VERTIGO TOUR
2005-2006
When U2 released their eleventh studio album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb in November 2004, Bono described it as “our first rock album. It’s taken us twenty years or whatever it is, but this is our first rock album.”

That’s debatable, of course, but the fact remains that it went to No. 1 in 30 countries and won nine Grammy Awards. The promo kicked off with a Top of the Pops appearance on October 15, and U2 made a number of TV appearances (including Saturday Night Live on November 20). The 131-date Vertigo Tour kicked off properly in San Diego on March 28, 2005, and over five legs saw the band play stadiums and arenas worldwide from 2005 until the closing show in Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium on December 9, 2006. Much like the Elevation Tour, the Vertigo Tour featured a relatively stripped down and intimate stage design. The tour was also notable for the diversity of the material played. It was U2’s first tour since Lovetown to feature at least one song from every single album they had released (‘The First Time’ from 1993’s Zooropa was played live for the first time on this tour, while ‘Miss Sarajevo’ – from their Passengers’ side-project Original Soundtrack 1 – became a concert regular). By the time it finished, the Vertigo Tour had sold 4,619,021 tickets – and grossed a phenomenal $389 million. As it turned out, this would be nothing compared to the next tour…
SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own’

THE 360° TOUR

2009-2011

Willie Williams’ previous stage designs of the new millennium had been relatively stripped down, but U2 decided to go all-out again for the tour to support 2009’s experimental No Line on the Horizon album. The record provoked mixed responses – including, in the long run, from the band members themselves. But its live treatment was a whole other adventure.

Deciding to make maximum use of the stadiums they were targeting, the concerts featured the band playing “in the round” on a circular stage – something which allowed the audience to surround them on all sides. To this end, a 50m high, four-legged structure nicknamed ‘The Claw’ was constructed, with the sound system and a cylindrical expanding video screen on top of it. In fact, in order to keep the show on the road, three separate Claws were required (it took quite a long time to assemble, disassemble and transport). The show itself was relatively complex and, given The Claw’s resemblance to a spaceship (or even an alien robot), included some outer space themes. Pre-recorded messages from the International Space Station were displayed during shows (in a reprise of his prank calls during the Zoo TV Tour), Bono actually rang them live from the stage, on the opening night in Barcelona, in Catalunya), as were sociopolitical statements from Desmond Tutu and Aung San Suu Kyi.

All of these things were expensive to bring to fruition. But the 360° Tour was U2’s first under their 12-year deal with Live Nation, and it was also sponsored by Blackberry, opening possibilities for collaborations between the band and Research in Motion on mobile music experiences. Bono and the late Steve Jobs had fallen out at the time, and U2’s relationship with Apple had been broken – temporarily as it turned out – as a result. Bono said of the new relationship, “I’m very excited about this. Research in Motion is going to give us what Apple wouldn’t: access to their labs and their people so we can do something really spectacular.”

Make no mistake: the resulting 360° Tour was absolutely spectacular – and then some. Comprising three legs and 110 shows, the tour began on June 30, 2009, in Barcelona’s Camp Nou Stadium, and concluded on July 30, 2011, in Moncton, Canada. Ultimately, it set a record for both the highest-grossing tour ($736million in ticket sales), and for the highest attendance (more than 7.2 million tickets sold). U2 set another record when they played three nights in Dublin’s Croke Park in July, 2009, to a combined audience of 240,000.

“Rarely have the begrudgers been so comprehensively fucked,” concluded Hot Press’ Stuart Clark at the end of his rave review of the final night.

SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘Magnificent’

iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE

2015

U2 had repaired their relationship with Apple by the time they released their thirteenth studio album, Songs Of Innocence, on September 9, 2014. In a move that proved controversial, the album – largely produced by Danger Mouse – was announced at an Apple Inc product launch event, and released the same day to over 500 million iTunes customers free of charge. Apple CEO Tim Cook described it as “the largest album release of all time,” but it transpired that not everybody was happy to receive a free U2 album. No matter. They more than made up for any offence caused – or rather taken – with a truly stunning tour (although it was seriously delayed following Bono’s bike accident in Central Park on November 16, 2014).

Comprising two legs and 76 shows, iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE began on May 14, 2015, and marked the band’s first return to arenas since the Vertigo Tour. Songs Of Innocence saw U2 looking back over their lives and career, and the concerts – which were mostly booked in pairs – were structured around a loose autobiographical narrative of their teenage “innocence” (a fixed set of songs) passing into hard won “experience” (a trip through their back catalogue). These sections were separated by an intermission – the first time U2 had ever done this. The stage spanned the length of the venue floor and comprised three sections: a rectangular segment representing “innocence”; and a connecting walkway to represent the transition between the two themes. A 29m double-sided video screen was suspended above and parallel to the walkway; the screen featured an interior catwalk between the screens, allowing the band members to perform amidst the video projections.

The opening night in Vancouver almost turned into a disaster when Edge fell off the smaller stage at the end of the show. Luckily, he was unhurt. However, there was other bad luck: Dennis Sheehan, U2’s tour manager since 1982, passed away in Los Angeles midway through the tour. He was 68 years old. Bono said at the time, “We’ve lost a family member, we’re still taking it in. He wasn’t just a legend in the music business, he was a legend in our band. He is irreplaceable.”

In total, the tour played to 1.29 million fans and grossed $152.2million in ticket sales. It was supposed to end with four shows in Dublin’s 3Arena in November, but one of their two Paris shows had to be rescheduled following the November 13 attack on the Bataclan, which saw 137 music fans lose their lives at an Eagles Of Death Metal show. iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE ultimately ended with two gigs in Paris’ AccorHotels Arena on December 6 and 7. The final date was filmed for the DVD iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE: Live in Paris, and also broadcast on the American television network HBO.

SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘City Of Blinding Lights’

THE JOSHUA TREE TOUR 2017

2017

The original plan was to have their forthcoming Songs Of Experience album out by now, but things didn’t go according to plan (as is often the case in the world of U2). The new album is reportedly mostly in the can, but the surprise election of Donald Trump and other global events caused the band to re-evaluate and to postpone its release. The fact is that the world is in just as much political chaos and economic turmoil now as it was thirty years ago. U2 had intended to play some select 30th anniversary shows, celebrating the 1987 release of The Joshua Tree anyway – but they ultimately decided to commemorate the anniversary with a full concert tour instead.

Still in its early stages, the tour kicked off in Vancouver on May 12, and will be hitting Dublin’s Croke Park on July 22 (it will play to 1.7 million fans in just 33 shows this summer). As ever, the band have pulled out all the stops. At 200 x 40ft, the massive stage is almost the full width of a stadium. The stage also features the largest un-obscured and highest resolution LED video screen ever used in a touring show (the screen is made up of 1,040 individual video panels). A set of three parts, the show sees the band playing The Joshua Tree in its entirety, bookended by back catalogue material. Dutch photographer and filmmaker, and long-term U2 collaborator, Anton Corbjin, whose iconic photography accompanied the original recording, has again visited Death Valley and Zabriskie Point – amongst other locations – to produce a new series of haunting and evocative black and white films, which play behind the group during their performance. Also, a specially commissioned film by French artist J.R., which was shot at the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan (home to 80,000 Syrians), is played during ‘Miss Sarajevo’.

Having seen it in Seattle, on what was its second date, I can say definitively that it is a show that fully confirms U2’s status as one of the biggest and best live acts in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. And now they are rolling in the direction of the city that gave them birth. It should be a wonderful homecoming. In the meantime, here’s a thought: by the time The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 ends its current leg in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 22, U2 will have played just over 1,400 tour shows in their career. This doesn’t include the numerous one-off events, rooftop gigs and TV appearances they’ve also made over the last 40 years. All of which will should and will doubtless inform Songs Of Experience, an album that can’t come soon enough for fans. Here’s to it.

SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘Exit’