LOVETOWN TOUR

1989 -1990

Film director Phil Joanu had accompanied U2 throughout The Joshua Tree Tour, filming both their gigs and the band’s own explorations of American roots music as the caravan made its way across the US. The plan proved to be a good one: there would be a film and a live album to capture what it was like out there on the road and to further burnish the growing sense that this was a band of seismic importance. U2’s Jimmy Iovine-produced live album Rattle And Hum was released on October 10, 1988, and Joanu’s accompanying rockumentary of the same name came out a fortnight later.

The movie didn’t do the business in cinemas, grossing just $8.6million (Rolling Stone described it as “misguided and bombastic”) at the box-office, but the album sold 14 million copies. Lead single ‘Desire’ became U2’s first-ever UK No.1, and also reached No. 3 in the US. And the album as a whole, including a powerful collection of new songs as well as blistering live performances of earlier material, reflected the fact that U2 had successfully embraced soul, gospel, folk, blues and the other tributaries that had led to rock ’n’ roll music.

Launched to coincide with Rattle And Hum, The Lovetown Tour – featuring the great blues man B. B. King – was deliberately scaled back and limited in scope, but reached all the places that the Joshua Tree Tour had missed (there wasn’t a single show in the United States). The 47-date, mainly indoors tour opened at the Entertainment Centre in Perth on September 21, 1989, and U2 played a remarkable total of 23 concerts in Australia. Lovetown also visited New Zealand and Japan, before returning to Europe for four weeks, finally ending on January 10, 1990, at the Sport Palais Ahoy in Rotterdam.

The tour had in fact been scheduled to close in Dublin’s Point Depot (now the 3Arena) at the end of 1989, but Bono developed throat problems, forcing two of the Dutch gigs to be postponed and switched from Amsterdam to Rotterdam. The Point show, on December 31, 1989, was broadcast live on RTÉ nationally and on BBC radio around the world. It was during this performance that Bono famously made an onstage comment that caused many fans to fear that the band was about to split up: “I was explaining to people the other night, but I might’ve got it a bit wrong – this is just the end of something for U2. And that’s why we’re playing these concerts – and we’re throwing a party for ourselves and you. It’s no big deal, it’s just we have to go away and… and dream it all up again.”

SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘When Love Comes To Town’

ZOO TV TOUR

1992-1993

U2 certainly did dream it all up again, but nobody could’ve anticipated the complete artistic reinvention that came with Achtung Baby! and the Zoo TV Tour. If The Joshua Tree and Rattle And Hum saw the band exploring the musical past, their seventh album saw them diving headlong into the future. Released late in 1991, the Eno/Lanois produced Achtung Baby! was once famously described by Bono as “the sound of four men chopping down the Joshua Tree.”

The Zoo TV Tour was intended to mirror their unexpected new musical direction and totally deviate from the past. A full-on sensory overload, it most certainly did that. Rattle And Hum had led to critical accusations of earnestness – and even pompousness – but, while the new music was dark, their image on the Zoo TV Tour was deliberately lighthearted and self-deprecating.

Comprising five legs and 157 shows, and selling 5.3 million tickets, it kicked off in Lakeland, Florida, on February 29, 1992, and finished in Tokyo on December 10, 1993. Willie Williams outdid himself. Inspired by the desensitising effect of mass media, the stage featured dozens of large video screens that displayed visual effects, video clips and flashing text phrases, in the form of aphorisms (‘EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG’; ‘THIS IS NOT A REHEARSAL’; ‘EVOLUTION IS OVER’, etc.). The lighting system was partially made up of Trabant cars. Channel-surfing, prank phone calls, video confessionals, a belly dancer and, most controversially, live satellite link ups to war-torn Sarajevo were incorporated into the shows. Larry Mullen wasn’t too happy about the Sarajevo calls. “I can’t remember anything more excruciating than those Sarajevo link-ups,” he later said. “It was like throwing a bucket of cold water over everybody. You could see the audience going, ‘What the fuck are these guys doing?’ But I’m proud to have been part of a group who were trying to do something.”

Bono has described himself as more of an actor than a singer, and he really came into his own on this tour. His onstage personae included leather-clad egomaniac The Fly, greedy televangelist Mirror Ball Man, and the devilish MacPhisto (in which guise he greeted Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie – against whom a fatwa had been declared by the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini – onstage in Wembley in August 1993). Obviously on a creative high, the band flew back to Dublin regularly and recorded experimental 1993 album Zooropa during breaks on the Zoo TV Tour. This was also the tour that finally brought home to the hard-partying Adam Clayton that it was time to stop. Scheduled to play two nights at Sydney Football Stadium in November 1993, to be filmed for a live DVD, he was too “unwell” to perform. His bass roadie took his place, with Adam returning for the second night. It was a serious wake-up call. “I think every addict convinces themselves – and everyone else – that it’s going to be different next time,” he later told Hot Press. “In my own case, I was able to drink in a way that was destructive and detrimental to my health – but I was always able to do the gig. Until I couldn’t do the gig. You’re in the lucky position of working in music and getting to entertain people… That was a pretty awful feeling and you promise yourself it’ll never happen again. I was lucky – I realised that if I didn’t do something about it, I’d lose everything. I’d run out of excuses.” He’s been clean and sober ever since.

SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘One’

POPMART TOUR

1997-1998

U2 had risked bankruptcy by self-financing the massively expensive Zoo TV Tour. And the truth is that they had almost gone under. For their next major outing, they decided to seek a corporate sponsor to support it. In the end, however, a $100million deal was done with Toronto-based promoter Michael Cohl. Cohl had organised the Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge Tour – which had generated $240million (making it the highest grossing tour in history at the time). He expected U2 to sell between five and six million tickets to 100 shows, and for PopMart to generate $260million. So the pressure was really on. Problem was that the band, who had begun experimenting with dance and techno (and were working with a number of new producers), were having serious trouble finishing their Pop album. The tour had already been fully booked, and the elaborate staging had been built: Willie Williams’ designs included a 50-metre wide LED screen, a 30-metre high golden arch, and a massive mirror-ball lemon.

Following on from the irony-overload of Zoo TV, the intention of PopMart was to poke fun at the themes of consumerism and pop culture (they announced details of the tour at a press conference in a New York Kmart discount store). Occasionally, however, it was the band people were poking fun at – most especially on that Spinal Tap-ish night in Vegas when they got stuck in the giant lemon after its mechanics failed.

With the stadiums all booked, they wound up having to rush-release the album in March 1997, before they were entirely happy with it, and they were also forced to rush their rehearsals. As a result, both the album and the tour attracted more negative criticism than U2 had ever experienced – except perhaps in Dublin during their early days! The PopMart Tour had five legs – taking U2 to South America, South Africa and Israel for the first time – and its 93 shows sold about 3.9 million tickets. It was the second-highest grossing tour of 1997, but there was a feeling of under-achievement, and above all the band weren’t happy. Bono later stated that booking the tour before the album was properly finished was probably the worst decision that U2 had ever made.

SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘Please’

ELEVATION TOUR

2001

Following the sheer extravagance of Zoo TV and PopMart, U2 decided to go back to basics for their next outing, All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Their egos were probably a bit dented, but certainly not their ambition. Produced mainly by the trusted team of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, the album itself was a more straightforward collection of songs, with Edge reviving his early guitar sound for the opening track and first single ‘Beautiful Day’ (brushed up for release by Steve Lillywhite).

Bruised by the sometimes poor reception of PopMart, and the relatively low sales of Pop – still their worst-selling album since October – Bono announced to the world’s media, “We’re back, reapplying for the job… And the job is best band in the world.” The 113-date Elevation Tour – which opened on March 24, 2001 – saw the Dubliners mostly playing indoor arenas with a much more stripped down, intimate stage design (a heart-shaped B-stage extended from the main one, while encapsulating a small section of the audience). Elevation also saw the band playing two extraordinary, unforgettable shows at Slane Castle on August 25 and September 1, 2001. Bono’s father Bob Hewson had been ill for some time, and the singer had been flying home on a nightly basis from Europe to spend time with him in hospital (each night onstage he dedicated ‘Kite’ to his ailing dad). Bob Hewson eventually passed away just a few days before their first night at Slane Castle. Hot Press writer Peter Murphy was at the show.

“20 years and the last seven days: U2 have gone through a whole heavenhell of a lot to get here,” he wrote. “One can only guess at Bono’s state of mind, high on the euphoria of playing the most ecstatic shows of his band’s career, drained from the freeze-dried exhaustion of flying home to Dublin from all points around Europe to endure the dim purgatories every son goes through when his father is dying.”

As it turned out, Bono managed to transform his grief into true rock ‘n’ roll greatness for both Slane shows. The second night was filmed by director Hamish Hamilton and released as a live DVD called U2 Go Home: Live From Slane Castle in November 2003. By any standards, this was a return to the summit. Buoyed by the huge international success of ‘Beautiful Day’ as a single, All That You Can’t Leave Behind debuted at No. 1 in 32 countries and sold 12 million copies.

SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘Beautiful Day’