersized tour mounted by any band in the last two decades." Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork Media
wrote in a review of Achtung Babys 20th anniversary reissue
, "Even 20 years on, the tour looks like something to behold, a singularly inventive experience that no band—including U2 itself—has been able to really expound upon in a meaningful way." The Edge said, "as a band I think it stretched us all. We were a different band after that and touring was different." Producer Nellee Hooper
later told Bono that Zoo TV "ruined irony for everyone".
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
. Staged in support of their 1991 album Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 19 November 1991 on Island Records. Stung by the criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate alternative...
, the tour visited arenas and stadiums from 1992 through 1993. To mirror the new musical direction that the group took with Achtung Baby, the tour was intended to deviate from their past and confound expectations of the band. In contrast to U2's austere stage setups from previous tours, the Zoo TV Tour was an elaborately-staged multimedia event. It satirised television and media oversaturation by attempting to instill "sensory overload
Sensory overload
Sensory overload , related to Cognitive load in general, is a condition where one or more of the senses are strained and it becomes difficult to focus on the task at hand...
" in its audience. To escape their reputation for being overly serious, U2 embraced a more lighthearted and self-deprecating image on tour. Zoo TV and Achtung Baby were central to the group's 1990s reinvention.
The tour's concept was inspired by disparate television programming, the desensitising effect of mass media, and "morning zoo
Morning zoo
Morning zoo is a format of morning radio show common to English-language radio broadcasting. The name is derived from the "wackiness and zaniness" of the activities, bits, and overall personality of the show and its hosts...
" radio shows. The stage featured dozens of large video screens that showed visual effects, video clips from pop culture, and flashing text phrases. Live satellite link-ups, channel surfing
Channel surfing
Channel surfing is the practice of quickly scanning through different television channels or radio frequencies in order to find something interesting to watch or listen to. Modern viewers, who may have cable or satellite services beaming down dozens if not hundreds or thousands of channels, are...
, prank call
Prank call
A prank call is a form of practical joke committed over the telephone. Prank phone calls began to gain an America-wide following over a period of many years, as they gradually became a staple of the obscure and amusing cassette tapes traded amongst musicians, sound engineers, and media traders...
s, and video confessionals were incorporated into the shows. Whereas U2 were known for their earnest live act in the 1980s, the group's Zoo TV performances were intentionally ironic and facetious; on stage, Bono portrayed several characters he conceived, including "The Fly
The Fly (song)
"The Fly" is a song by rock band U2. It is the seventh track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby and it was released as the album's first single on 12 October 1991. "The Fly" introduced a more abrasive sounding U2, as the song featured hip-hop and industrial beats, distorted vocals, and an elaborate...
", "Mirror Ball Man", and "MacPhisto". In contrast to other U2 tours, each of the Zoo TV shows opened with six to eight consecutive new songs before older material was played.
Comprising five legs and 157 shows, the tour began in Lakeland, Florida
Lakeland, Florida
Lakeland is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States, located approximately midway between Tampa and Orlando along Interstate 4. According to the 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city had a population of 94,406...
on 29 February 1992 and finished in Tokyo, Japan on 10 December 1993. The first four legs alternated between North America and Europe, before the final leg visited Australasia and Japan. After two arena legs, the show's production was expanded for stadiums for the final three legs, which were branded "Outside Broadcast", "Zooropa", and "Zoomerang/New Zooland", respectively. Although the tour provoked a range of reactions from music critics, it was generally well-received. Along with being the highest-grossing North American tour of 1992, Zoo TV sold around 5.3 million tickets over its five legs. The band's 1993 album Zooropa
Zooropa
Zooropa Based on the pronunciations of "zoo" and "Europa". is the eighth studio album by rock band U2. Produced by Flood, Brian Eno, and The Edge, it was released on 5 July 1993 on Island Records. Inspired by the band's experiences on the Zoo TV Tour, Zooropa expanded on many of the tour's themes...
, which expanded on Zoo TV's mass media themes, was recorded during a break in the tour, and its songs were played in 1993. The tour was depicted in the Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
–winning 1994 concert film Zoo TV: Live from Sydney
Zoo TV: Live From Sydney
Zoo TV: Live from Sydney is a concert video release by rock band U2 from the "Zoomerang" leg of their Zoo TV Tour. Recorded on Saturday, November 27, 1993 at Sydney Football Stadium on the band's featured stop in Sydney, Australia, it was released in May 1994 on VHS and Laserdisc, and re-released...
. Zoo TV is regarded as one of the most memorable tours in rock history—in 2002, Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
s Tom Doyle called it "the most spectacular rock tour staged by any band".
Background
U2's 1987 album The Joshua TreeThe Joshua Tree
The Joshua Tree is the fifth studio album by rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 9 March 1987 on Island Records. In contrast to the ambient experimentation of their 1984 release The Unforgettable Fire, U2 aimed for a harder-hitting sound on The Joshua...
and the supporting Joshua Tree Tour
Joshua Tree Tour
The Joshua Tree Tour was a concert tour by the Irish rock band U2, which took place during 1987, in support of their album The Joshua Tree. The tour was depicted by the video and live album Live from Paris.-Itinerary:...
brought them to a new level of commercial and critical success, particularly in the United States. Like their previous tours, The Joshua Tree Tour was a minimalistic, austere production, and they used this outlet for addressing political and social concerns. The band earned a reputation for being earnest and serious, an image that became a target for derision after their much-maligned 1988 motion picture and companion album Rattle and Hum
Rattle and Hum
Rattle and Hum is the sixth studio album by rock band U2 and companion rockumentary directed by Phil Joanou, both released in 1988. The film and the album feature live recordings, covers, and new songs...
. The film and record—which documented their exploration of American roots music
American Roots Music
American Roots Music is a 2001 multi-part documentary film that explores the historical roots of American Roots music through footage and performances by the creators of the movement: Folk, Country, Blues, Gospel, Bluegrass, and many others....
—were criticized as being "pretentious", and "misguided and bombastic", and they were accused of being grandiose and self-righteous. Their 1989 Lovetown Tour
Lovetown Tour
The Lovetown Tour was a concert tour by the Irish rock band U2, which took place in late 1989 and early 1990.-Itinerary:It was limited in scope, but did try to reach places that their 1987 Joshua Tree Tour had missed, all the while avoiding the United States entirely.The tour's opening night was on...
did not visit the United States, and at the end of the tour, lead vocalist Bono
Bono
Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
announced on-stage that it was "the end of something for U2" and that "we have to go away and ... just dream it all up again", foreshadowing changes for the group.
Conception
The first ideas for Zoo TV emerged during the Lovetown Tour in 1989, when various aspects of radio programming intrigued U2, particularly the large radio audience their Dublin concerts acquired. The wild antics of "morning zooMorning zoo
Morning zoo is a format of morning radio show common to English-language radio broadcasting. The name is derived from the "wackiness and zaniness" of the activities, bits, and overall personality of the show and its hosts...
" radio programmes inspired the band with the idea of potentially taking a pirate radio
Pirate radio
Pirate radio is illegal or unregulated radio transmission. The term is most commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for entertainment or political purposes, but is also sometimes used for illegal two-way radio operation...
station on tour. They were also interested in using video as a way of making themselves less accessible to their audiences. The band developed these ideas in late 1990 while recording Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 19 November 1991 on Island Records. Stung by the criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate alternative...
in Berlin at Hansa Studios. They watched television coverage of the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
on Sky News
Sky News
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
, which was the only English programming available. When tired of hearing about the conflict, they tuned into local programming to see "bad German soap operas" and automobile advertisements. The band believed that cable television had blurred the lines between news, entertainment, and home shopping
Home shopping
Home shopping commonly refers to the electronic retailing/home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as HSN, QVC, eBay, ShopNBC, Buy.com, and Amazon.com, as well as traditional mail order and brick and mortar retailers as Hammacher...
over the previous decade, and they wanted to represent this on their next tour.
The juxtaposition of such disparate programming inspired U2 and Achtung Baby co-producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
to conceive an "audio-visual show" that would display a rapidly-changing mix of live and pre-recorded video on monitors. The idea was intended to mock the desensitising effect of mass media. Eno is credited in the tour programme for the "Video Staging Concept", and he clarified, "the idea to make a stage set with a lot of different video sources was mine, to make a chaos of uncoordinated material happening together... The idea of getting away from video being a way of helping people to see the band more easily ... this is video as a way of obscuring them, losing them sometimes in just a network of material."
While on a break from recording, the band invited production designer Willie Williams to join them in Tenerife
Tenerife
Tenerife is the largest and most populous island of the seven Canary Islands, it is also the most populated island of Spain, with a land area of 2,034.38 km² and 906,854 inhabitants, 43% of the total population of the Canary Islands. About five million tourists visit Tenerife each year, the...
in February 1991. Williams had recently worked on David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
's Sound+Vision Tour, which used film projection and video content, and he was keen to "take rock show video to a level as yet undreamed of". The band played Williams some of their new music—inspired by alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
, industrial
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
, and electronic dance music
Electronic dance music
Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...
—and they told him about the "Zoo TV" phrase that Bono liked. Williams also learned about the band's affection for the Trabant
Trabant
The Trabant is a car that was produced by former East German auto maker VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Zwickau, Sachsen. It was the most common vehicle in East Germany, and was also exported to countries both inside and outside the communist bloc...
, a German automobile that derisively became a symbol for the fall of Communism. Williams thought their fondness for the car was "deeply, deeply bizarre", but nonetheless, he incorporated it into his ideas for the tour. In May, he brainstormed the idea to construct a lighting system using Trabants by hanging them from the ceiling and hollowing them to carry spotlights.
On 14 June 1991, the first tour production meeting was held, with Williams, the band, manager Paul McGuinness
Paul McGuinness
Paul McGuinness is the main shareholder and founder of Principle Management Limited: an artist management company based in Dublin, Ireland, which has managed U2 from the start of their successful career...
, artist Catherine Owens, and production managers Steve Iredale and Jake Kennedy in attendance. Williams presented his ideas, which included the Trabant lighting system and the placement of video monitors all over the stage; both notions were well-received. Eno's original idea was to have the video screens on wheels and constantly in motion, although this was impractical. Williams and the group proposed many ideas that did not make it to the final stage design. One such idea, dubbed "Motorway Madness", would have placed billboards advertising real products across the stage, similar to their placement beside highways. The idea was intended to be ironic, but was ultimately scrapped out of fear of being accused of selling out
Selling out
"Selling out" is the compromising of integrity, morality, or principles in exchange for money or "success" . It is commonly associated with attempts to tailor material to a mainstream audience...
. Another proposed idea involved building a giant doll of an "achtung baby", complete with an inflatable penis that would spray on the audience, but it was deemed too expensive and was abandoned.
By August, a prototype of a single Trabant for the lighting system was completed, with the innards gutted and retrofitted with lighting equipment, and a paint job on the exterior. Williams spent most of the second half of 1991 designing the stage. Owens was insistent that her ideas be given priority, as she thought that men had been making all of U2's creative decisions and were using male-centred designs. With bassist Adam Clayton
Adam Clayton
Adam Charles Clayton is a musician, best known as the bassist of the Irish rock band U2. Clayton has resided in County Dublin since the time his family moved to Malahide when he was five years old in 1965...
's support, she recruited visual artists from Europe and the United States to arrange images for use on the display screens. These people included video artist Mark Pellington
Mark Pellington
-Life and career:Pellington was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He directed The Mothman Prophecies, a 2002 film starring Richard Gere dealing with mysterious deaths foretold by a strange red-eyed flying creature, Mothman, as well as Arlington Road in 1999 starring Tim Robbins and Jeff Bridges....
, photo/conceptual artist David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz was a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s.-Biography:...
, and satirical group Emergency Broadcast Network
Emergency Broadcast Network
Emergency Broadcast Network is the name of a multimedia performance group formed in 1991 that took its name from the Emergency Broadcast System. The founders were Rhode Island School of Design graduates Joshua Pearson, Gardner Post and Brian Kane . Kane left EBN in 1992...
, who digitally manipulate sampled image and sound. Pellington envisaged a collection of text phrases into the visual displays, inspired by his working with artist Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer is an American conceptual artist. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.-Education:...
. The idea was first put into practice in the video for Achtung Babys lead single, "The Fly
The Fly (song)
"The Fly" is a song by rock band U2. It is the seventh track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby and it was released as the album's first single on 12 October 1991. "The Fly" introduced a more abrasive sounding U2, as the song featured hip-hop and industrial beats, distorted vocals, and an elaborate...
". Bono devised and collected numerous phrases during development of the album and the tour. Additional pre-recorded video content was created by Eno, Williams, Kevin Godley
Kevin Godley
Kevin Godley is a British musician and music video director.He was born in a family of Jewish descent, and went to North Cestrian Grammar School in Altrincham....
, Carol Dodds, and Philip Owens.
On 13 November, U2 settled on the "Zoo TV Tour" name and the plans to place video screens across the stage and build a lighting system out of Trabants. McGuinness led a trip to East Germany to buy Trabants from a recently closed factory in Chemnitz
Chemnitz
Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...
, and in January 1992, Catherine Owens began to paint the cars. As she described, "The basic idea was that the imagery on the cars should have nothing to do with the car itself." One such design was the "fertility car", which sported blown-up newspaper personal ads and a drawing of a woman giving birth while holding string tied to her husband's testicles. Williams and Chilean artist Rene Castro also provided artwork on the cars.
Stage design and show production
The Zoo TV stages were designed by Willie Williams, U2's stage designer since the War TourWar Tour
The War Tour was a concert tour by the Irish rock band U2, which took place in 1982 and 1983 in support of the group's third album War. It was their first tour as full-time headlining acts....
of 1982–1983. In place of U2's austere and minimalist productions of the 1980s, the Zoo TV stage was a complex setup, designed to instill "sensory overload
Sensory overload
Sensory overload , related to Cognitive load in general, is a condition where one or more of the senses are strained and it becomes difficult to focus on the task at hand...
" in its audience. The set's giant video screens showed not only close-ups of the band members performing, but also pre-recorded video, live television transmissions (intercepted by a satellite the group brought on tour), and text phrases. Electronic, tabloid-style headlines ran on scrawls at the ends of the stage. The band's embracing of such technology was meant as a radical departure in form, and as a commentary on the pervasive nature of technology. This led many critics to describe the show as "ironic".
Several versions of the stage were used during the tour. The first two legs were indoors and used the smallest of the sets, which included four Vidiwalls (Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
-branded giant television screens); six painted Trabants suspended above the stage; 36 television monitors; and a B-stage, a small remote platform connected to the main stage by a ramp. A seventh Trabant by the B-stage doubled as a DJ
Deejay
A deejay is a reggae or dancehall musician who sings and toasts to an instrumental riddim .Deejays are not to be confused with disc jockeys from other music genres like hip-hop, where they select and play music. Dancehall/reggae DJs who select riddims to play are called selectors...
booth and a mirror ball
Disco ball
A disco ball is a roughly spherical object that reflects light directed at it in many directions, producing a complex display...
.
To redesign the set for the North American outdoor stadium leg—dubbed "Outside Broadcast"—Williams collaborated with stage designers Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher (architect)
Mark Fisher OBE MVO is a British architect. He was born in Warwickshire, England.Fisher graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 1971. He was a Unit Master at the AA School from 1973 to 1977. In 1984 he set up the Fisher Park Partnership with Jonathan Park...
and Jonathan Park, both of whom had worked on The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
' Steel Wheels Tour
Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour
The Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels Tour was a concert tour which was launched in North America in August 1989 to promote the band's album Steel Wheels; it continued to Japan in February 1990, with ten shows at the Tokyo Dome. The European leg of the tour, which featured a different stage and logo,...
stage set. The set was expanded to include a 248 by stage, and the Vidiwalls were supplemented by four larger mega-video screens. Williams faced difficulties in designing the outdoor lighting system, as the stage did not have a roof. He settled on using the venues' house spotlights and strategically placed lights in the structure behind the band. The spires of the stage, intended to resemble transmission towers
Radio masts and towers
Radio masts and towers are, typically, tall structures designed to support antennas for telecommunications and broadcasting, including television. They are among the tallest man-made structures...
, were tall enough that the Federal Aviation Administration
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S...
required them to have blinking warning lights. The stage's appearance was compared to the techno-future cityscapes from Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
and the works of cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
writer William Gibson
William Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
. The B-stage was located at the end of a 150 feet (45.7 m) catwalk. The larger set used 176 speaker enclosures, 312 18 inches (45.7 cm) subwoofer
Subwoofer
A subwoofer is a woofer, or a complete loudspeaker, which is dedicated to the reproduction of low-pitched audio frequencies known as the "bass". The typical frequency range for a subwoofer is about 20–200 Hz for consumer products, below 100 Hz for professional live sound, and below...
s, 592 10 inches (25.4 cm) mid-range speakers, 18 projector
Video projector
A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image on a projection screen using a lens system. All video projectors use a very bright light to project the image, and most modern ones can correct any curves, blurriness, and other...
s, 26 on-stage microphones, two Betacam
Betacam
Betacam is family of half-inch professional videocassette products developed by Sony in 1982. In colloquial use, "Betacam" singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, a Betacam video recorder or the format itself....
and two Video-8 handheld video cameras, and 11 Trabants suspended by cranes over the stage. The outdoor stage used for the 1993 legs of the tour was smaller due to budget concerns, and it discarded the Trabants hung from cranes, instead featuring three cars hanging behind the drum kit. All of the projection screens were replaced with "video cubes", as the projectors were not bright enough for the European summer nights, when daylight remained later into the evening.
To realise the video production ideas, the equivalent of a television studio control room—costing US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
3.5 million—was built for the tour. Beneath the stage, Dodds, the video director, operated a system custom-built by Philips called CD-i
CD-i
CD-i, or Compact Disc Interactive, is the name of an interactive multimedia CD player developed and marketed by Royal Philips Electronics N.V. CD-i also refers to the multimedia Compact Disc standard used by the CD-i console, also known as Green Book, which was developed by Philips and Sony...
. It used five broadcast camera systems, 12 Laser Disc players, and a satellite dish, and it required 12 directors, 19 video crew members, and two separate mix stations
Live sound mixing
Live sound mixing is the art of combining and processing a number of audio signals together to create a "mix" that the audience or performers at a live show hear. There can be a variety of different mixes required, depending on the performance requirements...
to operate. Despite the production's complexity, the group decided that flexibility in the shows' length and content was a priority. Guitarist The Edge
The Edge
David Howell Evans , more widely known by his stage name The Edge , is a musician best known as the guitarist, backing vocalist, and keyboardist of the Irish rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 12 studio albums with the band and has released one solo record...
said, "That was one of the more important decisions we made early on, that we wouldn't sacrifice flexibility, so we designed a system that is both extremely complicated and high-tech but also incredibly simple and hands-on, controlled by human beings... in that sense, it's still a live performance." This flexibility allowed for improvisations and deviations from the planned programme. Eno recommended that the band film its own video tapes so that they could be edited and looped into the video displays more easily, instead of relying entirely on pre-sequenced video. Eno explained, "their show depends on some kind of response to what's happening at the moment in that place. So if it turns out they want to do a song for five minutes longer, they can actually loop through the material again so that you're not suddenly stuck with black screens halfway through the fifth verse." The band shot new video for the displays over the course of the tour.
The 180-person crew traveled in 12 buses and a chartered jet known as the Zoo Plane. For the American stadium shows, 52 trucks were required to transport 1,200 short ton
Short ton
The short ton is a unit of mass equal to . In the United States it is often called simply ton without distinguishing it from the metric ton or the long ton ; rather, the other two are specifically noted. There are, however, some U.S...
s (1,089 tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
s) of equipment, 3 miles (4.8 km) of cabling, 12 forklifts, and a 40 short tons (36 LT) crane; the million-dollar stage was constructed in a 40-hour process with the help of 200 local labourers. The sound system used over one million watts and weighed 30 short tons (27 LT).
Planning, itinerary, and ticketing
Lakeland, Florida
Lakeland is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States, located approximately midway between Tampa and Orlando along Interstate 4. According to the 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city had a population of 94,406...
for rehearsals before the opening show at the venue on 29 February.
Unlike many of the group's previous tours, which began ahead of or coincident with the release of a new album, Zoo TV started four months after Achtung Baby was released, giving fans more time to familiarise themselves with the new songs. By opening night, the album had already sold three million copies in the US and seven million worldwide. The first two legs of the tour, 32 shows in North America and 25 in Europe, were indoor arena shows. While the band had toured North America every year between 1980 and 1987, they were absent from the North American tour circuit for over four years before Zoo TV. The US concert business was in a slump at the time, and the routing of the first two legs generally allowed only one show per city. This was intended to announce the band's return to major cities, to gauge demand for ticket sales, and to re-introduce the notion of a "hot ticket" to concertgoers. Tickets for the opening show in Florida sold out over the phone in four minutes, demand exceeding supply by a factor of 10 to 1. To combat ticket scalping
Ticket resale
Ticket resale is the act of reselling tickets for admission to events. Tickets are bought from licensed sellers and are then sold for a price determined by the individual or company in possession of the tickets. Tickets sold through secondary sources may be sold for less or more than their face...
, the band avoided selling tickets in box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
s as much as possible, preferring to sell over the telephone instead. Several cities' telephone systems were overwhelmed when Zoo TV tickets went on sale; Los Angeles telephone company Pacific Bell
Pacific Bell
The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company was the name of the Bell System's telephone operations in California. It gained in size by acquiring smaller telephone companies along the Pacific coast, such as Sunset Telephone & Telegraph in 1917...
reported 54 million calls in a four-hour period, while Boston's telephone system was temporarily shut down.
In Europe, ticketing details were kept secret until radio advertisements announced that tickets had gone on sale at box offices. In many cases, tickets were limited to two-per-person to deter scalping. Due to the production costs and relatively small arena crowds, the European arena leg lost money. McGuinness had planned larger outdoor concerts in Berlin, Turin, Poland, and Vienna to help the tour break even, but only the Vienna concert occurred.
Both the Outside Broadcast stadium leg in the second half of 1992, and the European stadium leg in 1993—called "Zooropa"—were tentatively planned and dependent on the success of the arena tour. While their playing stadiums was motivated by pragmatic concerns, the group saw it as an artistic challenge as well, imagining what Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
or Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
would do with such spaces. Rehearsals for Outside Broadcast began in Hersheypark Stadium
Hersheypark Stadium
Hersheypark Stadium is a stadium, located in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on the grounds of Hersheypark. The General Manager is Frank O'Connell.It is used as a sporting facility, concert venue and location for various other large functions . In addition, it hosted the 2004 Presidential Race Campaign stop...
in Hershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey is a census-designated place in Derry Township, Dauphin County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The community is located 14 miles east of Harrisburg and is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. Hershey has no legal status as an incorporated municipality...
in early August 1992; a public rehearsal show was held on 7 August. Technical problems and pacing issues forced refinement to the show. Six days before the official leg-opening Giants Stadium
Giants Stadium
Giants Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium, located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Maximum seating capacity was 80,242. The building itself was 230.5 m long, 180.5 m wide and 44 m high from service level to the top of the seating bowl and 54 m high to...
show, the group delayed the concert by a day, due to the difficulty of assembling the large outdoor production and the destruction of the largest screen in a windstorm. By the time Outside Broadcast began, Achtung Baby had sold four million copies in the US. Tickets for the Zooropa leg went on sale in November 1992. The leg, which began in May 1993, was the band's first full stadium tour of Europe and marked the first time they had visited certain areas. Scheduling for the 1993 "Zoomerang" stadium leg in the Pacific afforded the band more off-days between shows than previous legs, but this amplified the exhaustion and restlessness that had set in by the tour's end.
Although the tour was listed as co-sponsored by MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, the group decided against explicit corporate sponsorship; band members, especially drummer Larry Mullen, Jr., were uncertain that the tour would be profitable. The daily cost of producing the tour was US$125,000, regardless of whether a show was held on a given day. An attempt to convince Philips to donate the video equipment was unsuccessful, and the band had to pay for it themselves. In order to defray the heavy expenses of the Pacific shows, U2 asked for large guarantees from local promoter
Tour promoter
Tour promoters are the individuals or companies responsible for organizing a live concert tour or special event performance. The tour promoter makes an offer of employment to a particular artist, usually through the artist’s agent or music manager. The promoter and agent then negotiate the live...
s up front, rather than sharing the financial burden as they had in the past. This sometimes caused promoters to raise ticket prices above usual levels, which in turn sometimes resulted in less than full houses. Profit margin was a slim four to five percent at most sold-out shows.
Pre-show
Between the support acts and U2's performance, a disc jockeyDisc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
played records. For the 1992 legs, Irish rock journalist and radio presenter BP Fallon
BP Fallon
BP Fallon is an Irish DJ, author, and photographer. He currently lives in New York.At a young age Fallon became a famous personality and broadcaster in Ireland, moving on to music journalism and photography....
filled the role. Originally hired to write the Zoo TV tour programme, he played music from inside a Trabant on the B-stage, while providing commentary and wearing a cape and top hat. His official title was "Guru, Viber and DJ". He hosted Zoo Radio, a November 1992 distributed radio special that showcased select live performances, audio oddities, and half-serious interviews with members of U2 and the opening acts. At the group's suggestion, Fallon eventually published a book about the tour entitled U2 Faraway So Close. Paul Oakenfold
Paul Oakenfold
Paul Mark Oakenfold is a British record producer and a trance DJ.-Early Career: 1979–84:Paul Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band. He describes his early life as a "bedroom deejay" in a podcasted interview with Vancouver's 24 Hours, stating he grew...
, who became one of the world's most prominent club DJs by the decade's end, replaced him later on the tour.
Beginning with the group's 24 May 1992 show, Fallon played "Television, the Drug of the Nation" by hip-hop artists The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy was an American industrial hip-hop band, active during the early 1990s.The band was formed in 1990 by Michael Franti and Rono Tse, who had been in the Beatnigs, and introduced the work of guitarist Charlie Hunter...
as the last song before the venue darkened and U2 took the stage. U2 saw the song, a commentary on mass media culture, as encapsulating some of the tour's principle themes. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy became one of the supporting acts for the Outside Broadcast leg, and after their supporting stint, "Television" was retained as the pre-show closer until the tour's conclusion. After the venue darkened, one of several audio-video pieces was played to accompany the group taking the stage. During the Outside Broadcast leg, the piece was one by Emergency Broadcast Network that reorganised video clips of American President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
to make him sing Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
's "We Will Rock You
We Will Rock You
"We Will Rock You" is a song written by Brian May and recorded and performed by Queen for their 1977 album News of the World. Rolling Stone ranked it #330 of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004, and the RIAA placed it at #146 on its list of Songs of the Century...
". A different piece, created by Ned O'Hanlon and Maurice Linnane of Dreamchaser video productions, was used on the 1993 legs; it wove looped video from Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
's films Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will is a propaganda film made by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was attended by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including portions of...
and Olympia
Olympia (1938 film)
Olympia is a 1938 Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany. The film was released in two parts: Olympia 1. Teil — Fest der Völker and Olympia 2. Teil — Fest der Schönheit . It was the first documentary feature...
with various video clips featuring war and news.
Main set
The concert began with a fixed sequence of six to eight consecutive Achtung Baby songs, a further sign that they were no longer the U2 of the 1980s. For the opening song, "Zoo StationZoo Station
"Zoo Station" is a song by the rock band U2. It is the opening track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby, a record on which the group reinvented themselves musically by incorporating influences from alternative rock, industrial, and electronic dance music...
", Bono entered as his primary stage persona, "The Fly", appearing silhouetted against a giant screen of blue and white video noise
Noise (video)
Noise, in analog video and television, is a random dot pattern of static displayed when no transmission signal is obtained by the antenna receiver of television set and other display devices...
. "The Fly
The Fly (song)
"The Fly" is a song by rock band U2. It is the seventh track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby and it was released as the album's first single on 12 October 1991. "The Fly" introduced a more abrasive sounding U2, as the song featured hip-hop and industrial beats, distorted vocals, and an elaborate...
" usually followed, with the video monitors flashing a rapidly-changing array of textual words and aphorisms. Some of these included "Taste is the enemy of art", "Religion is a club", "Ignorance is bliss", "Watch more TV", "Believe" with letters fading out to leave "lie", and "Everything you know is wrong". (During the first week of the tour, media outlets incorrectly reported that the words shown included "Bomb Japan Now", forcing the band to issue a statement denying the claim.) Before "Even Better Than the Real Thing
Even Better Than the Real Thing
"Even Better Than the Real Thing" is the second song on U2's 1991 album Achtung Baby. It was released as the album's fourth single on 7 June 1992.-Writing and recording:...
", Bono channel surfed through live television programming, and during the song, as random images from television and pop culture flashed on screen, he filmed himself and the band with a camcorder
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
.
In a Zoo Radio interview, The Edge described the visual material that accompanied the first three songs:
"Mysterious Ways
Mysterious Ways (song)
"Mysterious Ways" is a song by the rock band U2. It is the eighth track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby and was released as the album's second single on 25 November 1991. The song reached the top ten of the singles charts in several countries, including Ireland, where it went to number one...
" featured a belly dance
Belly dance
Belly dance or Bellydance is a "Western"-coined name for a traditional "Middle Eastern" dance, especially raqs sharqi . It is sometimes also called Middle Eastern dance or Arabic dance in the West, or by the Greco-Turkish term çiftetelli...
r on-stage. For the 1992 indoor legs, Florida resident Christina Pedro was the dancer. Tour choreographer Morleigh Steinberg assumed the role starting with the Outside Broadcast leg. "One
One (U2 song)
"One" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the third track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby, and it was released as the record's third single in March 1992. It was recorded at three recording studios, Hansa Ton Studios, Elsinore, and Windmill Lane Studios...
" was accompanied by the title word shown in many languages, as well as Mark Pellington
Mark Pellington
-Life and career:Pellington was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He directed The Mothman Prophecies, a 2002 film starring Richard Gere dealing with mysterious deaths foretold by a strange red-eyed flying creature, Mothman, as well as Arlington Road in 1999 starring Tim Robbins and Jeff Bridges....
-directed video clips of buffalo
American Bison
The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...
s leading to a still image of David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz was a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s.-Biography:...
's "Falling Buffalo" photograph. For "Until the End of the World
Until the End of the World (song)
"Until the End of the World" is a song by rock band U2 and the fourth track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby. The song began as a guitar riff composed by lead vocalist Bono from a demo, which the band revisited with success after talking with German filmmaker Wim Wenders about providing music...
", Bono often played with a camera, kissing the lens and thrusting it into his crotch, a stark contrast from his more earnest stage behavior of the past. Beginning with Outside Broadcast, the band began playing "New Year's Day
New Year's Day (song)
"New Year's Day" is a song by rock band U2. It is on their 1983 album War and it was released as the album's lead single in January 1983. Written about the Polish Solidarity movement, "New Year's Day" is driven by Adam Clayton's distinctive bassline and The Edge's keyboard playing...
" afterwards. During "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World
Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World
"Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World" is the ninth track from U2's 1991 album, Achtung Baby. It is a tongue in cheek song about stumbling home drunk from a night out on the town. It is dedicated to the Flaming Colossus nightclub in Los Angeles...
", Bono danced with a young female fan from the crowd (a ritual he had done more solemnly on past tours), shared camcorder video filming duties with her, and sprayed champagne. At this point in the show, Mullen sometimes sang a solo performance of "Dirty Old Town
Dirty Old Town
"Dirty Old Town" is a song written by Ewan MacColl in 1949 that was made popular by The Dubliners and has been recorded by many others since.-History:...
".
Zoo TV was one of the first large-scale concerts to feature a B-stage, where performances were intended "to be the antidote to Zoo TV". Here, the four members played quieter numbers, such as acoustic arrangements of "Angel of Harlem
Angel of Harlem
"Angel of Harlem" is the second single from U2's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum. It peaked at #9 on the UK Singles Chart, #8 on the Dutch Top 40, #14 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks...
", "When Love Comes to Town
When Love Comes to Town
"When Love Comes to Town" is the 12th song on U2's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum, where it was recorded at the historic Sun Studio in Memphis TN as a duet between U2 and B.B. King...
", "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
"Stay " is a song by the rock band U2. It is the fifth track on their 1993 album, Zooropa and was released as the album's third single on 22 November 1993. The song was a top ten hit in the Ireland, Australia, the United Kingdom, and several other countries. The music video was shot in Berlin,...
", and Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
's "Satellite of Love
Satellite of Love
"Satellite of Love" is one of Lou Reed's best-known songs from his solo career. It is the second single from his 1972 album Transformer. At the time of its release it did not achieve any chart success, though it later became a staple of his concerts and compilation albums.-Background and...
". Many critics compared the B-stage performances to "busking
Busking
Street performance or busking is the practice of performing in public places, for gratuities, which are generally in the form of money and edibles...
" and singled them out as the shows' highlights.
After leaving the B-stage, U2 often played "Bad
Bad (U2 song)
"Bad" is a song by rock band U2 and the seventh track from their 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire. A song about heroin addiction, it is considered a fan favourite, and is one of U2's most frequently performed songs in concert....
", with performances of "Bullet the Blue Sky
Bullet the Blue Sky
"Bullet the Blue Sky" is the fourth track from U2's 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. The song is one of the band's most overtly politically toned songs, with live performances often being heavily critical of political conflicts and violence....
" and "Running to Stand Still
Running to Stand Still
"Running to Stand Still" is a song by rock band U2, and it is the fifth track from their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. A slow ballad based on piano and guitar, it describes a heroin-addicted couple living in Dublin's Ballymun flats; the towers have since become associated with the song...
" following. For "Bullet the Blue Sky", the video screens displayed burning crosses and swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
s; during "Running to Stand Still", Bono mimed the actions of a heroin addict from the B-stage, rolling up his sleeves and then spiking his arm during the final lyric. Afterwards, red and yellow smoke flares came out from either end of the B-stage, before the band re-grouped on the main stage for U2 classics played straight. "Where the Streets Have No Name
Where the Streets Have No Name
"Where the Streets Have No Name" is a song by rock band U2. It is the opening track from their 1987 album The Joshua Tree and was released as the album's third single in August 1987. The song's hook is a repeating guitar arpeggio using a delay effect, played during the song's introduction and...
" was accompanied by sped-up video of the group in the desert from The Joshua Trees photo shoot. U2 often finished their set with "Pride (In the Name of Love)
Pride (In the Name of Love)
"Pride " is a song by Irish rock band U2. The second track on the band's 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire, it was released as the album's lead single in September 1984...
" while a clip from Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
's famed "I've Been to the Mountaintop
I've Been to the Mountaintop
"I've Been to the Mountaintop" is the popular name of the last speech delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr.King spoke on April 3, 1968, at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. The next day, King was assassinated....
" speech was played on the video screens. The group was initially unconvinced that the leap from the rest of the show's irony and artifice to something more sincere would be successful, but they thought that it was important to demonstrate that certain ideals were so strong and true that they could be held onto no matter the circumstance. The group alternated performances of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" is a song by rock band U2. It is the second track from their 1987 album The Joshua Tree and was released as the album's second single in May 1987...
" in acoustic form on the B-stage with using it to close the main set.
Encore
Commencing with the Outside Broadcast leg, clips from the tour's "video confessionalConfessional
A confessional is a small, enclosed booth used for the Sacrament of Penance, often called confession, or Reconciliation. It is the usual venue for the sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church, but similar structures are also used in Anglican churches of an Anglo-Catholic orientation, and also in the...
booth" were displayed on the set's screens between the main set and the encore. Concertgoers were encouraged to visit the booth prior to the concert and say whatever they wanted. These "confessions" varied from a woman flashing her breasts to a man revealing he had killed his friend in a car accident. Once the encore began, Bono would return as a different alter ego—Mirror Ball Man in 1992, and MacPhisto in 1993. Performances of "Desire"—accompanied by images of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, Paul Gascoigne
Paul Gascoigne
Paul John Gascoigne , commonly referred to as Gazza, is a retired English professional footballer.Playing in the position of midfield, Gascoigne's career included spells at Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Lazio, Rangers, Middlesbrough, Everton and Gansu Tianma, where he scored at least a goal...
, and Jimmy Swaggert—were meant as a criticism of greed; cash rained the stage and Bono often portrayed Mirror Ball Man as an interpretation of the greedy preacher described in the song's lyrics. Bono often made a crank call from the stage as his persona of the time. Such calls included dialing a phone sex
Phone sex
Phone sex is a type of virtual sex that refers to sexually explicit conversation between or other persons via telephone, especially when at least one of the participants masturbates or engages in sexual fantasy...
line, calling a taxi cab, ordering 10,000 pizzas (the Detroit pizza parlor delivered 100 pizzas during the show), or calling a local politician. Bono regularly called the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
in an attempt to contact President Bush. Though Bono never reached the President, Bush did acknowledge the calls during a press conference.
"Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
"Ultraviolet " is a song by the rock band U2 and the tenth track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby. Ostensibly about love and dependency, the song also lends itself to religious interpretations, with listeners finding allusions to the Book of Job and writers finding spiritual meaning in its...
" and "With or Without You
With or Without You
"With or Without You" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the third track from their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, and was released as the album's first single on 21 March 1987...
" were frequently played afterwards. Many concerts ended with Achtung Babys slower "Love Is Blindness
Love Is Blindness
"Love Is Blindness" is a song by rock band U2. It is the twelfth and final track on their 1991 album Achtung Baby. The song was written on a piano by lead singer Bono during the recording sessions for U2's 1988 album Rattle and Hum. Intended for singer Nina Simone, the band elected to keep it for...
". Beginning with the 1992 European arena shows, it was often followed by Bono's falsetto take on Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
's long-time show-closing ballad, "Can't Help Falling in Love
Can't Help Falling in Love
"Can't Help Falling in Love" is a pop song originally recorded by American singer Elvis Presley and published by Gladys Music, Elvis Presley's publishing company. It was written by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss. The melody was based on "Plaisir d'Amour" but with a different...
", culminating in Bono softly stating that "Elvis is still in the building". Both songs presented a quiet, introspective conclusion to the show, in contrast to the dynamic, aggressive opening; the group also wanted to move away from its long tradition of ending concerts with fan sing-along favourite "40". The night finished with a single video message being displayed: "Thanks for shopping at Zoo TV".
Guest appearances
Benny Andersson
Göran Bror "Benny" Andersson is a Swedish musician, composer, a former member of the Swedish musical group ABBA , and co-composer of the musicals Chess, Kristina från Duvemåla, and Mamma Mia!...
and Björn Ulvaeus
Björn Ulvaeus
Björn Kristian Ulvaeus is a Swedish songwriter, composer, musician, writer, producer, a former member of the Swedish musical group ABBA , and co-composer of the musicals Chess, Kristina från Duvemåla, and Mamma Mia!...
of ABBA
ABBA
ABBA was a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1970 which consisted of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog...
appeared on-stage in Stockholm for the first time in years to perform "Dancing Queen
Dancing Queen
"Dancing Queen" is a pop song recorded by Swedish pop group ABBA. It was released in August 1976, but was first performed two months earlier, on 18 June 1976, during a Royal Variety Show in Stockholm the evening before the Swedish royal wedding. It was the follow-up single to the hit "Fernando"...
" with the band, which U2 had frequently performed on the tour up to that point. Other guest performers on the tour included Axl Rose
Axl Rose
W. Axl Rose is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is the lead vocalist and only remaining original member of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he enjoyed great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before disappearing from the public eye for several years...
, Jo Shankar, and Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
.
On 19 June 1992, during the European indoor leg, U2 played the "Stop Sellafield" concert in Manchester, alongside Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
, Public Enemy, and Big Audio Dynamite II, to protest the operation of a second nuclear reactor at Sellafield. For the group's performance, the stage was made to resemble their Zoo TV stage. The following day, the band participated in a demonstration organised by Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
in which protesters landed on the beach at Sellafield in rubber dinghies and displayed 700 placards for the waiting media.
At the first Outside Broadcast show on 12 August 1992 at Giants Stadium, Lou Reed performed "Satellite of Love" with the band; he and Bono dueted using their contrasting vocal styles. Bono re-confirmed the singer's influence on the band by announcing, "Every song we're ever written was a rip-off of a Lou Reed song." For the second show and the remainder of the tour, a taping of Reed singing the song was used for a virtual duet between him and Bono.
Novelist Salman Rushdie joined the band on stage in London's Wembley Stadium on 11 August 1993, despite the death fatwā
Fatwa
A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...
against the author and the risk of violence arising from his controversial novel The Satanic Verses
The Satanic Verses
The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters...
. In reference to the novel's satanic references, Rushdie, when confronted by Bono's MacPhisto character, observed that "real devils don't wear horns". In 2010, Clayton recalled that "Bono had been calling Salman Rushdie from the stage every night on the Zoo TV tour. When we played Wembley, Salman showed up in person and the stadium erupted. You [could] tell from Larry's face that we weren't expecting it. Salman was a regular visitor after that. He had a backstage pass and he used it as often as possible. For a man who was supposed to be in hiding, it was remarkably easy to see him around the place."
Sarajevo satellite link-ups
As the 1993 Zooropa leg unfolded, U2 became concerned with the uncertain political situation of post-Communist Europe and the resurgence of radical nationalism. A number of these European shows featured live satellite link-ups with people living in war-torn SarajevoSarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
during the siege of Sarajevo
Siege of Sarajevo
The Siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Serb forces of the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 during the Bosnian War.After Bosnia...
/Bosnian War
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...
. The transmissions were arranged with help from American aid worker Bill Carter
Bill Carter
Bill Carter is a writer and director. He directed the documentary film Miss Sarajevo, which consists of amateur video material he shot during his stay in the besieged city of Sarajevo...
. Before their 3 July show in Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
, Italy, the band met with Carter to give an interview about Bosnia for Radio Televizija Bosne I Hercegovina. Carter described his experiences helping Sarajevo citizens while surviving the dangerous living conditions. While in Sarajevo, Carter had seen a television interview on MTV in which Bono mentioned the theme of the Zooropa leg was a unified Europe. Feeling that such an aim was empty if ignoring Bosnia, Carter sought Bono's help. He requested that U2 go to Sarajevo to bring attention to the war and break the "media fatigue" that had occurred from covering the conflict. Bono wanted the band to play a concert there, but their tour schedule prevented this, and McGuinness believed that a concert there would make them and their audience targets for the Serbian aggressors.
Instead, the group agreed to use the tour's satellite dish to conduct live video transmissions from their concerts to Carter in Sarajevo. Carter returned to the city and was able to assemble a video unit. The band had to purchase a satellite dish to be sent to Sarajevo and had to pay a £100,000 fee to join the European Broadcasting Union
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union is a confederation of 74 broadcasting organisations from 56 countries, and 49 associate broadcasters from a further 25...
. Once set up, the band began satellite link-ups to Sarajevo on nearly a nightly basis, the first of which aired on 17 July 1993 in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, Italy. To connect with the EBU satellite feeds, Carter and two co-workers had to traverse "Sniper Alley
Sniper Alley
"Sniper Alley" was the informal name primarily for Ulica Zmaja od Bosne , the main boulevard in Sarajevo which during the Bosnian War was lined with snipers' posts, and became infamous as a dangerous place for civilians to traverse...
" at night to reach the Sarajevo television station, and they had to film with as little light as possible to avoid the attention of snipers. This was done a total of ten times over the course of a month. Carter discussed the deteriorating situation in the city, and Bosnians often spoke to U2 and their audience. These grim interviews deviated from the rest of the show, and they were completely unscripted, leaving the group unsure of who would be speaking or what they would say. U2 stopped the broadcasts in August 1993 after learning that the siege of Sarajevo was being reported on the front of many British newspapers. Though this trend had begun before the first link-up, Nathan Jackson suggested that U2's actions had brought awareness of the situation to their fans, and to the British public indirectly.
Reactions to the transmissions were mixed, triggering a media debate concerning the ethical implications of mixing rock entertainment with human tragedy. The Edge said, "A lot of nights it felt like quite an abrupt interruption that was probably not particularly welcomed by a lot of people in the audience. You were grabbed out of a rock concert and given a really strong dose of reality and it was quite hard sometimes to get back to something as frivolous as a show having watched five or ten minutes of real human suffering." Mullen worried that the band were exploiting the Bosnians' suffering for entertainment. In 2002, he said, "I can't remember anything more excruciating than those Sarajevo link-ups. It was like throwing a bucket of cold water over everybody. You could see your audience going, 'What the fuck are these guys doing?' But I'm proud to have been a part of a group who were trying to do something." During a transmission from the band's concert at Wembley Stadium, three women in Sarajevo told Bono via the satellite transmission, "We know you're not going to do anything for us. You're going to go back to a rock show. You're going to forget that we even exist. And we're all going to die." Some people close to the band joined the War Child
War Child (charity)
War Child is a non-governmental organisation founded in the UK 1993, which focuses on providing assistance to children in areas of conflict and post-conflict. They use their film and entertainment background to raise money for aid agencies operating in former Yugoslavia...
charity project, including Brian Eno. Writer Bill Flanagan believes that the link-ups accomplished Bono's goal for Zoo TV of "illustrating onstage the obscenity of idly flipping from a war on CNN to rock videos on MTV". U2 vowed to perform in Sarajevo someday, eventually fulfilling this commitment
U2 concert in Sarajevo
U2's concert in Sarajevo was held at Koševo Stadium in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 23 September 1997. Visiting the city on their PopMart Tour, U2 became the first major artist to hold a concert in Sarajevo since the end of the Bosnian War....
on their 1997 PopMart Tour
Popmart Tour
The PopMart Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Launched in support of the group's 1997 album, Pop, the tour's concerts were performed in stadiums and parks from 1997 through 1998...
.
Bono's stage personae
Bono assumed a number of costumed alter egos during Zoo TV performances. The three main personae that he used on stage were "The FlyThe Fly (song)
"The Fly" is a song by rock band U2. It is the seventh track from their 1991 album Achtung Baby and it was released as the album's first single on 12 October 1991. "The Fly" introduced a more abrasive sounding U2, as the song featured hip-hop and industrial beats, distorted vocals, and an elaborate...
", "Mirror Ball Man", and "MacPhisto". Additionally, during performances of "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Running to Stand Still", he appeared on-stage wearing a military utility vest and cap, and a microphone headset. As this character, he ranted and raved in an act he said was set in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
.
The group decided to alter their image by being more facetious, and it was an attempt to escape their reputation for being overly serious and self-righteous. Bono said, "All through the Eighties we tried to be ourselves and failed when the lights were on. Which is what set us up for Zoo TV. We decided to have some fun being other people, or at least other versions of ourselves." The Edge said, "We were quite thrilled at the prospect of smashing U2 and starting all over again." The group viewed humour as the appropriate response to their negative perception and that although their message would not change, they needed to change how they delivered it to their audience.
The Fly
Bono conceived the alternate persona, "The Fly", during the writing of the song of the same name. The character began with Bono wearing an oversized pair of blaxploitationBlaxploitation
Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States circa 1970. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience...
sunglasses, given to him by wardrobe manager Fintan Fitzgerald, to lighten the mood in the studio. Bono wrote the song's lyrics as this character, composing a sequence of "single-line aphorisms". He developed the persona into a leather-clad egomaniac, describing his outfit as having Lou Reed's glasses, Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
's jacket, and Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison
James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...
's leather pants. To match the character's dark fashion, Bono dyed his naturally brown hair black.
Bono began each concert as The Fly and continued to play the character for most of the first half of the concert. In contrast to his earnest self of the 1980s, as The Fly, Bono strutted around the stage with "swagger and style", exhibiting mannerisms of an egotistical rock star; he publicly stated, and adopted the mindset, that he was "licensed to be an egomaniac". He often stayed in character away from the tour stage, including for public appearances and when staying in hotels. He said, "That rather cracked character could say things that I couldn't", and that it offered him a greater freedom of speech.
Mirror Ball Man
As the Mirror Ball Man, Bono dressed in a shining silver laméLamé (fabric)
Lamé is a type of fabric woven or knit with thin ribbons of metallic yarns, as opposed to guimpé, where the ribbons are wrapped around a fibre yarn. It is usually gold or silver in color; sometimes copper lamé is seen. Lamé comes in different varieties, depending on the composition of the other...
suit with matching shoes and cowboy hat. The character was meant to parody greedy American televangelists, showmen, and car salesman, and was inspired by Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
' Elvis persona from his 1970 tour. Bono said that he represented "a kind of showman America. He had the confidence and charm to pick up a mirror and look at himself and give the glass a big kiss. He loved cash and in his mind success was God's blessing. If he's made money, he can't have made any mistakes." As the character, Bono spoke with an exaggerated Southern American accent
Southern American English
Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to most of Texas and Oklahoma.The Southern dialects make...
. Mirror Ball Man appeared during the show's encore and made nightly prank calls, often to the White House. Bono portrayed this alter ego on the first three legs of the tour, but replaced him with MacPhisto for the 1993 legs.
MacPhisto
MacPhisto was created to parody the devil and was named after MephistophelesMephistopheles
Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore...
of the Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
legend. Initially called "Mr. Gold", MacPhisto wore a gold suit with gold platform shoes, pale make-up, lipstick, and devil's horns atop his head. As MacPhisto, Bono spoke with an exaggerated upper-class English accent, similar to that of a down-on-his-luck character actor. The character was created as a European replacement for the American-influenced Mirror Ball Man. The initial inspiration for MacPhisto came from the stage musical The Black Rider
The Black Rider
The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets is a self-billed "musical fable" in the avant-garde tradition created through the collaboration of theatre director Robert Wilson, musician Tom Waits, and writer William S. Burroughs. Wilson was largely responsible for the design and direction....
. Realisation of the character did not come about until rehearsal the night before the first of the 1993 shows. According to Bono, "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."
Bono continued making crank calls as MacPhisto, but the targets would change with the location of the concert. Many of them were local politicians that Bono wished to mock by attempting to engage them in character as the devil. He 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." A female Cardiff fan who was pulled on-stage questioned Bono's motives for dressing as the devil, prompting the singer to compare his act to the plot of the C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
novel The Screwtape Letters
The Screwtape Letters
The Screwtape Letters is a satirical Christian apologetics novel written in epistolary style by C. S. Lewis, first published in book form in February 1942...
.
Recording and release of Zooropa
U2 recorded their next album, ZooropaZooropa
Zooropa Based on the pronunciations of "zoo" and "Europa". is the eighth studio album by rock band U2. Produced by Flood, Brian Eno, and The Edge, it was released on 5 July 1993 on Island Records. Inspired by the band's experiences on the Zoo TV Tour, Zooropa expanded on many of the tour's themes...
, from February to May 1993 during an extended break between the third and fourth legs of the tour. The album was intended as an additional EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
to Achtung Baby, but soon expanded into a full LP. Recording could not be completed before the tour restarted, and for the first month of the Zooropa leg, the band flew home after shows, recording until the early morning and working on their off-days, before traveling to their next destination. Clayton called the process "about the craziest thing you could do to yourself", while Mullen said of it, "It was mad, but it was mad good, as opposed to mad bad." McGuinness later said the band had nearly wrecked themselves in the process. The album was released on 5 July 1993. Influenced by the tour's themes of technology and media barrage, Zooropa was an even greater departure in style from their earlier recordings than Achtung Baby, incorporating further dance music influences and electronic effects into their sound. A number of songs from the album were incorporated into the subsequent Zooropa and Zoomerang legs, most frequently "Numb
Numb (U2 song)
"Numb" is a song by rock band U2. It is the third track from their 1993 album Zooropa and was released in June 1993 as the album's first single. The song features a monotonous mantra of "don't" commands spoken by guitarist The Edge amidst a backdrop of various sound effects and samples...
" and "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
"Stay " is a song by the rock band U2. It is the fifth track on their 1993 album, Zooropa and was released as the album's third single on 22 November 1993. The song was a top ten hit in the Ireland, Australia, the United Kingdom, and several other countries. The music video was shot in Berlin,...
", with "Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car" and "Lemon" worked into the encore during Zoomerang, and "Dirty Day
Dirty Day
"Dirty Day" is the ninth track on U2's 1993 album, Zooropa.-Recording and composition:"Dirty Day" originates from the band recording "live" jam performances in the studio during the Zooropa sessions on the band's break in the Zoo TV Tour. The song was written about a character who leaves his family...
" in the main set during the same.
Broadcasts, recordings, and releases
On 9 September 1992, a portion of U2's performance at the Pontiac SilverdomePontiac Silverdome
The Silverdome is a domed stadium located in the city of Pontiac, Michigan, USA, which sits on . It was the largest stadium in the National Football League until FedEx Field in suburban Washington, D.C...
was broadcast live to the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards
1992 MTV Video Music Awards
The 1992 MTV Video Music Awards aired live on September 9, 1992, honoring the best music videos from June 16, 1991, to June 15, 1992. The show was hosted by Dana Carvey at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles....
. The band performed "Even Better Than the Real Thing" while VMA host Dana Carvey
Dana Carvey
Dana Thomas Carvey is an American actor and stand-up comedian, best known for his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for playing the role of Garth in the Wayne's World movies.-Early life:...
, dressed as his Wayne's World
Wayne's World
Wayne's World was originally a recurring sketch from the NBC television series Saturday Night Live. It evolved from a segment titled "Wayne's Power Minute" on the CBC Television series It's Only Rock & Roll, as the main character first appeared in that show...
Garth persona, accompanied the band on drums in Los Angeles. A Zoo Radio special included live selections from 1992 Toronto, Dallas, Tempe, and New York City shows. Portions of another 1992 show were taped and broadcast later that year in the United States as a one-hour Fox network television
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
special on Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving (United States)
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a holiday celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. It has officially been an annual tradition since 1863, when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday,...
weekend; the broadcast featured William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
' reading of the sardonic poem "Thanksgiving Prayer". Several shows, including the 11 June concert in Stockholm and 27 October concert in El Paso, were broadcast into the homes of fans who had won contests. In October 1992, U2 released Achtung Baby: The Videos, The Cameos, and a Whole Lot of Interference from Zoo TV, a VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
compilation of nine music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s from Achtung Baby. Interspersed between the music videos were clips of so-called "interference", comprising documentary footage, media clips, and other video similar to what was displayed on tour.
Two November 1993 Zoomerang shows in Sydney were filmed as part of a worldwide television broadcast. The 26 November show was to be a rehearsal for the production crew for the official filming the following night. However, Clayton, who began drinking excessively on the latter stages of the tour, suffered an alcoholic blackout
Blackout (alcohol-related amnesia)
A blackout is a phenomenon caused by the intake of alcohol or other substance in which long term memory creation is impaired or there is a complete inability to recall the past. Blackouts are frequently described as having effects similar to that of anterograde amnesia, in which the subject cannot...
from the previous night and was unable to perform. Bass guitar technician
Guitar technician
A guitar technician is a member of a music ensemble's road crew who maintains and sets up the musical equipment for one or more guitarists during a concert tour...
Stuart Morgan filled in for him, marking the first time any member of U2 had missed a show. Clayton recovered in time to play the second night, which was broadcast and was the only show used in the resulting video release. The concert was broadcast in the United States on tape-delayed pay-per-view
Pay-per-view
Pay-per-view provides a service by which a television audience can purchase events to view via private telecast. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it...
. U2 originally planned to produce the concert with MTV for a January 1994 "triplecast" that would offer three different perspectives of the show on three different channels. However, the group canceled the "triplecast" after realising they had not fully developed the concept. The concert was subsequently released as the concert video Zoo TV: Live from Sydney
Zoo TV: Live From Sydney
Zoo TV: Live from Sydney is a concert video release by rock band U2 from the "Zoomerang" leg of their Zoo TV Tour. Recorded on Saturday, November 27, 1993 at Sydney Football Stadium on the band's featured stop in Sydney, Australia, it was released in May 1994 on VHS and Laserdisc, and re-released...
in 1994, and the double CD Zoo TV Live
Zoo TV Live
Zoo TV Live is a live album by the Irish rock band U2. It was released exclusively to subscribing members of , replacing U2.COMmunication on 20 November 2006...
in 2006 to subscribing members of U2's website. The video won a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Long Form Music Video
Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video
The Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video is an accolade presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally named the Gramophone Awards, to performers, directors, and producers of quality videos or musical programs...
in 1995.
Critical response
Reviews written during the initial arena legs reflected the dramatic change in U2's approach. Many critics published favourable reviews about the tour; the San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
praised the special effects for supplementing the music. The reviewer wrote, "The often-surrealistic effects always served the songs, not the other way around." The review concluded, "this magnificent multimedia production will serve as a pinnacle in rock's onstage history for sometime to come". Edna Gundersen
Edna Gundersen
Edna Gundersen is an American journalist who is a longtime music writer and critic for USA Today.Gundersen grew up in El Paso, Texas. She attained a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at El Paso and then wrote features and entertainment news for the El Paso Times from 1977 to 1987...
of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
said that U2 was dismantling its myth and wrote that the show was "a trippy and decadent concert of bedazzling visuals and adventurous music". Hot Press
Hot Press
Hot Press is a fortnightly music and political magazine based in Dublin, Ireland founded in 1977. The magazine has been edited since its inception by Niall Stokes. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it had a circulation of 19,215 during 2007...
Bill Graham said of the show, "U2 don't so much use every trick in the book as invent a whole new style of rock performance art." For Graham, the tour resolved any doubts he had about the band—particularly about Bono—following their reinvention with Achtung Baby.
Other critics indicated befuddlement as to U2's purpose. The Asbury Park Press
Asbury Park Press
The Asbury Park Press is a daily newspaper in Monmouth and Ocean counties of New Jersey and has the third largest circulation in the state...
wrote that the long string of Achtung Baby song presentations that opened the show made one forget about the band's past, and that "almost everything you knew about U2 a couple years ago is, in fact, wrong now". The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to The Jersey Journal of Jersey City, The Times of Trenton and the Staten Island Advance, all of which are owned by Advance Publications.The Newark Star-Ledgers daily...
said that the band shortchanged its music with its video presentations and that especially during the opening sequence, "one was only aware of the music as a soundtrack to the real 'show'". It concluded by saying that the group had lost the sense of mystery and yearning that made it great and that they had succumbed to the style of music videos. Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of the New York Times. He played jazz flute and piano, and graduated from Yale University with a degree in music. In the 1970s he was an associate editor of Crawdaddy!, and in the 1980s an associate...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
acknowledged that U2 was trying to break its former earnest image and that they were a "vastly improved band" for being "trendy" and "funny"; still, he commented, "U2 wants to have its artifice and its sincerity at the same time—no easy thing—and it hasn't yet made the breakthrough that will unite them."
The stadium legs of the tour received more consistent praise than the arena shows. Critics noted that while the show and its setlist were largely the same as before, the tour mostly benefited from the increased scale. The New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
said that the stage "looked like a city made of television sets—an electronic Oz" and that "glitz was used not as a mere distraction (as it has been by so many video-age artists), but as a determined conceit". Gundersen also made the comparison to Oz
Land of Oz
Oz is a fantasy region containing four lands under the rule of one monarch.It was first introduced in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, one of many fantasy countries that he created for his books. It achieved a popularity that none of his other works attained, and after four years, he...
, saying that even though the band was dwarfed by the setting, their adventurous musicianship still shone through. She concluded that the group had "deliver[ed] a brilliant high-wire act" between mocking and exploiting rock music clichés, a comparison also made by stage designer Williams. Robert Hilburn
Robert Hilburn
Robert Hilburn is a pop music critic and author. As critic and music editor of the Los Angeles Times from 1970 to 2005, his reviews, essays and profiles have appeared in hundreds of publications around the world...
of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
said of the outdoor American leg, "Zoo TV is the yardstick by which all other stadium shows will be measured." David Fricke
David Fricke
David Fricke is a senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine, where he writes predominantly on rock music. In the 1990s, he was managing editor before stepping down.-Background:David Fricke is a graduate of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania...
of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
said that the band had "regained critical and commercial favor by negotiating an inspired balance between rock's cheap thrills and its own sense of moral burden". He praised the band for "retool[ing] themselves as wiseacres with heart and elephant bucks to burn". Fricke noted that the increased visual effects for the Outside Broadcast leg increased the shows' "mind-fuck" factor. Many critics described the tour as "post-modern". The writers of Rolling Stone, in a best-of-1992 issue, named U2 co-winners of "Best Band", while awarding the Zoo TV Tour honours for both "Best Tour" and "Worst Tour".
The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
praised the Zooropa leg, with the reviewer stating, "I came as a sceptic, and left believing I had witnessed the most sophisticated meeting of technical wizardry and mojo priestcraft ever mounted." Dave Fanning
Dave Fanning
Dave Fanning is an Irish rock journalist, DJ, retired film critic and veteran broadcaster. He currently hosts The 11th Hour on RTÉ Two and two radio shows: Drivetime with Dave on RTÉ Radio 1 and The Dave Fanning Show on RTÉ 2fm. He also fills in for other presenters on RTÉ Radio, including acting...
of The Irish Times
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
praised the Zooropa leg, stating, "If this is the show by which all other rock circuses must be measured, then God help the new music." Fanning observed that the group, particularly Bono, exhibited "style, sex and self-assurance". Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
wrote, "No one is dancing on the edges of rock'n'roll's contradictions as effectively these days as U2." The stadium legs had their detractors, as NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
called the shows a "two-hour post-modernist pot noodle advert made by politically naive, culturally unaware squares with the help of some cool, arty people". Graham thought that the scale of the stadium shows led to more predictability and less interaction with the audiences.
Fan reaction
The group and the music industry were unsure how fans would receive the tour beforehand. During the first week of shows, Bono said, "This show is a real roller coaster ride, and some people will want to get off, I'm sure." He remained optimistic that their devoted fans would continue following them, but cautioned he had no intention of resisting the glamour and fame: "Oh, but it's fun to be carried away by the hype. Where would you be without the hype?... You can't pretend all the promotion and all the fanfare is not happening." Some hardcore fans, particularly in the US, objected to the tour as a blatant sellout to commercial values, while others misinterpreted the tour's mocking of excess, believing that, according to VH1's LegendsVH1's Legends
Legends is a music biography television series on VH1. Originally sponsored by AT&T, this series documents those artists who have made a significant contribution to music history to be profiled on the show .The show goes in-depth...
, "U2 had 'lost it' and that Bono had become an egomaniac". Many Christian fans were offended the band's antics and believed they had abandoned their religious faith.
By the outdoor legs, many fans knew what to expect, and Pareles observed that Bono's admonitions to never cheer a rock star were greeted with idolatrous applause; he concluded that the show's message of skepticism was somewhat lost on the audience and that, "No matter what Bono tells his fans, they seem likely to trust him anyway." By the end of the tour's first year, U2 had won over many fans. In a 1992 end-of-year readers' poll, Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
voted U2 "The Best Act in the World Today". The band's almost clean sweep of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
s end-of-year readers' poll—which included "Best Artist", "Best Tour", and Bono as "Sexiest Male Artist"—reconfirmed for the magazine they were "world's biggest rock band".
Commercial performance
On the opening leg, U2 sold 528,763 tickets and grossed US$13,215,414 in 32 shows. They grossed US$67 million overall in 73 North American shows in 1992, easily the highest amount for any touring artist that year. At the time, this was the third-highest such total, behind The Rolling Stones' 1989 Steel Wheels TourSteel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour
The Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels Tour was a concert tour which was launched in North America in August 1989 to promote the band's album Steel Wheels; it continued to Japan in February 1990, with ten shows at the Tokyo Dome. The European leg of the tour, which featured a different stage and logo,...
and New Kids on the Block
New Kids on the Block
New Kids on the Block are an American boy band from Boston, Massachusetts, assembled in 1984 by producer Maurice Starr. The band currently consists of brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and Danny Wood.New Kids on the Block enjoyed success in the late 1980s and...
's 1990 Magic Summer Tour
The Magic Summer Tour
The Magic Summer Tour was a 1990-1991 concert tour by New Kids on the Block to promote their 1990 album Step by Step. Covering one hundred cities in the United States, the tour lasted from June 1990 to September 15, 1991. It was sponsored by Coca-Cola...
. Ticket sales in America and Europe for the year 1992 totaled 2.9 million. The Zooropa stadium leg the following year played to more than 2.1 million people over 43 dates between 9 May and 28 August. In total, the Zoo TV Tour played to about 5.3 million people. The band incurred heavy expenses to produce the tour, leading to only a small profit. According to McGuinness, "We grossed $30 million in T-shirt sales. Without those we'd be fucked." Bono later said, "When we built Zoo TV, we were so close to bankruptcy that if five percent fewer people went, U2 was bankrupt. Even in our irresponsible, youthful and fatal disregard of such material matters, it was terrifying."
Impact and legacy
For the Zoo TV Tour, U2 embraced the "rock star" identity they had struggled with and were reluctant to accept throughout the 1980s. They drew the attention of celebrities, including American presidential candidate Bill ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, and they began partying more than they had in the past. During parts of the tour, the band attracted the fashion crowd; Clayton's romantic relationship with supermodel
Supermodel
The term supermodel refers to a highly-paid fashion model who usually has a worldwide reputation and often a background in haute couture and commercial modeling. The term became prominent in the popular culture of the 1980s. Supermodels usually work for top fashion designers and labels...
Naomi Campbell
Naomi Campbell
Naomi Campbell is a British model. Scouted at the age of 15, she established herself among the top three most recognisable and in-demand models of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and she was one of six models of her generation declared "supermodels" by the fashion world...
and Bono's friendship with supermodel Christy Turlington
Christy Turlington
Christy Turlington Burns is an American model best known for representing Calvin Klein from 1987 to 2007. She has worked on dozens of modeling contracts with companies including Maybelline Cosmetics and Versace. Turlington starred in her fashion documentary Catwalk and Isaac Mizrahi's Unzipped...
made them the subjects of unwanted tabloid attention. By the time of the Zoomerang leg, Clayton's relationship with Campbell was fracturing and he was drinking frequently. After missing the group's 26 November 1993 show in Sydney from an alcoholic blackout, Clayton quit drinking altogether. The incident resulted in tensions within the group in the tour's final weeks. The Edge began dating the belly dancer Morleigh Steinberg during the tour, and the two later married in 2002.
The tour's two-year length, then U2's longest, exhausted the band as the final legs unfolded. Following the conclusion of Zoo TV, U2 took an extended break from recording as a group. Mullen and Clayton moved into Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
apartments in New York City, where they sought out music lessons to become better musicians. The Edge and Bono spent most of 1994 living in newly-renovated houses in the South of France.
After the tour, although The Fly character was retired, Bono began to wear tinted glasses, similar to his Fly sunglasses, in most public appearances. The glasses have since become a stylistic trademark of the singer in both his musical and activist roles. The Fly and MacPhisto characters appeared in the animated music video to U2's 1995 song "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
"Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" is a 1995 single by U2 from the Batman Forever soundtrack album. A number-one single in their home country of Ireland, the single reached number two on the UK Singles Chart, number sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100, and number one on the Billboard Album Rock...
" from the soundtrack to Batman Forever
Batman Forever (soundtrack)
Batman Forever: Music from the Motion Picture is the 1995 soundtrack to the motion picture Batman Forever.-Background:Only five of the songs are actually featured in the movie. Hit singles from the soundtrack include "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" by U2 and "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal, both...
. Author Višnja Cogan wrote that "the video crystallises and concludes the Zoo TV period and the changes that occurred". Director Joel Schumacher
Joel Schumacher
Joel T. Schumacher is an American film director, screenwriter and producer.-Early life:Schumacher was born in New York City, the son of Marian and Francis Schumacher. His mother was a Swedish Jew, and his father was a Baptist from Knoxville, Tennessee, who died when Joel was four years old...
attempted to create a role for Bono as MacPhisto in Batman Forever
Batman Forever
Batman Forever is a 1995 American superhero film directed by Joel Schumacher and produced by Tim Burton. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is a sequel to Batman Returns , with Val Kilmer replacing Michael Keaton as Batman...
, but both later agreed it was not suitable.
As the tour drew to a close, the group entered prolonged discussions about creating a Zoo TV television channel in partnership with MTV. This never materialized, but in 1997, MTV ran a brief mini-series called Zoo-TV, which featured Emergency Broadcast Network
Emergency Broadcast Network
Emergency Broadcast Network is the name of a multimedia performance group formed in 1991 that took its name from the Emergency Broadcast System. The founders were Rhode Island School of Design graduates Joshua Pearson, Gardner Post and Brian Kane . Kane left EBN in 1992...
extending their tour role in creating contemporary surrealist satirical video. U2 endorsed the effort as a representation of what the tour would have been like as a news magazine, but their direct role was limited to providing half-financing and outtakes from the Zooropa album. Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
magazine said the series "pushe[d] the edge of commercial—even comprehensible—television".
U2's subsequent concert tour, 1997's PopMart Tour
Popmart Tour
The PopMart Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Launched in support of the group's 1997 album, Pop, the tour's concerts were performed in stadiums and parks from 1997 through 1998...
, followed in Zoo TV's footsteps by mocking another social trend, this time consumerism. Paul McGuinness said the group wanted "the production [of PopMart] to beat Zoo TV", and accordingly, the tour's spectacle was a further shift away from their austere stage shows of the 1980s; PopMart's stage featured a 150 feet (45.7 m) LED screen, a 100 feet (30.5 m) golden arch, and a mirrorball lemon. Although critics were much less receptive to PopMart, Bono considers the tour to be their best: "Pop(Mart) is our finest hour. It's better than Zoo TV aesthetically, and as an art project it is a clearer thought."
The Pixies' stint as a support act produced a controversy that partially contributed to their break-up. In July 1992, Spin featured a controversial cover story titled "U2 On Tour: The Story They Didn't Want You to Read", which detailed author Jim Greer
James Greer
James Greer is an American novelist, screenwriter, musician, and critic. He lives in Los Angeles but spends much of his time in France.-Career as a musician/critic:Greer was Senior Editor and Senior Writer at Spin magazine in NYC in the early 90s...
's travels on the tour's first weeks with his unidentified girlfriend (who turned out to be Pixies' bassist Kim Deal
Kim Deal
Kimberley Ann Deal is an American singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the bassist of the alternative rock band the Pixies and the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for The Breeders. Deal first joined the Pixies in January 1986 as the band's bassist, adopting the stage name Mrs...
). The article featured their criticisms of U2 for the supposed poor treatment the Pixies received. Both U2 and the Pixies disagreed and were livid at Deal, particularly Pixies frontman Black Francis. In 1993, following tensions within the group, Francis announced the Pixies had dissolved.
In 2005, during their Vertigo Tour
Vertigo Tour
The Vertigo Tour was a worldwide concert tour by the Irish rock band U2. Launched in support of the group's 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the band visited arenas and stadiums from 2005 through 2006. The Vertigo Tour consisted of five legs that alternated between indoor arena shows in...
, the group often played a mini-Zoo TV set—"Zoo Station", "The Fly", and "Mysterious Ways"—as part of the first encore; performances of "Zoo Station" included the interference in the background visual effects, and "The Fly" used flashing text effects on the LED screens similar to the Zoo TV visuals.
The Zoo TV Tour is regarded as one of the most memorable tours in rock history. During the Zooropa leg of the tour, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
called Zoo TV "one of the most electrifying rock shows ever staged". In 1997, Robert Hilburn wrote that "It's not unreasonable to think of it as the Sgt. Pepper's
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band The Beatles, released on 1 June 1967 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin...
of rock tours." Actor Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
, narrating the 1997 TV documentary A Year in Pop, said, "There were other tours by other bands in the intervening years, but none of them came close to the sheer sensory overload of Zoo TV." In 2002, Qs Tom Doyle called it "still the most spectacular rock tour staged by any band". In 2009, critic Greg Kot
Greg Kot
Greg Kot is an American writer and journalist. Since 1990, Kot has been the music critic at the Chicago Tribune, where he has covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and business issues...
said, "Zoo TV remains the finest supersized tour mounted by any band in the last two decades." Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
wrote in a review of Achtung Babys 20th anniversary reissue
Reissue
A reissue is the repeated issue of a published work. In common usage, it refers to an album which has been released at least once before and is released again, sometimes with alterations or additions....
, "Even 20 years on, the tour looks like something to behold, a singularly inventive experience that no band—including U2 itself—has been able to really expound upon in a meaningful way." The Edge said, "as a band I think it stretched us all. We were a different band after that and touring was different." Producer Nellee Hooper
Nellee Hooper
Nellee Hooper is a British producer/remixer/composer best known for his work with Björk, No Doubt/Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Sinéad O'Connor, Garbage, Andrea Corr, U2, Sneaker Pimps, Soul II Soul and Massive Attack...
later told Bono that Zoo TV "ruined irony for everyone".
Tour dates
| Date | City | Country | Venue | Opening Act(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leg 1: arenas in North America | ||||
| 29 February 1992 | Lakeland Lakeland, Florida Lakeland is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States, located approximately midway between Tampa and Orlando along Interstate 4. According to the 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city had a population of 94,406... |
United States | Lakeland Civic Center | Pixies |
| 1 March 1992 | Miami | Miami Arena Miami Arena The Miami Arena was an indoor arena in Miami, Florida.-History:Completed in 1988, at a cost of $52.5 million, its opening took business away from the Hollywood Sportatorium and eventually led to its demise... |
||
| 3 March 1992 | Charlotte Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009... |
Charlotte Coliseum Charlotte Coliseum The Charlotte Coliseum was a multi-purpose sports and entertainment arena in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was operated by the Charlotte Coliseum Authority, which also oversees the operation of Bojangles' Coliseum, the Charlotte Convention Center, and Ovens Auditorium... |
||
| 5 March 1992 | Atlanta | The Omni | ||
| 7 March 1992 | Hampton Hampton, Virginia Hampton is an independent city that is not part of any county in Southeast Virginia. Its population is 137,436. As one of the seven major cities that compose the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, it is on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula. Located on the Hampton Roads Beltway, it hosts... |
Hampton Coliseum Hampton Coliseum The Hampton Coliseum is a multi-use cultural, entertainment and sports arena in Hampton, Virginia. Construction on the arena began on May 24, 1968 and the venue opened in 1970 as the first large multi-purpose arena in the Hampton Roads region and the state of Virginia, opening a year prior to... |
||
| 9 March 1992 | Uniondale Uniondale, New York Uniondale is a hamlet as well as a suburb of New York City in Nassau County, New York, United States, on Long Island, in the Town of Hempstead. The population was 24,759 at the 2010 United States Census.-Geography:... |
Nassau Coliseum | ||
| 10 March 1992 | Philadelphia | The Spectrum | ||
| 12 March 1992 | Hartford Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making... |
Hartford Civic Center | ||
| 13 March 1992 | Worcester Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston.... |
Centrum in Worcester DCU Center The DCU Center is an indoor arena and convention center complex, located in downtown Worcester, Massachusetts.... |
||
| 15 March 1992 | Providence Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region... |
Providence Civic Center Dunkin' Donuts Center The Dunkin' Donuts Center , is an indoor arena, located in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, United States... |
||
| 17 March 1992 | Boston Boston Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had... |
Boston Garden Boston Garden The Boston Garden was an arena in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Designed by boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who also built the third iteration of New York's Madison Square Garden, it opened on November 17, 1928 as "Boston Madison Square Garden" and outlived its original namesake by some 30 years... |
||
| 18 March 1992 | East Rutherford East Rutherford, New Jersey East Rutherford is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 8,913. It is an inner-ring suburb of New York City, located west of Midtown Manhattan.... |
Brendan Byrne Arena | ||
| 20 March 1992 | New York City | Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the... |
||
| 21 March 1992 | Albany Albany, New York Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River... |
Knickerbocker Arena | ||
| 23 March 1992 | Montreal Montreal Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America... |
Canada | Montreal Forum Montreal Forum The Montreal Forum was an indoor arena located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Called "the most storied building in hockey history" by Sporting News, it was home of the National Hockey League's Montreal Maroons from 1924 to 1938 and the Montreal Canadiens from 1926 to 1996... |
|
| 24 March 1992 | Toronto | Maple Leaf Gardens Maple Leaf Gardens Maple Leaf Gardens is an indoor arena that was converted into a Loblawssupermarket and Ryerson University athletic centre in Toronto, on the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church Street in Toronto's Garden District.One of the temples of hockey, it was home to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the... |
||
| 26 March 1992 | Richfield Richfield, Ohio Richfield is a village in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 3,286 at the 2000 census. The village and the adjacent Richfield Township are approximately equidistant between the downtown areas of Akron and Cleveland... |
United States | Coliseum at Richfield Coliseum at Richfield The Coliseum at Richfield was an arena located in Richfield Township in Summit County, Ohio, roughly halfway between Cleveland and Akron... |
|
| 27 March 1992 | Auburn Hills Auburn Hills, Michigan Auburn Hills is a city in Metro Detroit, Oakland County, in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 21,412 at the 2010 census. The city was formed in 1983 when Pontiac Township became the City of Auburn Hills.-Economy:... |
The Palace of Auburn Hills The Palace of Auburn Hills The Palace of Auburn Hills, often referred to simply as The Palace, is a sports and entertainment venue in Auburn Hills, Michigan, a suburb on the northern outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, United States. Opened in 1988, it is the home of the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association... |
||
| 30 March 1992 | Minneapolis | Target Center Target Center The Target Center is an arena in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is sponsored by Target Corporation. The arena has a capacity of 20,500 people. It contains 702 club seats and 68 suites.... |
||
| 31 March 1992 | Rosemont Rosemont, Illinois Rosemont is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States located immediately northwest of Chicago. The village was incorporated in 1956, though it had been settled long before that... |
Rosemont Horizon Allstate Arena Allstate Arena is a multi-purpose arena, in Rosemont, Illinois.It is home to the Chicago Rush, of the Arena Football League, DePaul University's men's basketball team, the Chicago Wolves, of the AHL, and the Chicago Sky, of the WNBA.It is located near the intersection of Mannheim Road and... |
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| 5 April 1992 | Dallas | Reunion Arena Reunion Arena Reunion Arena was an indoor arena, in the Reunion district of downtown Dallas, Texas . It held 18,293 for basketball and 17,001 for ice hockey.It was demolished in November 2009 and the site was cleared by the end of the year.-History:... |
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| 6 April 1992 | Houston | The Summit | ||
| 7 April 1992 | Austin Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in... |
Frank Erwin Center Frank Erwin Center Frank C. Erwin, Jr. Special Events Center, commonly known as Frank Erwin Center or UT Erwin Center, is a multi-purpose arena on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin... |
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| 10 April 1992 | Tempe Tempe, Arizona Tempe is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, USA, with the Census Bureau reporting a 2010 population of 161,719. The city is named after the Vale of Tempe in Greece. Tempe is located in the East Valley section of metropolitan Phoenix; it is bordered by Phoenix and Guadalupe on the west, Scottsdale... |
Arizona State University Activity Center Wells Fargo Arena (Tempe) Wells Fargo Arena is a 10,754-seat multi-purpose arena at 634 E Veterans Way in Tempe, Arizona, USA, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona.Constructed in the spring of 1974 as the as the Arizona State University Activity Center and at the cost of $8 million, the facility also plays host to graduation... |
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| 12 April 1992 | Los Angeles | Sports Arena Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena The Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena is a multi-purpose arena, in the University Park neighborhood, of Los Angeles, California, at Exposition Park. It is located next to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, just south of the campus of the University of Southern California.-History:The Los Angeles... |
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| 13 April 1992 | ||||
| 15 April 1992 | San Diego | San Diego Sports Arena | ||
| 17 April 1992 | Sacramento Sacramento Sacramento is the capital of the state of California, in the United States of America.Sacramento may also refer to:- United States :*Sacramento County, California*Sacramento, Kentucky*Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta... |
Arco Arena ARCO Arena Power Balance Pavilion is an indoor arena, located in the Natomas area of Sacramento, California. It is the home of the NBA's Sacramento Kings.-Background:... |
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| 18 April 1992 | Oakland Oakland, California Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724... |
Oakland Coliseum Arena | ||
| 20 April 1992 | Tacoma Tacoma, Washington Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to... |
Tacoma Dome Tacoma Dome The Tacoma Dome is an indoor arena located in Tacoma, Washington, USA, approximately 30 miles south of Seattle.-History:... |
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| 21 April 1992 | ||||
| 23 April 1992 | Vancouver | Canada | Pacific Coliseum Pacific Coliseum Pacific Coliseum is an indoor arena, at Hastings Park, in Vancouver, British Columbia.Completed in 1968, at the former site of the Pacific National Exhibition, the arena currently holds 16,281, for ice hockey, though capacity at its opening was 15,713.... |
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| Leg 2: arenas in Europe | ||||
| 7 May 1992 | Paris | France | Palais Omnisports Bercy Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy Opened in 1984, Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, often abbreviated as POPB or Bercy, is an indoor sports arena on boulevard de Bercy located in the 12th arrondissement of Paris... |
The Fatima Mansions |
| 9 May 1992 | Ghent Ghent Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of... |
Belgium | Flanders Expo Flanders Expo Flanders Expo is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Ghent, Belgium. Flanders Expo is founded in 1986. The first CEO was Marc Mortier from 1986 till 2002. Flanders Expo is the biggest event hall in Flanders, and the second biggest in Belgium. A lot of big fairs take place.Till 2002, a lot of concerts... |
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| 11 May 1992 | Lyon Lyon Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais.... |
France | Halle Tony Garnier Halle Tony Garnier The Halle Tony Garnier is a concert hall in Lyon, France.-Capacity:The maximum seated capacity is approximatively 8,000 spectators. For large events, the maximum capacity including standing can reach 16,500 people - making it the third biggest venue in France after the Palais Omnisports de... |
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| 12 May 1992 | Lausanne Lausanne Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west... |
Switzerland | CIG de Malley CIG de Malley Centre Intercommunal de Glace de Malley is an Indoor arena in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is primarily used for ice hockey, and is the home arena of the HC Lausanne. CIG de Malley opened in 1984 and holds 9,000 people, although because most of the arena consists of terraces a maximum of 12,000... |
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| 14 May 1992 | San Sebastian San Sebastián Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its... |
Spain | Velodrome Anoeta Velodromo de Anoeta The Velódromo de Anoeta is an indoor arena in San Sebastián, Spain. The arena holds 5,500 spectators.It is primarily used for indoor athletics, motocross events and concerts.... |
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| 16 May 1992 | Barcelona Barcelona Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of... |
Palau Sant Jordi Palau Sant Jordi Palau Sant Jordi is an indoor sporting arena and multi-purpose installation that is part of the Olympic Ring complex located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain... |
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| 18 May 1992 | ||||
| 21 May 1992 | Milan Milan Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,... |
Italy | Fila Forum | |
| 22 May 1992 | ||||
| 24 May 1992 | Vienna Vienna Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre... |
Austria | Donauinsel Donauinsel The Donauinsel is a long, narrow island, in central Vienna, Austria, between the Danube river and the parallel excavated channel Neue Donau . The island is 21.1 km in length, but is only 70–210 metres broad... |
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| 25 May 1992 | Munich Munich Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat... |
Germany | Olympiahalle Olympiahalle Olympiahalle is a multi-purpose arena in Munich, Germany, part of the Olympic Park and close to the Olympic Stadium.The arena is used for concerts, sporting events, exhibitions or trade fairs. In the past, it served as a part-time home for the defunct ice hockey team EC Hedos München... |
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| 27 May 1992 | Zurich Zürich Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich... |
Switzerland | Hallenstadion Hallenstadion The Hallenstadion is a multi-purpose facility, in the Swiss city of Zurich.Designed by Bruno Giacometti, it opened on July 18, 1939, and was renovated in 2005.... |
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| 29 May 1992 | Frankfurt Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010... |
Germany | Festhalle Festhalle Frankfurt The Festhalle Frankfurt in Frankfurt, Germany in Frankfurt is a representative Built in 1907 and 1908 multi-purpose hall at the Frankfurt Exhibition Centre. The interior of about 40 metres high dome provides an area of 5646 square metres up to 4880 seats... |
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| 31 May 1992 | London | United Kingdom | Earls Court Exhibition Centre Earls Court Exhibition Centre The Earls Court Exhibition Centre is an exhibition centre, conference and event venue located in west London, United Kingdom in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea . It is the largest exhibition venue in central London. It is served by two underground stations, Earl's Court and West... |
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| 1 June 1992 | Birmingham Birmingham Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a... |
National Exhibition Centre National Exhibition Centre The National Exhibition Centre is an exhibition centre in Birmingham, England. It is near junction 6 of the M42 motorway, and is adjacent to Birmingham International Airport and Birmingham International railway station. It has 20 interconnected halls, set in grounds of 628 acres making it the... |
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| 4 June 1992 | Dortmund Dortmund Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union.... |
Germany | Westfalenhalle Westfalenhalle Westfalenhallen are three multi-purpose venues, located in Dortmund, Germany. The original building was opened in 1925, but was destroyed during World War II. New halls were built, the Große Westfalenhalle opened in 1952. The capacity of the arena is 16,500... |
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| 5 June 1992 | ||||
| 8 June 1992 | Gothenburg Gothenburg Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area... |
Sweden | Scandinavium Scandinavium Scandinavium is the primary indoor sports and event arena in Gothenburg, Sweden. Construction on Scandinavium began in 1969 after decades of setbacks, the arena was built in time for the 350th year anniversary celebration of the City of Gothenburg and was inaugurated on May 18, 1971.Scandinavium... |
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| 10 June 1992 | Stockholm Stockholm Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area... |
Globen | ||
| 11 June 1992 | ||||
| 13 June 1992 | Kiel Kiel Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the... |
Germany | Sparkassen-Arena | |
| 15 June 1992 | Rotterdam Rotterdam Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre... |
Netherlands | Ahoy | |
| 17 June 1992 | Sheffield Sheffield Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely... |
United Kingdom | Arena | |
| 18 June 1992 | Glasgow Glasgow Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands... |
SECC Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre The Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre , located on the north bank of the River Clyde, in Glasgow, is Scotland's largest exhibition centre.... |
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| 19 June 1992 | Manchester Manchester Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater... |
GMEX Centre | ||
| Leg 3: stadiums in North America ("Outside Broadcast") | ||||
| 7 August 1992 | Hershey Hershey, Pennsylvania Hershey is a census-designated place in Derry Township, Dauphin County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The community is located 14 miles east of Harrisburg and is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. Hershey has no legal status as an incorporated municipality... |
United States | Hersheypark Stadium Hersheypark Stadium Hersheypark Stadium is a stadium, located in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on the grounds of Hersheypark. The General Manager is Frank O'Connell.It is used as a sporting facility, concert venue and location for various other large functions . In addition, it hosted the 2004 Presidential Race Campaign stop... |
WNOC |
| 12 August 1992 | East Rutherford | Giants Stadium Giants Stadium Giants Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium, located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Maximum seating capacity was 80,242. The building itself was 230.5 m long, 180.5 m wide and 44 m high from service level to the top of the seating bowl and 54 m high to... |
Primus Primus (band) Primus is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, currently composed of bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde and drummer Jay Lane. Primus originally formed in 1984 with Claypool and guitarist Todd Huth, later joined by Lane, though the latter two departed... , Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy |
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| 13 August 1992 | ||||
| 15 August 1992 | Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution.... |
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, in Washington, D.C., United States, and the current home of MLS's D.C. United.... |
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| 16 August 1992 | ||||
| 18 August 1992 | Saratoga Springs Saratoga Springs, New York Saratoga Springs, also known as simply Saratoga, is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 26,586 at the 2010 census. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area. While the word "Saratoga" is known to be a corruption of a Native American name, ... |
Saratoga Gaming and Raceway | ||
| 20 August 1992 | Foxborough Foxborough, Massachusetts -Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 16,246 people, 6,141 households, and 4,396 families residing in the town. The population density was 809.1 people per square mile . There were 6,299 housing units at an average density of 313.7 per square mile... |
Foxboro Stadium Foxboro Stadium Foxboro Stadium was an outdoor stadium, located in Foxborough, Massachusetts... |
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| 22 August 1992 | ||||
| 23 August 1992 | ||||
| 25 August 1992 | Pittsburgh | Three Rivers Stadium Three Rivers Stadium Three Rivers Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1970 to 2000. It was home to the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the city's Major League Baseball franchise and National Football League franchise respectively.Built as a replacement to... |
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| 27 August 1992 | Montreal | Canada | Olympic Stadium Olympic Stadium (Montreal) The Olympic Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada built as the main venue for the 1976 Summer Olympics... |
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| 29 August 1992 | New York City | United States | Yankee Stadium | |
| 30 August 1992 | ||||
| 2 September 1992 | Philadelphia | Veterans Stadium Veterans Stadium Philadelphia Veterans Stadium was a professional-sports, multi-purpose stadium, located at the northeast corner of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex... |
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| 3 September 1992 | ||||
| 5 September 1992 | Toronto | Canada | Exhibition Stadium Exhibition Stadium Canadian National Exhibition Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium, that formerly stood on the Exhibition Place grounds, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.... |
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| 6 September 1992 | ||||
| 9 September 1992 | Pontiac Pontiac, Michigan Pontiac is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan named after the Ottawa Chief Pontiac, located within the Detroit metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 59,515. It is the county seat of Oakland County... |
United States | Pontiac Silverdome Pontiac Silverdome The Silverdome is a domed stadium located in the city of Pontiac, Michigan, USA, which sits on . It was the largest stadium in the National Football League until FedEx Field in suburban Washington, D.C... |
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| 11 September 1992 | Ames Ames, Iowa Ames is a city located in the central part of the U.S. state of Iowa in Story County, and approximately north of Des Moines. The U.S. Census Bureau designates that Ames, Iowa metropolitan statistical area as encompassing all of Story County, and which, when combined with the Boone, Iowa... |
Cyclone Stadium | ||
| 13 September 1992 | Madison Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison.... |
Camp Randall Stadium Camp Randall Stadium Camp Randall Stadium is an outdoor stadium in Madison, Wisconsin. It has been the home of the Wisconsin Badgers football team in rudimentary form since 1895, and as a complete stadium since 1917. It is located on the center-southern region of the University of Wisconsin campus. The stadium seats... |
Big Audio Dynamite II, Public Enemy |
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| 15 September 1992 | Tinley Park Tinley Park, Illinois Tinley Park is a village located primarily in Cook County, Illinois, United States with a small portion in Will County. The population was 48,401 at the 2000 census, and 58,322 in the 2007 census. It is one of the fastest growing suburbs south of Chicago... |
First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre is an outdoor music venue, in Chicago's southwest suburb of Tinley Park, Illinois, that opened in 1990. It is one of the largest music venues in the Chicago area, with capacities of up to 28,000 spectators... |
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| 16 September 1992 | ||||
| 18 September 1992 | ||||
| 20 September 1992 | St. Louis St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St... |
Busch Memorial Stadium Busch Memorial Stadium Busch Memorial Stadium, also known as Busch Stadium, was a multi-purpose sports facility in St. Louis, Missouri that operated from 1966 to 2005.... |
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| 23 September 1992 | Columbia Columbia, South Carolina Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan... |
Williams-Brice Stadium Williams-Brice Stadium Williams-Brice Stadium is the home football stadium for the South Carolina Gamecocks, the college football team representing the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina... |
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| 25 September 1992 | Atlanta | Georgia Dome Georgia Dome The Georgia Dome is a domed stadium located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west. It is primarily the home stadium for the NFL Atlanta Falcons and the NCAA Division I FCS Georgia State Panthers football team. It is owned and operated by the... |
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| 3 October 1992 | Miami Gardens Miami Gardens, Florida Miami Gardens is a Miami suburban city located in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The city name comes from one of the major roadways through the area, Miami Gardens Drive. According to the 2010 U.S... |
Joe Robbie Stadium | ||
| 7 October 1992 | Birmingham Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S... |
Legion Field Legion Field Legion Field is a large stadium in Birmingham, Alabama, United States, primarily designed to be used as a venue for American football, but is occasionally used for other large outdoor events. The stadium is named in honor of the American Legion, a U.S. organization of military veterans. At its peak... |
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| 10 October 1992 | Tampa Tampa, Florida Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709.... |
Tampa Stadium | ||
| 14 October 1992 | Houston | Houston Astrodome Reliant Astrodome Reliant Astrodome, also known as the Houston Astrodome or simply the Astrodome, is the world's first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium, located in Houston, Texas, USA. The stadium is part of the Reliant Park complex... |
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| 16 October 1992 | Irving Irving, Texas Irving is a city located in the U.S. state of Texas within Dallas County. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city population was 216,290. Irving is within the Dallas–Plano–Irving metropolitan division of the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area, designated... |
Texas Stadium Texas Stadium Texas Stadium was a football stadium in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The stadium opened on September 17, 1971.Built to replace the aging Cotton Bowl, it was the home field of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, and had a seating capacity of 65,675... |
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| 18 October 1992 | Kansas City Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties... |
Arrowhead Stadium Arrowhead Stadium Arrowhead Stadium is a stadium located in Kansas City, Missouri and home to the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs.... |
The Sugarcubes The Sugarcubes The Sugarcubes were an Icelandic alternative rock band formed in 1986 and disbanded in 1992. They received critical and popular acclaim internationally.-History:... , Public Enemy |
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| 21 October 1992 | Denver | Mile High Stadium Mile High Stadium Mile High Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium, that stood in Denver, Colorado, from 1948 until 2001.It hosted the Denver Broncos, of the AFL and the NFL, from 1960-2000, the Colorado Rockies, of the National League, of the MLB, from 1993-1994, the Colorado Rapids, of MLS, from 1996-2001, the... |
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| 24 October 1992 | Tempe | Sun Devil Stadium Sun Devil Stadium Sun Devil Stadium is an outdoor football stadium, located on the campus of Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona, United States. The stadium's current seating capacity is 71,706 and the playing surface is natural grass... |
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| 27 October 1992 | El Paso El Paso, Texas El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States... |
Sun Bowl Stadium Sun Bowl Stadium The Sun Bowl is an outdoor football stadium, on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso. It is home to the UTEP Miners of Conference USA , and the late December college football bowl game, the Hyundai Sun Bowl... |
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| 30 October 1992 | Los Angeles | Dodger Stadium Dodger Stadium Dodger Stadium, also sometimes called Chavez Ravine, is a stadium in Los Angeles. Located adjacent to Downtown Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium has been the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers team since 1962... |
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| 31 October 1992 | ||||
| 3 November 1992 | Vancouver | Canada | BC Place Stadium BC Place Stadium BC Place is a multi-purpose stadium located at the north side of False Creek, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the home field for the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League and the Vancouver Whitecaps FC of Major League Soccer . Originally opened on June 19, 1983 as the... |
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| 4 November 1992 | ||||
| 7 November 1992 | Oakland | United States | Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum | |
| 10 November 1992 | San Diego | Jack Murphy Stadium | ||
| 12 November 1992 | Whitney Whitney, Nevada Whitney is an unincorporated town in Clark County, Nevada, United States. The population was 18,273 at the 2000 census.-Background:... |
Sam Boyd Stadium Sam Boyd Stadium Sam Boyd Stadium is a football stadium located in Whitney, Nevada, an unincorporated community in the Las Vegas metropolitan area; the mailing address of the stadium is "Las Vegas". The stadium is named after Sam Boyd, a major figure in the hotel/casino industry in Las Vegas. The stadium consists... |
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| 14 November 1992 | Anaheim Anaheim, California Anaheim is a city in Orange County, California. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was about 365,463, making it the most populated city in Orange County, the 10th most-populated city in California, and ranked 54th in the United States... |
Anaheim Stadium | ||
| 21 November 1992 | Mexico City | Mexico | Palacio de los Deportes Palacio de los Deportes Palacio de los Deportes is an indoor arena, located in Mexico City, Mexico, within the sports complex Magdalena Mixhuca Sports City, near the Mexico City International Airport and the Foro Sol, in which sports and artistic events are also celebrated. It is operated by Grupo CIE... |
Big Audio Dynamite II |
| 22 November 1992 | ||||
| 24 November 1992 | ||||
| 25 November 1992 | ||||
| Leg 4: stadiums in Europe ("Zooropa") | ||||
| 9 May 1993 | Rotterdam Rotterdam Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre... |
Netherlands | Feijenoord Stadion Feijenoord Stadion The Feijenoord Stadion, better known by its nickname De Kuip , is a stadium in Rotterdam, Netherlands that was completed in 1937. The name is derived from the area "Feijenoord" in Rotterdam, and from the club with the same name .Capacity at completion: 64,000. Maximum capacity: 69,000... |
Utah Saints Utah Saints Utah Saints is a dance band based in Leeds, England. The music is produced by Jez Willis and Tim Garbutt, who are joined on-stage by other musicians whenever the band plays live... , Claw Boys Claw Claw Boys Claw Claw Boys Claw are a Dutch rock and roll band, formed in Amsterdam. The core members of the band are Peter Te Bos and John Cameron . The band released eight full-length albums between 1983 and 1997... |
| 10 May 1993 | Einstürzende Neubauten Einstürzende Neubauten Einstürzende Neubauten is a German post-industrial band, originally from West Berlin, formed in 1980. The group currently comprises Blixa Bargeld , Alexander Hacke , N.U... , Claw Boys Claw |
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| 11 May 1993 | Claw Boys Claw | |||
| 15 May 1993 | Lisbon Lisbon Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban... |
Portugal | Estádio José Alvalade | Utah Saints |
| 19 May 1993 | Oviedo Oviedo Oviedo is the capital city of the Principality of Asturias in northern Spain. It is also the name of the municipality that contains the city.... |
Spain | Estadio Carlos Tartiere Estadio Carlos Tartiere Estadio Municipal Carlos Tartiere, generally referred to as Nuevo Carlos Tartiere , is a multi-use stadium in Oviedo, Spain. It holds 30,500 spectators and replaced the former stadium of the same name, built in 1932.... |
Utah Saints, The Ramones |
| 22 May 1993 | Madrid Madrid Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan... |
Estadio Vicente Calderon | ||
| 26 May 1993 | Nantes Nantes Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants.... |
France | Stade de la Beaujoire Stade de la Beaujoire The Stade de la Beaujoire - Louis Fonteneau, or "Stade de la Beaujoire", is a stadium in Nantes, France. It is the home of the FC Nantes football club.... |
Urban Dance Squad Urban Dance Squad Urban Dance Squad was a Dutch rap rock band formed after what was originally intended as a one-time jam-session at a festival in Utrecht on December 20, 1986... , Utah Saints |
| 29 May 1993 | Werchter Werchter Werchter is a small village in Belgium, belonging to the municipality of Rotselaar. It is site of the festival Rock Werchter. The origin of the place name is unknown but it's thought to be a watername.It is the birthplace of painter Cornelius Van Leemputten.... |
Belgium | Festival Grounds | Stereo MCs Stereo MCs Stereo MCs are an English electronic dance group, which formed in Clapham, London in 1985. They are best known worldwide for their 1992 transatlantic Top 20 hit single, "Connected"... , Urban Dance Squad |
| 2 June 1993 | Frankfurt Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010... |
Germany | Waldstadion Commerzbank-Arena The Commerzbank-Arena is a sports stadium in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. Commonly known by its original name, Waldstadion , the stadium opened in 1925. The stadium has been upgraded several times since then; the most recent remodelling was its redevelopment as a football-only stadium in preparation... |
Stereo MCs, Die Toten Hosen Die Toten Hosen Die Toten Hosen is a German punk band from Düsseldorf. They have enjoyed decades-long mass appeal in Germany.The band's name literally means "The Dead Pants" in English, although the phrase "tote Hose" is a German expression meaning "nothing going on" or "boring"... |
| 4 June 1993 | Munich Munich Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat... |
Olympiastadion Olympic Stadium (Munich) Olympiastadion is a stadium located in Munich, Germany. Situated at the heart of the Olympiapark München in northern Munich, the stadium was built as the main venue for the 1972 Summer Olympics.... |
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| 6 June 1993 | Stuttgart Stuttgart Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million .... |
Cannstatter Wasen Cannstatter Wasen The Cannstatter Wasen is a 35 hectare festival area on the banks of the Neckar river in the part of Stuttgart known as Bad Cannstatt.The Cannstatter Wasen form part of the Neckar Park Fairground.... |
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| 9 June 1993 | Bremen Bremen The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is... |
Weserstadion Weserstadion The Weserstadion is a multi-purpose stadium in Bremen, Germany. The stadium is scenically situated on the north bank of the Weser River and is surrounded by lush green parks . The city center is only about a kilometer away... |
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| 12 June 1993 | Cologne Cologne Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the... |
Müngersdorferstadion RheinEnergieStadion The RheinEnergieStadion is a football stadium in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was built on the site of the two previous Müngersdorfer stadiums. It is the home of the local Bundesliga team, 1. FC Köln. The stadium was one of the 12 hosting the 2006 FIFA World Cup... |
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| 15 June 1993 | Berlin | Olympiastadion Olympic Stadium (Berlin) The Olympiastadion is a sports stadium in Berlin, Germany. There have been two stadiums on the site: the present facility, and one that is called the Deutsches Stadion which was built for the aborted 1916 Summer Olympics. Both were designed by members of the same family, the first by Otto March... |
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| 23 June 1993 | Strasbourg Strasbourg Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,... |
France | Stade de la Meinau Stade de la Meinau The Stade de la Meinau, commonly known as "La Meinau" is a football stadium in Strasbourg, France. It is the home ground of RC Strasbourg and has also hosted international matches, including one game of World cup 1938, two games of Euro 1984 and the final of the Cup Winners' Cup in 1988. La Meinau... |
Stereo MCs, The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited... |
| 26 June 1993 | Paris | Hippodrome de Vincennes Hippodrome de Vincennes The Hippodrome de Vincennes is located in Paris, France. It is used for horse racing. It has a capacity of 60,000. It was created in 1863 and rebuilt in 1879, after being destroyed in the 1870 War.It has been used for concerts as well, hosting:... |
Belly Belly (band) Belly was an alternative rock band formed in 1991 by former Throwing Muses members Tanya Donelly and Fred Abong. The band was based in Boston, Massachusetts, though all of the original members grew up in Newport, Rhode Island. The band consisted of Donelly on lead vocals and guitar, Abong on bass,... , The Velvet Underground |
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| 28 June 1993 | Lausanne Lausanne Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west... |
Switzerland | Stade Olympique de la Pontaise Stade Olympique de la Pontaise Stade Olympique de la Pontaise is a multi-purpose stadium in Lausanne, Switzerland. The stadium holds 15,850 people and was built in 1904.During the 1954 FIFA World Cup, the stadium hosted five games.It is used mostly for football matches... |
The Velvet Underground |
| 30 June 1993 | Basel Basel Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany... |
St. Jakob Stadium St. Jakob Stadium The St. Jakob Stadium was a football stadium in Basel, Switzerland and the former home of Swiss club FC Basel. It was built in 1954, and as well as serving as a club stadium, it hosted several important matches, including a 1954 FIFA World Cup semi-final and four Cup Winners' Cup finals.Tickets and... |
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| 2 July 1993 | Verona Verona Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona... |
Italy | Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi | An Emotional Fish, Pearl Jam Pearl Jam Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready... |
| 3 July 1993 | ||||
| 6 July 1993 | Rome | Stadio Flaminio Stadio Flaminio The Stadio Flaminio is a stadium in Rome. It lies along the Via Flaminia, three kilometres northwest of the city centre, 300 metres away from the Parco di Villa Glori.... |
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| 7 July 1993 | ||||
| 9 July 1993 | Naples Naples Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples... |
Stadio San Paolo Stadio San Paolo Stadio San Paolo is a multi-purpose stadium in the western suburb of Fuorigrotta in Naples, Italy, and is the third largest football stadium in Italy after the San Siro and Stadio Olimpico. For the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, it hosted the football preliminaries. It is currently used mostly for... |
The Velvet Underground | |
| 12 July 1993 | Turin Turin Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat... |
Stadio Delle Alpi Stadio delle Alpi The Stadio delle Alpi was a football and athletics stadium in Turin, Italy and was the home of both Juventus Football Club and Torino Football Club between 1990 and 2006. In English, the name meant "Stadium of the Alps," a reference to the nearby Alps mountain range... |
An Emotional Fish, Ligabue Ligabue Ligabue is a surname, and may refer to:*Antonio Ligabue , Italian naïve painter*Luciano Ligabue , Italian singer, songwriter, book writer and film director... |
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| 14 July 1993 | Marseille Marseille Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of... |
France | Stade Velodrome Stade Vélodrome The Stade Vélodrome is a football stadium in Marseille, France. It is home to the Olympique de Marseille football club of Ligue 1, and was a venue in the 1998 FIFA World Cup and the 2007 Rugby World Cup. It is the largest club-football ground in France, with a capacity of 60,031 spectators,... |
An Emotional Fish |
| 17 July 1993 | Bologna Bologna Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,... |
Italy | Stadio Renato Dall'Ara Stadio Renato Dall'Ara Stadio Renato Dall'Ara is a multi-purpose stadium in Bologna, Italy. It is currently used mostly for football matches and the home of Bologna F.C. 1909. The stadium was built in 1927 and holds 38,279... |
An Emotional Fish, Galliano Galliano (band) Galliano were a London-based acid jazz group, which started in 1988. The group was the first signing to Eddie Piller and Gilles Peterson's Talkin' Loud label. The original members were Rob Gallagher , Constantine Weir , Michael Snaith , and Crispin Robinson... |
| 18 July 1993 | ||||
| 23 July 1993 | Budapest Budapest Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter... |
Hungary | Stadium Puskás Ferenc Stadium Puskás Ferenc Ferenc Puskás Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Budapest, Hungary. It is situated on the Pest side of the capital between the Stadionok and the Keleti Palyaudvar metro stations. It is currently used mainly for football matches. The stadium is going to be demolished sometime in 2012 and... |
Ákos |
| 27 July 1993 | Copenhagen Copenhagen Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region... |
Denmark | Gentofte Stadion Gentofte Stadion Gentofte Stadion is a multi-purpose stadium in Gentofte, Denmark . The stadium holds 15,000 people... |
PJ Harvey PJ Harvey Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in... , Stereo MCs |
| 29 July 1993 | Oslo Oslo Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King... |
Norway | Valle Hovin Stadion | |
| 31 July 1993 | Stockholm Stockholm Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area... |
Sweden | Stockholm Olympic Stadium | |
| 3 August 1993 | Nijmegen | Netherlands | Goffertpark Goffertpark The Goffertpark is an outdoor concert venue, located in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. In the park, there's also the stadium of NEC Nijmegen.Artists, including AC/DC, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Bon Jovi, Coldplay, Deftones, Guns N' Roses, Kings of Leon, KISS, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Metallica,... |
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| 7 August 1993 | Glasgow Glasgow Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands... |
United Kingdom | Celtic Park Celtic Park Celtic Park is a football stadium in the Parkhead area of Glasgow, which is the home ground of Celtic FC. Celtic Park, an all-seater stadium with a capacity of 60,832, is the largest football stadium in Scotland and the sixth-largest stadium in the United Kingdom, after Murrayfield, Old Trafford,... |
Utah Saints, PJ Harvey |
| 8 August 1993 | Utah Saints, Stereo MCs | |||
| 11 August 1993 | London | Wembley Stadium | PJ Harvey, Big Audio Dynamite II | |
| 12 August 1993 | ||||
| 14 August 1993 | Leeds Leeds Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial... |
Roundhay Park Roundhay Park Roundhay Park in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is one of the biggest city parks in Europe. It has over of parkland, lakes, woodland and gardens which are owned by Leeds City Council. The park is one of the most popular attractions in Leeds, nearly a million people visit each year... |
Marxman Marxman Marxman were a four-piece Marxist hip-hop group with two MCs formed in London in 1989.Their lyrics expounded socialism and an end to economic and social injustice... , Stereo MCs |
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| 18 August 1993 | Cardiff Cardiff Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for... |
Cardiff Arms Park Cardiff Arms Park Cardiff Arms Park , also known as The Arms Park, is primarily known as a rugby union stadium, but it also has a bowling green, and is situated in the centre of Cardiff, Wales. The Arms Park was host to the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in 1958, and hosted four games in the 1991 Rugby World... |
Utah Saints, Stereo MCs | |
| 20 August 1993 | London | Wembley Stadium | ||
| 21 August 1993 | Björk Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk... , Stereo MCs |
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| 24 August 1993 | Cork Cork (city) Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban... |
Ireland Republic of Ireland Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,... |
Pairc Ui Chaoimh Páirc Uí Chaoimh Páirc Uí Chaoimh is a Gaelic Athletic Association stadium in the Ballintemple area of Cork in Ireland, where major hurling and Gaelic football matches are played. It is the home of Cork GAA... |
Engine Alley, Utah Saints |
| 27 August 1993 | Dublin | RDS Arena RDS Arena RDS Arena is a multi-purpose sports stadium, owned by the Royal Dublin Society and located in the Dublin suburb of Ballsbridge, Ireland.The arena was originally developed to host equestrian events, including the annual Dublin Horse Show, which was first held there in 1868. The site was acquired in... |
Marxman, The Golden Horde The Golden Horde (band) The Golden Horde were a rock, punk, psychedelic band based in Dublin, Ireland. The most renowned line-up of the band was: Peter O'Kennedy, John Connor, Sam Steiger, Des O' Byrne, and Simon Carmody, although at the very first live performance, there were 13 band members on stage.Their first... |
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| 28 August 1993 | Scary Éire, Stereo MCs | |||
| Leg 5: stadiums in Australasia ("Zoomerang/New Zooland") | ||||
| 12 November 1993 | Melbourne Melbourne Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater... |
Australia | Melbourne Cricket Ground Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light... |
Big Audio Dynamite II, Kim Salmon and the Surrealists Kim Salmon and the Surrealists Kim Salmon and the Surrealists were an Australian indie rock band formed by Kim Salmon in 1987 when he was living in Perth between the final two tours by The Scientists... |
| 13 November 1993 | ||||
| 16 November 1993 | Adelaide Adelaide Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million... |
Football Park | ||
| 20 November 1993 | Brisbane Brisbane Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of... |
Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre The Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre , more commonly known by its former names ANZ Stadium or QE II, is a major sporting facility on the south side of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia... |
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| 26 November 1993 | Sydney | Sydney Football Stadium | ||
| 27 November 1993 | ||||
| 1 December 1993 | Christchurch Christchurch Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of... |
New Zealand | Lancaster Park | 3Ds The 3Ds The 3Ds were an alternative pop/rock band based from Dunedin, New Zealand, together from 1988 to 1997. The band was formed in May 1988 by* Dominic Stones — drums,* Denise Roughan — bass, keyboards, tambourine, vocals... , Big Audio Dynamite II |
| 4 December 1993 | Auckland Auckland The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world... |
Western Springs Stadium Western Springs Stadium Western Springs Stadium is an entertainment venue in Auckland, New Zealand, that consists of a natural amphitheatre. During the winter it is used for club rugby union matches and over summer it is used for speedway. It is also occasionally used for large music concerts and festivals.Western Springs... |
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| 9 December 1993 | Tokyo | Japan | Tokyo Dome Tokyo Dome Tokyo Dome is a 55,000-seat baseball stadium located in Bunkyo Ward of Tokyo, Japan.The stadium opened for business on March 17, 1988. It was built on the site of the Velodrome which was next door to the site of the predecessor ballpark, Kōrakuen Stadium... |
Big Audio Dynamite II |
| 10 December 1993 | ||||