Popmart poor attendance examples

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I think part of the problem thematically was that NLOTH was an album much better suited to arenas, while U2 were at a point in their career where they could rock up just about anywhere and put on a stadium show.

So we ended up with a mish-mash that was undoubtedly the band's worst tour ever, from a setlist perspective.

Agreed. I've always thought the massive 360 tour should've taken place in 2005-6, after the smashing success of HTDAAB and Vertigo. Every show on the Vertigo Tour literally sold out in the blink of an eye. They were truly wasting their time doing arenas in the US, they could've been playing stadiums for sure. I would argue that there was a sweet spot in late 2004 - mid 2005 where U2 were probably just as popular as they were from 1987-1993, if not more so. Virtually no band outside of possibly Aerosmith has ever gotten a late career resurgence like U2 got with HTDAAB/Vertigo Tour.
 
I think part of the problem thematically was that NLOTH was an album much better suited to arenas, while U2 were at a point in their career where they could rock up just about anywhere and put on a stadium show.

So we ended up with a mish-mash that was undoubtedly the band's worst tour ever, from a setlist perspective.

I can see the seemingly unrelated tour theme criticism, but the setlists weren't an overall complaint for me. I personally never thought we'd hear MLK, Unforgettable Fire, Scarlet, Electric Storm, HMTMKMKM, Your Blue Room, Love Rescue Me, Ultra Violet, Zooropa, not to mention the surprise of all the new songs Stingray Guitar, Mercy, Breaking Wave, North Star, Glastonbury, Boy Falls.
Not arguing the quality of these tracks per say, just the fact that if you told me prior to tour that we'd get 9 tracks that most believed would never be played again plus 6 brand new songs demoed I'd have called you crazy optimistic. Sure for every Ultra Violet and Zooropa, there were live duds like Your Blue Room, but overall if I was offered 9 very rarely played live u2 songs, I would blindly take that surprise
 
You can make a decent compilation of some of those songs, but not many would've been played in the same show.
 
You can make a decent compilation of some of those songs, but not many would've been played in the same show.

Oh yes for sure. I meant overall, as a tour. Off the top of my head, i dont think i+e 2015 tour got that many unexpected songs. Let alone, any new demos
 
I'd say these were unexpected

Zoo Station
In God's Country
Miracle Drug
Two Hearts Beat as One
When Love Comes To Town
Gloria
Sweetest Thing
The Electric Co.
October
 
I'd say these were unexpected

Zoo Station
In God's Country
Miracle Drug
Two Hearts Beat as One
When Love Comes To Town
Gloria
Sweetest Thing
The Electric Co.
October

Your right, I would call these unexpected. Along with the lone performance of Magnificent, and Lucifer's Hands 3 times I believe. So in comparison, 360 had the normal amount of unexpected songs, plus 6 demo songs. Certainly not a limited setlist in that regard. I'd love it if the next tour equaled those numbers!
 
Agreed. I've always thought the massive 360 tour should've taken place in 2005-6, after the smashing success of HTDAAB and Vertigo. Every show on the Vertigo Tour literally sold out in the blink of an eye. They were truly wasting their time doing arenas in the US, they could've been playing stadiums for sure. I would argue that there was a sweet spot in late 2004 - mid 2005 where U2 were probably just as popular as they were from 1987-1993, if not more so. Virtually no band outside of possibly Aerosmith has ever gotten a late career resurgence like U2 got with HTDAAB/Vertigo Tour.

Yep, spot on. :up:

I can see the seemingly unrelated tour theme criticism, but the setlists weren't an overall complaint for me. I personally never thought we'd hear MLK, Unforgettable Fire, Scarlet, Electric Storm, HMTMKMKM, Your Blue Room, Love Rescue Me, Ultra Violet, Zooropa, not to mention the surprise of all the new songs Stingray Guitar, Mercy, Breaking Wave, North Star, Glastonbury, Boy Falls.
Not arguing the quality of these tracks per say, just the fact that if you told me prior to tour that we'd get 9 tracks that most believed would never be played again plus 6 brand new songs demoed I'd have called you crazy optimistic. Sure for every Ultra Violet and Zooropa, there were live duds like Your Blue Room, but overall if I was offered 9 very rarely played live u2 songs, I would blindly take that surprise

Oh yeah, some of those were great surprises, especially the band having the courage to play unreleased material routinely - but some were very strange choices that made little sense and didn't fit with the tour. The problem was the overall set structure, the songs U2 chose to stick with versus those they didn't, and in general I felt they failed to write a setlist that really worked with the stage until 2011.
 
The one thing I really enjoyed about Vertigo & 360 was the encore.

Ultraviolet
With Or Without You
Moment of Surrender

was such a great emotional goodbye.


On Vertigo you didn't know what you would get. Hated IE encore.....
 
Australia was a shocker that tour... 24,000 in Melbourne and 18,000 in Brisbane for stadium gigs.... I think they "papered the house" somewhat though as Melbourne seemed a lot more attended than that and the press reported 35,000.

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We got rorted on that leg. For ages I'd been hoping Australia and New Zealand wouldn't be at the very end of a tour, because that had always been when the new/interesting stuff had vanished and we'd just get greatest hits (see Auckland II on Vertigo, which had only three HTDAAB songs and stuff like The Electric Co. was long gone). Finally we end up in the middle of the tour, which usually means good setlists, and it's the one tour where the interesting stuff shows up at the end.


You guys did get the bulk of the new Zooropa material back in '93! Man, I wish I'd have seen that show live! (Other than Sydney & the other bootleg videos)


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It's worth pointing out that pops failure was not visible in Europe, where 31 of 35 dates fully sold out.

Actually it was visible in several areas of Europe. There were 3 German shows that had very low attendance, around 18,000 to 28,000. They were only able to play 2 stadium shows in London instead of the 4 they did for ZOO TV. Plus there were several shows that only soldout because the capacity of the venue was heavily reduced, like the German show at Zeppelinfield and the one in Belgium at the Werchter festival site. France only got two shows, just one show in Paris and one in Montpellier where only 24,000 people were in attendance. POPMART was rough for U2 except in South America where they had never been before. Of course it was rough in light of U2's standard of attendance, for most other artist it would have been considered outstanding business.
 
Australia was a shocker that tour... 24,000 in Melbourne and 18,000 in Brisbane for stadium gigs.... I think they "papered the house" somewhat though as Melbourne seemed a lot more attended than that and the press reported 35,000.

Funny to think there were originally plans for a second show in Sydney.

You guys did get the bulk of the new Zooropa material back in '93! Man, I wish I'd have seen that show live! (Other than Sydney & the other bootleg videos)

Never mind that, what about Lovetown!

Fat lot of good either of those do me though, since I was aged 2 for Lovetown and 6 for ZooTV.

Actually it was visible in several areas of Europe. There were 3 German shows that had very low attendance, around 18,000 to 28,000. They were only able to play 2 stadium shows in London instead of the 4 they did for ZOO TV. Plus there were several shows that only soldout because the capacity of the venue was heavily reduced, like the German show at Zeppelinfield and the one in Belgium at the Werchter festival site. France only got two shows, just one show in Paris and one in Montpellier where only 24,000 people were in attendance. POPMART was rough for U2 except in South America where they had never been before. Of course it was rough in light of U2's standard of attendance, for most other artist it would have been considered outstanding business.

Germany definitely seemed to respond to Pop with more dislike than other European countries, letting it sink like a stone in the same manner as it did in the US. But then you look at Italy where U2 performed what remains their largest concert ever.
 
The Melbourne gig was at fucking Waverley Park, its lucky even 24,000 turned up!

They also timed that leg pretty poorly. Who wants to be going to stadium shows headed into Winter?
 
What? February's the hottest bloody month here!

But yeah, always strikes me as mad they did Waverley rather than, well, anywhere else. U2 AT WINDY HILL AWW YEAH.
 
Sorry I edited that post so many times i deleted what I actually meant to say.

The last North American leg was in the lead up to winter.
 
Oh, haha, yeah that makes sense. Those final two dates in December in Seattle and Vancouver must have been a bit chilly.
 
Oh, haha, yeah that makes sense. Those final two dates in December in Seattle and Vancouver must have been a bit chilly.

1997-10-26 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Skydome (22 songs)
1997-10-27 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Skydome (23 songs)
1997-10-29 - Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA - Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (23 songs)
1997-10-31 - Pontiac, Michigan, USA - Pontiac Silverdome (23 songs)
1997-11-02 - Montreal, Quebec, Canada - Olympic Stadium (22 songs)
1997-11-08 - St. Louis, Missouri, USA - Trans World Dome (23 songs)
1997-11-10 - Tampa, Florida, USA - Houlihan's Stadium (22 songs)
1997-11-12 - Jacksonville, Florida, USA - Municipal Stadium (22 songs)
1997-11-14 - Miami, Florida, USA - Pro Player Stadium (23 songs)
1997-11-21 - New Orleans, Louisiana, USA - Louisiana Superdome (22 songs)
1997-11-23 - San Antonio, Texas, USA - Alamodome (22 songs)
1997-11-26 - Atlanta, Georgia, USA - Georgia Dome (22 songs)
1997-11-28 - Houston, Texas, USA - Houston Astrodome (23 songs)
1997-12-02 - Mexico City, Mexico - Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez (22 songs)
1997-12-03 - Mexico City, Mexico - Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez (23 songs)
1997-12-09 - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - BC Place Stadium (22 songs)
1997-12-12 - Seattle, Washington, USA - The Kingdome (24 songs)

Every show on the last NA leg was either in a dome or in the south/mexico, so weather was not an issue.

There's a website called u2gigs that has all of this information spelled out. you should check it out sometime ;)
 
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