Popmart: 10 years on

[DevilsShoes]

Since its now a decade since this tour began, along with the Mexico DVD coming out at the end of the year, it seems like a good time to get peoples feelings on it. Is it anybody's favourite tour? Best tour of the ninties? Anyone think its the low point of the bands live career?

I always felt that Zoo TV was a colder, more distant tour, it was partly to do with the change of image, but it was a stark contrast to the warm, communal tours of the 80's. Popmart was much more emotional, Mofo, Gone and Please are intense songs and need to connect in order to work.

Bono's vocal problems give the tour a sporadic feel IMO, Zoo TV was much more consistent, listen to any of 1992 bootlegs and you can tell that this is a band on form (although admittedly this was due to the static setlist), but nights like Leeds 97, Rotterdam 97 and Santiago 98 are amongst the best of the bands entire career.

 

[schnumi]

Well bono's vocals were getting worse, sometimes very bad but there are some very very good bootlegs out there where he sings like a bird, and yes the concerts were great, clunky in the beginning due to lack of rehearsel but it really got started later on.

I still rate it as one of their best tours, when they figured it out, the whole setting and possibilities of the screen etc it just kicked everyones ass. From that day on the set another standard for every tour to come.

People sometimes say the need for a big screen isnt there but come on, if your in the back of a large stadium etc then i bet you would want a big screen to see whats happening and besides that a big screen gives songs a possibility to connect even more and to give them a visual feel.

 

[SeattleVertigo]

I saw PopMart in the Seattle Kingdome, and it was a cool spectacle. But I was MUCH more moved by their 2001 show in Tacoma. I preferred the more intimate setting, and I thought their show was a lot more focused.

 

[phillyfan26]

It's their fourth best in my opinion, behind Zoo TV, Lovetown, and JT. It's a good tour. When Bono's vocals were on, it was a GREAT tour. They didn't figure it out till aroundabout the second leg, but once they did, hells yeah.

 

[gman]

I was thinkin the other day it was coming up for 10 years since Popmart tour. Hard to believe. I loved the shows. But I am of the school of thought that there is no such thing as a bad u2 tour. Highlight for me was Please and erm.....ahem.....eh Miami

 

[gman]

I saw PopMart in the Seattle Kingdome, and it was a cool spectacle. But I was MUCH more moved by their 2001 show in Tacoma. I preferred the more intimate setting, and I thought their show was a lot more focused.

I think I know wat you mean. I think it may be down to the fact that ATYCLB was a far more emotional set of songs to tour with.

 

[ahittle]

The first tour that I ruined for myself by knowing every detail beforehand by spending too much time online. Not that I've stopped...

And my seats were crap, so I mostly watched the big screen. I felt disconnected and sad. Also, Columbus, OH, didn't sell out.

 

[pacemaker]

My first concert ever, and one of the fondest memories of my life. Also of fun emotional note is that as I was going through this very heavy experience at the concert, I was also grounded by the fact that my dad had played Soccer in college on the very field that the stage was on (Franklin Field at UPenn in Philadelphia).

I prefer Popmart to Elevation without a doubt, but Vertigo has challenged it, especially having been able to see the final show in Hawaii. Popmart was fun, and while meticulously staged, seemed very sporadic and lively... Elevation didn't do much for me, other than the obvious fact of being able to see U2 live. But when stacked against any other tour, especially Popmart, I think it's kind of a dud.

 

[U2girl]

Anyone think its the low point of the bands live career?

Bad vocals, over the top "let's outdo Zoo TV at its own game" stage setup, and stupid outfits.

Possibly the strongest set of songs in a U2 tour, though. It flows really well.

 

[Mauwer]

Hmmm....I think by the end of the 1st leg things were starting to come together nicely for Popmart.

So by the time I saw them ( the two Rotterdam shows and Hanover ) they were in super form.
Bono`s vocals were definetly on in Rotterdam that was a plus point.
I still enjoy the Popheart EP since it contains 3 songs of a show I attended.
So you can imagine I am very glad they added the Rotterdam footage of Please - Streets - Discotheque - Velvet Dress to the Popmart dvd extras.

Overall it was an amazing tour.
The performances of Mofo , LNOE , Gone , Please , HMTMKMKM were just amazing.
I think it was impossible to recreate another Zoo-TV but on it`s own Popmart is a state of musical art on it`s very own.

Only Zoo , Lovetown and Vertigo passes it for me.
Vertigo mainly of old gems like Electric Co etc...!

Cheers ,

Mauwer

p.s. Wouldn`t it be great if the next tour had these two monsters - Electric Co and HMTMKMKM
Why haven`t they brought out HMTMKMKM again beats me.

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

Anyone think its the low point of the bands live career?

Yes, me. From the shows & tours I've witnessed since '92, I'd strongly say, that POPmart has to be on the last spot regarding the U2 live shows; I do want to enjoy. Why? It has been said a lot, repeated a lot and overhyped a lot even here in this forum: The setlist mix was heavily based on the current album (fine, because POP is a great album, you could call it a masterpiece, too, and I do love the tunes live) plus the rest filled with the obvious 'Greatest Hits' (crap, because there should be alway some 'obscure' tunes in, too).
That U2 decided to play a cut short, slowed down version of "Pride" plus an abbreviated "All I Want Is You" later on, didn't do any better. Only "Until The End ..." & "Bullet The Blue Sky" didn't match the 'Greatest Hits' pattern, but belong to the staples, U2 play every tour. This changed in the last part of the tour, where the setlist were much better ('40', "Mothers Of The Disappeared", "Desire", "Sunday Bloody Sunday" newly arranged, "Bad"), but that didn't help, when you saw the usual shows in Europe.
Another negative highlight, apart from the show overshadowing the music: The encore part with "Mysterious Ways" & "One" ending the shows, was one of the least inspired endings U2 have ever thought of.
This said, there were many highlights, beautiful concerts & single moments, I don't want to miss – but it's much less than, what I celebrated with ZOO TV, Elevation and Vertigo ...

 

[BonoIsMyMuse]

My first concert ever, and one of the fondest memories of my life.

(Franklin Field at UPenn in Philadelphia).

I was at that show, too. It wasn't my first concert ever, but it was my first U2 show.

In a lot of ways, I feel like Popmart was the last time U2 really took some risks. It was ridiculous, yes, and it wasn't nearly as successful financially as Elevation or Vertigo, but there was a sense of creativity and a willingness to play around that I really miss from U2.

I guess a lot of it has to do with the fact that the world was a much different place 10 years ago. It just wouldn't work now for Bono to spend his days rallying for debt relief and aid to Africa, then to descend each night from a giant piece of fruit to sing about lovey dovey stuff. But wouldn't it be nice if he could? I miss live versions of Pop songs. It makes sense to me why they didn't get played on Vertigo, though, since I don't know that they'd have worked with the stage setup or the overall tone of the tour. But I wish the band could find some sort of balance between playfulness and creativity and their social conscience. I don't feel like it has to be either/or.

Bono spent a lot of the 90s looking inward with his lyrics. Songs like Mofo and Gone and Wake Up Dead Man are some of his most deeply personal, I think. He wasn't necessarily trying to connect with listeners as much as he was trying to work through things for himself. It was ironic, then, that such a huge and impersonal tour rose out of those deeply personal songs. I think Popmart was a lot more social commentary than many people realized. It was ridiculous in part because the band wanted to call attention to the ridiculousness of their huge fame. They hadn't sold out; they'd only learned to laugh at themselves and at the culture that had allowed them to get so famous.

 

[The Disciple]

I guess a lot of it has to do with the fact that the world was a much different place 10 years ago. It just wouldn't work now for Bono to spend his days rallying for debt relief and aid to Africa, then to descend each night from a giant piece of fruit to sing about lovey dovey stuff. But wouldn't it be nice if he could? I miss live versions of Pop songs. It makes sense to me why they didn't get played on Vertigo, though, since I don't know that they'd have worked with the stage setup or the overall tone of the tour. But I wish the band could find some sort of balance between playfulness and creativity and their social conscience. I don't feel like it has to be either/or.

Wow... that's pretty deep.

 

[ahittle]

Popmart is the only tour I went to where the crowd wasn't already completely in love with the songs. A lot of factors there, and I am not judging the Pop songs. And God bless U2 for plugging away at selling those new songs night after night.

The whole package just didn't click with Joe Average. But maybe Joe Average is a moron.

I probably would've been better off seeing them in Latin America or something!

 

[dr. zooeuss]

i saw them the night after michael hutchence passed.

the san antonio show. very sombre. very weird.

i guess you could say i hadn't fallen in love with the songs at that point, but i think it's more accurate to say i was put off by what was going on a decade of U2 glazing themselves over with irony and sarcasm.. maybe i was too dense to get it, maybe POP was too far ahead of its time, maybe a combination of the two... but seeing PRIDE played with a pause for MLK to speak words of idealism from the video screen, and the openness of STREETS, thrown in the midst of POPMART- didn't quite fit for me.

This thread has made me look up some of the POPMART SANTIAGO shows on (where else) utube... and i agree they're incredible and electrifying performances... popmart seems like a golden age to u2 fans now that we've had two albums and nearly a decade of fairly predictable music from them, but at the time it did seem like a low point to me.

maybe they were (as usual) just ahead of their time. ;-)

the SANTIAGO clips are amazing. what amazes me even more is the sheer number of u2 clips on the internet now... most of them taken before the internet was really understood or widely known - their commitment to making each show the best yet shines through in every performance.

 

[BVS]

I saw Dallas(at the beginning) then San Antonio and Houston(a little later), good tour, but suffered from not being ready and Bono's vocals.

If this tour had the live strength that Vertigo did it could have gone down as one of the greatest tours ever...

 

[mandrake]

Does anyone think they should have kept trying to improve the electric version of Staring at the Sun. I think that has potential as a live song for future tours if done right. I also think they should have worked more on Do You Feel Loved and not have dumped it so fast.

 

[BVS]

DYFL should have definately been worked on more! But they just never had time, if they had soundchecked it longer before playing it to an audience we would have gotten something, but when it failed they shelved it and we'll never see it again, that's the type of band U2 is.

Songs evolve for U2 but rarely do they bring back one and completely rework it, so I doubt we'll see SATS again in any other form...

 

[dr. zooeuss]

I saw Dallas(at the beginning) then San Antonio and Houston(a little later), good tour, but suffered from not being ready and Bono's vocals.

If this tour had the live strength that Vertigo did it could have gone down as one of the greatest tours ever...

Hey whaddayaknow, we both saw the SA show. I drove down from Austin. Did you see an opening act? We didn't; at the time I thought there wasn't one, but I've since read there was one scheduled- but I've never known whether they cancelled or we missed them. I think it was third eye blind- no great loss. ;-)

...i agree with you about the potential of the tour- and if you look up the Santiago show (if you haven't already) you'll see it. (!!!)

 

[BVS]

Yeah I saw TEB, you didn't miss anything...

Problem with the Alamodome is it's probably the worst sound of any stadium concert I've ever been to...

As far as the Santiago show, it was great but it still never reached the full potential...

 

[dr. zooeuss]

Yeah I saw TEB, you didn't miss anything...

Problem with the Alamodome is it's probably the worst sound of any stadium concert I've ever been to...

As far as the Santiago show, it was great but it still never reached the full potential...

thanks, ha, i suspected that.

and agreed the Alamodome was a terrible venue.

well fill us in here, what could be better about Santiago shows? I've only watched two or three clips so far and they blow the alamodome away..

while we're at it, what in your opinion are the best U2 live tours and dates of all time (i dont' know nearly enough to begin to answer that one even remotely objectively)

 

[BVS]

thanks, ha, i suspected that.

and agreed the Alamodome was a terrible venue.

well fill us in here, what could be better about Santiago shows? I've only watched two or three clips so far and they blow the alamodome away..

There was nothing "wrong" with them, it's just Bono's voice was still suffering, it did the whole tour. Bono's voice for the most part was the strongest it's been for a long time during Vertigo shows, if he had had that voice during Popmart and they hadn't started off the tour so badly therefore shelving songs very quickly it could have been a much much better tour that's all I'm saying.

 

[akann]

I remember listening to discotheque on the radio in Auckland when it came out, and the lame host was mocking u2 about how they used to be so big in 87 with the JT and that they were not as cool anymore... At that time, I couldn't believe that it had been ten years since the JT, and now another decade has past. Where has the time gone...

 

[akann]

Bono's fall from grace as a singer from92- 93 to 97 was remarkable really. He went from having the most powerful voice in rock to having one of the weakest. I remember cringing before each u2 appearance on the MTV awards during that year, as I wasn't sure if Bono was going to be able to pull it off. Thankfully he has regained a lot of the form that he lost...

 

[MissMoo]

At the time it just seemed like a weaker version of Zoo to me. But, my friend was seeing them for the first time and he loved it. I still rate JT as the best (but then those were the first shows I saw) followed by Zoo. And it's funny because they were the opposite in terms of the set design. JT was so sparse that they could be spontaneous (I saw about ten shows and Bono did not repeat himself that I remember). Zoo was much more rehearsed, because of the camera's and I remember being disappointed by the lack of spontaneity, but overwhelmed by the technology. Pop just seemed to not have found itself, there was more emotion and freedom in JT and better effects and showmanship in Zootv. But the band does say that they took it out on the road to soon, so that may be it.

 

[BANZAI]

My first U2 concert was Popmart Rotterdam. Although I really loved it, I think the Zoo TV tour is U2 at their best.

 

[Mrs. Garrison]

My first time seeing them too, in St Louis, and it was complete madness as we were so drunk by the time the band took the stage we really had no idea what was going on. But we were there, and we were into it by all accounts of memory, and it was spectacular. After the show there was this sort of sobering effect for us we were like "what just happened?" its like we left the earth for a bit and suddenly returned with a thud. All i really remember was a lot of famaliar noise and the gigantic tv screen, from our terrible seats it looked pretty cool. But i do remember loving every minute of it, by far the best tour i have seen and ive been to 4 Elevation shows (in the heart each time) and 1 Vertigo show. I kick myself for not going onto Houston or San Antonio to see them again that year.

 

[lazarus]

I think when Popmart Mexico finally arrives on DVD the people who weren't able to see any of the shows will get some sense, at least on a sonic level, how good it was, even if you can't replicate the stadium atmosphere at home. Bono's very emotional version of One (in tribute to M. Hutchence) is a moving ending.

I think this tour definitely had the most exciting opening, with the band entering like boxers before a fight. Plus Mofo is one hell of a song to start with. A lot of energy. Following it with the original "mother" song, I Will Follow, was a nice choice.

I was lucky enough to see the last show on the first leg, at Foxboro Stadium (think Boston). I think by then they were much more confident and polsihed. They were still playing Miami at that point, which I think was sorely missed later on.

Also, Bullet the Blue Sky underwent quite a makeover on this tour, a little hip-hoppier, you could see the influence of one-time openers Rage Against the Machine. I loved this version (it's quite boring to hear it nowadays), and the snippets of America (from West Side Story) and Grandmaster Flash's The Message (at least at my show) added another political and cultural layer to the song. Great shit.

New Year's Day, which was absent for a decent portion of Zoo-TV, if I'm not mistaken, was a welcome return, and I haven't heard anyone mention Hold Me Thrill Me yet, which was AWESOME to see live.

I agree with the above poster who said this tour may have had the best all-around setlists.

 

[BonoIsMyMuse]

Popmart was BTBS's shining hour, in my opinion. Both the Elevation and Vertigo versions have paled in comparison.

Even though HMTMKMKM wasn't a Pop song, I feel like it's one of the ones that most embodied what Popmart was about. It's also one of the songs from that era I'd most like to see make a comeback. It's a U2 song I sort of forgot about for awhile, but I've been really getting back into it in the last few months.

 

[ZOOTVTOURist]

Popmart was BTBS's shining hour, in my opinion. Both the Elevation and Vertigo versions have paled in comparison. Even though HMTMKMKM wasn't a Pop song, I feel like it's one of the ones that most embodied what Popmart was about. It's also one of the songs from that era I'd most like to see make a comeback. It's a U2 song I sort of forgot about for awhile, but I've been really getting back into it in the last few months.

Don't know: BTBS had real great moments on the 20011 tour, too – played in its 'original' long version, standing completely on its own, ending with the 'Mark Chapman' rant at the climax ending. It left me speechless. And I don't want to miss the ZOO TV versions, especially in London 14 years ago – Bono in rage about the crimes in Bosnia and the failures of the UN, The Edge blowing it all through his guitar amplifier. The perfect version for me, at last. It had all. On POPmart it was more like, hm, we got a new beat, we got the flak spotlights creating a Nazi-light dome, we play with the elements of contradiction – and use the tune to rap it a bit more. Nice ideas, but not the force of nature, this song is.
HMTMKMKM on the other hand was a good one – but as a left over off the ZOOROPA album never really hit me that hard, rocked not that hard as, for example, "Desire". It is a grand piece of music and it was, don't forget, a hit single, everybody still remembered as being kind of the last official U2 tune before POP came out. So it was an obvious choice, belonging to the 'Greatest Hits' package, U2 unfortunately chose for the other half of the gigs. Now more or less forgotten, I like to listen to it from time to time – but hopefully u2 decide in 2009/10 to dust off other gems from their past than this one. There are better ones...