Zoo TV Tour
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| Zoo TV Tour | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Tour by U2 | ||
| Start date | February 29, 1992 | |
| End date | December 10, 1993 | |
| Legs | 5 | |
| Shows | 157 | |
| U2 tour chronology | ||
| Lovetown Tour (1989-1990) | Zoo TV Tour (1992-1993) | Popmart (1997-1998) |
The Zoo TV Tour was an elaborately-staged, multimedia concert tour by Irish rock band U2 supporting their album "Achtung Baby", in arenas and stadiums over 1992 and 1993. It was a show that operated on many levels; designed to instill a feeling of "sensory overload" in its audience, it used the video age for much of its inspiration.
Different phases of the tour were also known as Zoo TV – The Outside Broadcast, Zooropa, and Zoomerang. The tour began in Lakeland, Florida on February 29, 1992 and ended in Tokyo, Japan on December 10, 1993. It comprised five legs, 157 shows, was seen by about 5.4 million people, and was the highest-grossing tour in North America of 1992.<ref>http://www.u2faqs.com/live/#1</ref>
If U2's 1991 album Achtung Baby was, as lead singer Bono said, the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree, then Zoo TV was the sight of four men trying to reject the white-flag-waving, achingly earnest stage performances that had typified their previous tours in the 1980s. The tour demonstrated immense confidence in the new album, typically opening with six to eight consecutive new songs before playing any old material, surrounding the songs with bewildering visual effects and a subversive take on the band's collective persona.
The tour was alternately spelled ZooTV, ZOO TV, and ZOOTV.
Contents |
[edit] The stage
The stage was designed by frequent U2 collaborator Willie Williams, and featured 36 video monitors, numerous television cameras, two separate mix positions, 26 on stage microphones, 176 speakers, and 11 elaborately painted Trabants, several of which were suspended over the stage, which all required 1 million watts of power to operate: enough to run 2,000 homes.
A total of 52 trucks were required to transport the 1,200 tons of equipment, 3 miles of cabling, 200 labourers, 12 forklifts and one 40-ton crane, required to construct the stage. <ref>http://www.u2propaganda.com/pastissues/issues-17-69-things.htm</ref>
[edit] The show
The tour, partly inspired by CNN's seemingly endless coverage of the Gulf War<ref>Zoo TV Tv Special, Dec 1992</ref>was on one level a straight-faced satire on the media overload that came to define the 1990s. The tour's television screens displayed an eclectic mixture of seemingly random images and slogans created by artists such as Kevin Godley, Brian Eno, Mark Pellington, Carol Dodds, Philip Owens, and multimedia performance artists Emergency Broadcast Network in an effort to reflect the desensitising effect of the modern mass media.
The 1993 Zooropa and Zoomerang shows opened with a seven minute piece created by Emergency Broadcast Network, which wove looped images from Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will with various war and news imagery sources. Following this, the stadium descended into darkness and minutes later the screens relit, filled with blue and white video noise. Bono appeared onstage, silhouetted against this gigantic field of static. U2's show itself began with a fixed sequence of songs. In an interview on the Zoo Radio program, The Edge described the visual material that went with the first three of them:
| "Zoo Station" is four minutes of a television that's not tuned in to any station, but giving you interference and shash and almost a TV picture. "The Fly" is information meltdown – text, sayings, truisms, untruisms, oxymorons, soothsayings, etc., all blasted at high speed, just fast enough so it's impossible to actually read what's being said. "Even Better Than the Real Thing" is whatever happens to be flying around the stratosphere on that night. Satellite TV pictures, the weather, shopping channel, cubic zirconium diamond rings, religious channels, soap operas ... |
The imagery used during "Zoo Station"'s performance was created by blending video noise with stop motion animation sequences of the band members 'filmed' on a photocopier, and includes - for those with a keen eye and pause button - images of Adam Clayton's penis pressed against the glass. Some of "The Fly's" meltdown messages included "Taste is the enemy of art", "Religion is a club", "Ignorance is bliss", "Rebellion is packaged", "Believe" with letters fading out to leave "lie", and "Everything you know is wrong".
"Mysterious Ways" featured a live belly dancer. "One" was accompanied by the title word shown in many languages, as well as Mark Pellington-directed video clips of buffalos leading to a still image of David Wojnarowicz's "Falling Buffalo" photograph. "One" quickly became one of U2's most popular songs. During "Until the End of the World", Bono unleashed a series of egotistical rock star poses with the chaotic visual approach, this time created from a rapid-fire jumble of numbers, many of which reflected topics close to the video artist's and band's heart, including production crew members' birthdays, the date of Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder, the date of release of U2's first 12-inch single release in Ireland, the date of 'Bloody Sunday'. Another blast of video montage led into "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World", during which Bono would do a champagne spray and his traditional dance with a young female fan pulled from the crowd, except that they captured each other with a live consumer camcorder video feed shown to the audience, a device that had been used on earlier numbers as well.
U2 had used backing tracks in live performance before (such as the synthesized backdrops to "Bad" and "Where the Streets Have No Name") but, with the need to synch live performance to the high-tech visuals of Zoo TV, almost the entire show was synched and sequenced, with most numbers featuring pre-recorded percussion, keyboard, or guitar elements underlying the U2 members' live instrumentals and vocals. This practice has continued on their subsequent tours.
Zoo TV was one of the first large-scale concerts to feature the "B stage", a smaller stage in the middle of the floor, intended "to be the antidote to Zoo TV".<ref>Zoo Radio program, 1992</ref> Here, the four members would play quieter numbers such as stripped-down acoustic arrangements of "Angel of Harlem" and "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)". After that it was back to the main stage for some U2 classics played straight, but by the time the encores began, Bono's alter-egos were back in full force.
The concerts usually ended with a rendition of Achtung Baby's "Love is Blindness", although later in the tour, it was followed by a stripped-down cover of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love". This coupling provided an intimate and serene ending to a show whose principal features mocked media overload. While U2, with their classic finale of the reflective-but-participatory "40", had never subscribed to the structural formulation of Queen drummer Roger Taylor to leave an audience "blinded, deafened and screaming for more" at the end, Zoo TV's roar fell away to conclude with an almost indifferent whisper.
Thus, Zoo TV saw U2 mocking the excesses of rock and roll by ironically embracing greed and decadence - even at times, away from the stage. However, some missed the point of the tour and thought that U2 had "lost it", and that Bono had become an egomaniac.
Irony took a backseat on the Zooropa European leg of the tour after the band began initiating nightly live link-ups with people living in war-torn Sarajevo. Arranged by aidworker Bill Carter, (who later with Bono's help made the documentary film Miss Sarajevo <ref>http://www.licc.org.uk/culture/reading/fools-rush-in-bill-carter</ref>), hoped to bring world attention to the suffering of the people living in the war zone that the world media had forgotton about. He saw an interview on MTV where Bono was saying the theme of the Zooropa leg of the tour was of a unified Europe. He felt compelled to inform Bono of the plight of the Bosians in Sarajevo in a Bosnia divided on ethnic lines. Aside from bringing much needed attention to the issue, the remarkable link-ups sometimes even allowed people who had escaped the conflict to speak with family members and loved ones within the war zone. The problem seen by some was that Zoo TV was a rock show, and being accused of inaction and apathy by people in constant fear of death by shelling or machine gun fire often deadened the mood of the audience, and the band.
[edit] Other aspects
Other highlights of the tour included a nightly duet by Bono and a pseudo-live but pre-recorded video of Lou Reed singing his classic song "Satellite of Love" (with a real appearance from Reed on August 12, 1992 at Giants Stadium), and an almost nightly phone call to the office of American president George H. W. Bush. Though Bono never got through to the President, Bush did acknowledge the calls during a press conference, noting his confusion about why the singer was doggedly attempting to contact him.
When Zoo TV played to London's Wembley Stadium on August 11, 1993, the novelist Salman Rushdie joined the band on stage. The surprise appearance was sensational in view of the author's well-publicised fear of violence from Islamic extremists, due to the controversy raging over his novel The Satanic Verses. When confronted by Bono's MacPhisto character, the author wryly observed that "real devils don't wear horns."
The tour also had a Confessional Booth where concert-goers could record a personal confession on camera. These confessions were often incorporated into the show, being displayed on the main television screens in the intervals between main show and encore.
Before the show began and between opening acts, Irish disk jockey BP Fallon acted as emcee, generally trying to add further confusion to the mix. Fallon would also host Zoo Radio, a distributed radio special that showcased selected performances from Zoo TV, audio oddities, and half-serious interviews with U2 members as well as with sometime opening acts Public Enemy and The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy.
[edit] Bono's stage personas
[edit] The Fly
One of the other main highlights of the tour was Bono's array of on-stage personas, the most prominent of which was The Fly, who was also immortalised in the music video for the song "The Fly," as well as for the video of "Even Better Than the Real Thing." The Fly was a stereotypical rock star with wrap-around shades - for which Bono became famous - and exaggerated, blatantly sexual mannerisms. "We...assembled [a] postmodern rock star. We have our leg of Jim Morrison, our Elvis top, Lou Reed, Gene Vincent-we glue it all together and create it." The character was invented in Berlin while U2 were recording Achtung Baby. Bono felt that the shades, given to him by longtime U2 stylist "Fightin'" Fintan Fitzgerald, gave him a sense of de-individuation, and he could really "let loose" when he wore them. The shades came to symbolize the "new U2", a diametrically opposed aesthetic to the pious, rootsy U2 of the The Joshua Tree-era. The Fly has also been interpreted as Bono giving a middle finger to all the critics who said U2 were filthy rich rock stars trying to pass themselves off as do-gooders. He stated in interviews, "They [critics] wanted it, and now they're going to get it."
In live Zoo TV performances, The Fly would begin by appearing silhoutted against a video screen, dancing wildly as "Zoo Station" opened the show. During the song, he played around with the "typical rock star" act. He would then play guitar during "The Fly." Often, he would make a short introductory speech about Zoo TV after "The Fly," then would use satellite to link up to channels locally. Then the band would begin "Even Better Than the Real Thing," in which he would play with a handicam, filming The Edge's solo, then himself. Usually, he would remove his Fly glasses during Mysterious Ways (4th song in set), and his leather jacket by Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around the World (9th song in set).
[edit] The Mirror Ball Man
Another prominent persona was The Mirror Ball Man, who typically came out for the last few songs of the main set and the encores. This character was intended to be a parody of American televangelists. The Mirror Ball Man dressed in a suit of shining silver (hence the name) with silver shoes and a silver hat. Typically upon entering the stage, he carried a large mirror with him, and spoke with Bono's idea of an American accent. He would usually call then United States President George Bush, but never got through to him. Thinking other parts of the world wouldn't understand the televangelist character, Bono traded in his Mirror Ball Man persona for Mr. MacPhisto on Zooropa and Zoomerang legs of the tour, which visited Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.
[edit] Mr. MacPhisto
Mr. MacPhisto was imagined by Bono to be a corrupted future version of the Fly character who had become an amalgam of The Devil (heavily drawing from the Pegleg character in Tom Waits' "The Black Rider") and Las Vegas-era Elvis Presley-style crooner. (This character would subsequently figure prominently in the 1995 music video for "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" lifted from the soundtrack of the movie Batman Forever. The video featured an animated version of Bono as a rock star battling between two personas: the Fly and MacPhisto, which was intended to parallel the conflict between Bruce Wayne's ordinary playboy persona and his crime-fighting Batman persona.) MacPhisto wore a gold suit, with gold shoes, and devil's horns atop his head. His face included much make-up. He spoke with a thick accent which crossed between many, was primarily British.
The MacPhisto speech at the Sydney 1993 concert was one of irony, blurring the question of whether MacPhisto is meant to be a corrupted rock star or a representation of the actual Devil:
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[edit] Zooropa, the album
U2 went back into the studio to record their next release during a break at the end of the third leg of the tour. The album was intended as an additional EP to Achtung Baby, but soon Zooropa expanded into a full-fledged LP and was released in July 1993. Influenced greatly by both tour life and the ideas of media barrage and irony that they were examining through the tour, Zooropa was an even greater departure from the style of their earlier recordings, incorporating techno style and other electronic effects. Songs from Zooropa that were played on the subsequent "Zooropa" and "Zoomerang" tour legs include "Zooropa," "Babyface," "Dirty Day," "Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car," "Numb," "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)," and "Lemon".
[edit] Broadcasts and recordings
The Zoo Radio special included live selections from 1992 Toronto, Dallas, Tempe, Arizona, and New York shows. Portions of another 1992 show were taped and later broadcast as a one-hour Fox network television special. The 27 November 1993 Zoomerang show in Sydney was broadcast around the world on live pay-per-view, and was subsequently released as the concert video Zoo TV: Live From Sydney. It is difficult for any video footage to capture the full effect of Zoo TV, since the multi-input sensory overload nature of the show is lost as soon as the camera focuses in on any one particular aspect.
[edit] Vertigo Tour homage
More than a decade later during U2's 2005 Vertigo Tour, the band often played (usually as the first encore) a mini-Zoo TV set of "Zoo Station", "The Fly", and "Mysterious Ways", using some of the original Zoo TV video effects set against the Vertigo Tour's curtains of lighted beads. "Zoo Station" included the interference in the background. "The Fly" had the flashing words on the screen, originally similar to the originals from ZooTV, but which progressed into its own original words and phrases later in the tour. As the tour progressed, "Until the End of the World" appeared with its original effects of flashing numbers. "Love is Blindness" made its first appearance since ZooTV at one fourth leg show. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" has also appeared a few times, both acoustically and electrically. "One" has been a regular, but has not included the original background, with the exception of U2's performance at the Grammy Awards.
[edit] Tour Legs
[edit] Leg 1
- Dates: February 29, 1992 – April 23, 1992
- Location: North America
- Venues: Indoor arenas
- Shows: 32
[edit] Leg 2
[edit] Leg 3 - Outside Broadcast
- Dates: August 07, 1992 – November 25, 1992
- Location: North America and Mexico
- Venues: Stadiums
- Shows: 47
[edit] Leg 4 - Zooropa
[edit] Leg 5 - Zoomerang
- Dates: November 12, 1993 – December 10, 1993
- Location: Australia, New Zealand and Japan
- Venues: Stadiums
- Shows: 10
[edit] References
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[edit] Further reading
- Flanagan, B. U2: At The End of the World, 1996, Delta, ISBN 0385311575
- Samuel R. Smith, "'The Fly' on the Stage: Readings and Misreadings of the 'New' U2", Music Area of The Popular Culture Association, April 1995
