Zoo TV Tour
The Zoo TV Tour was a multimedia dominated, commercially very successful concert tour of the Irish rock band U2 , which took place in stadiums and arenas from 1992 to 1993. The tour can be divided into several phases: ZooTV Tour , ZooTV - The Outside Broadcast Tour , Zooropa and Zoomerang / New Zooland .
The tour began on February 29, 1992 in Lakeland , Florida , USA, and ended after 157 shows in front of over four million viewers, almost two years later on December 10, 1993 in Tokyo , Japan, and served in support of the album Achtung Baby (1991 ), later the album Zooropa (1993).
The stage
The stage or the entire show was designed by U2's long-time show designer Willie Williams and was dominated by 36 monitors and televisions. Trabbis were also used as decorations and light sources that hung from the ceiling. The whole technology together consumed approx. 1 megawatt , enough energy to supply approx. 2000 households with electricity. The entire stage weighed around 1200 tons and was transported with 52 semi-trailers. Around 200 workers were used to set up and dismantle.
The show
The show was inspired by the Gulf War news broadcast at the time , where one could no longer distinguish between reality and fiction and the general information overload in the media. For this reason, different images and slogans were shown in rapid succession on the numerous screens that were distributed on the stage, so that one could no longer follow the flood of information, as in modern mass media . These slogans included a. Everything You Know Is Wrong , Ambition Bites The Nail Of Success , Taste Is The Enemy Of Art , Religion Is A Club and Believe , whereby the letters in this word are faded out and only lie ("lie") in red font color remained.
The show itself began on the first two legs (North America and Europe; in arenas) with an intro sung by Bono (" I could have lost you "), on the Outside Broadcast Tour (North America; in stadiums) with an intro by Emergency Broadcast Network produced a clip in which the then President of the USA, George Bush , repeated the words "We Will Rock You" (in relation to the Iraq war) to the rhythm of Queen 's song of the same name ("George Bush Rap Intro"). Another intro was used during the concerts in 1993. This showed scenes from Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of Will and the music of Beethoven's 9th Symphony .
During the first songs ( Zoo Station and The Fly ) the above images appeared on the monitors. Before Even Better Than The Real Thing, Bono zapped through the TV program, which was displayed live on the huge monitors. These programs continued to run in the background during the song. At Mysterious Ways , pre-made videos came on the screens again. Belly dancers also came on stage. At One , videos were shown based on a picture of falling buffalo by David Wojnarowicz . The word "One" was also displayed in different languages. In Tryin 'To Throw Your Arms Around The World , Bono usually took female fans on stage, danced, drank champagne with them and filmed them with a camcorder , which was also shown live on the screens. In the middle of the set, U2 played a small acoustic set on the B-stage, a small stage that was in the middle of the crowd. This set usually consisted of three to four songs, after which it continued on the main stage. The song "Satellite of Love" has now been played as a duet with a video can from Lou Reed. During Pride (In The Name Of Love) a video was shown of a speech by Martin Luther King , to which this song is also dedicated. In the encore came another highlight of the shows: Bono, now disguised as his ego MacPhisto , tried to reach various personalities with a telephone from the stage. At the outside broadcast shows, he tried to reach President George Bush almost every evening, but it never succeeded. At the Germany shows in 1993 he tried u. a. to reach the then Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl . During the show on August 11, 1993 in London, he phoned Salman Rushdie , who then even appeared on stage in person. Another highlight at the European concerts in 1993 was the Satellite LinkUp to Sarajevo, where war was raging at the time. Bono spoke to people from the city and the helper Bill Carter , who also initiated the project.
The setlist
The setlist remained more or less identical for almost all concerts, with a few changes. It is particularly noticeable that the first eight songs all come from the current album Achtung Baby at the time , before an older track was even played. Here is a typical setlist for the 1st and 2nd legs:
- Zoo station
- The Fly
- Even Better Than The Real Thing
- Mysterious Ways
- One
- Until The End Of The World
- Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
- Tryin 'To Throw Your Arms Around The World
- Angel Of Harlem
- When Love Comes To Town
- Satellite Of Love
- Bath with All I Want Is You -Snippet
- Bullet The Blue Sky
- Running to stand still
- Where The Streets Have No Name
- Pride (In The Name Of Love)
-
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Encore: - Desire , then: phone call from MacPhisto
- Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
- With or without you
- Love is blindness
In the following legs, a (shortened) version of Can't Help Falling In Love (by Elvis Presley ) was almost always played at the end .
ZOO TV video
From the concert on November 27, 1993 in Sydney in the football stadium there, a complete video was released under the title "Zoo-TV Live from Sydney" with a playing time of 2 hours. In 2006 this was also released on DVD. There is also a “Deluxe 2-Disc Limited Edition” of the DVD. The additional DVD contains further live recordings, 3 documentations and some extras for computers such as screen savers and background images.
Zooropa album
While the tour was still going on, U2 went into the studio and recorded another album, Zooropa , which was released in July 1993. U2 went one step further than Achtung Baby and the sound here is even more experimental than its predecessor. The album also features a duet with Johnny Cash (Track 10, The Wanderer ). At the Zooropa and Zoomerang shows, only a few songs on the album made it onto the regular setlist, such as Stay (Faraway, So Close) or Numb .
Vertigo Tour Tribute
On the Vertigo tour , U2 usually played a small ZooTV set at the beginning of the first encore block , starting with Zoo Station , The Fly and Mysterious Ways , but also other songs by Achtung Baby . In The Fly also the typical screen images came forward again.
The tour sections
1st section
Period: February 29, 1992 to April 23, 1992
Location: USA, Canada (in arenas / halls)
2nd section
Period: May 7, 1992 to June 19, 1992
Location: Europe (in arenas / halls)
Section 3: The Outside Broadcast Tour
Period: August 12, 1992 to November 25, 1992
Location: Canada, USA, Mexico (in stadiums)
Section 4: Zooropa
Period: May 9, 1993 to August 28, 1993
Location: Europe (in stadiums)
Section 5: Zoomerang / New Zooland / ZooTV Japan
Period: November 12, 1993 to December 10, 1993
Location: Australia, New Zealand, Japan (in stadiums)