PopMart "failure"

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pepokiss

pepokiss

Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Joined
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I was reading something in another thread and someone said something about this tour that just made me mad and wonder...

I know about the non-Sell Out Stadiums for the NA leg 1
I know in the ROW legs (4 and 5) they had full stadiums. I was there :wink:

But in EUROPE the tour was like that? Or the stadiums were packed?
What about the 3rd leg, the 2nd NA leg ? Were they half-sold?
 
I was at the Ullevi concert 1997 at the age of 12 i think. It was packed. U2 has allways been a huge draw in Sweden.
 
PopMart "failure"

pepokiss said:
I was reading something in another thread and someone said something about this tour that just made me mad and wonder...



I know about the non-Sell Out Stadiums for the NA leg 1

I know in the ROW legs (4 and 5) they had full stadiums. I was there :wink:



But in EUROPE the tour was like that? Or the stadiums were packed?

What about the 3rd leg, the 2nd NA leg ? Were they half-sold?
Click to expand...


I tracked all the boxscores back then and if I remember correctly, the tour was only deemed a disappointment in the US.

Europe had solid results with them playing to a reported crowd of 150k one night, which was billed at the time as one of the biggest concerts ever(Reggio ??).

In the US, it was pretty bad results outside of their "safe havens" of NYC, Chicago, Boston and LA.

I went to Giants stadium nights 2 and 3. Night 2 was filled but night 3 had the entire upper deck blocked off.

I also remember the box scores indicated several stadiums at less than half capacity (Tampa, Denver and San Diego I think). You also have to keep in mind that expectations in the US were high due to them coming off of a huge tour in ZooTV.




Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
 
Moser said:
Nevermind all that.

I just want a re-recorded POP as I'm listening the single version of LNOE.
Click to expand...


Speaking of which, the single versions of Please(strings) and IGWSHA were both far superior than the album cuts!

LNOE...I don't recall if that was better.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
 
Yeah it was all you Americans that made u2 play it safe with all that you cant leave behind.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.
 
rennowba said:
Yeah it was all you Americans that made u2 play it safe with all that you cant leave behind.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Click to expand...

The German's as well, some the lowest attendance figures of the tour. Not to mention there were supposed to be more shows for London but they did not schedule them because ticket sales were so slow for the shows that happened. It was not just a U.S. thing. Some shows were soldout or very full in the U.S. Some were not. Same can be said for some of Europe. The exception was South America, where U2 had never played before. :shrug:
 
I'd say it all depends on perspective. Popmart was probably the coolest concert I've ever been to. Leeds is my favorite U2 bootleg too. But financially and publicly, yeah. Different story of course.
 
Jacksonville can't even fill their stadium for the Jaguars. The city population is 850,000 but that's because the city boundaries are huge. No real suburbs.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
 
CosmoKramer said:
I tracked all the boxscores back then and if I remember correctly, the tour was only deemed a disappointment in the US.

Europe had solid results with them playing to a reported crowd of 150k one night, which was billed at the time as one of the biggest concerts ever(Reggio ??).

In the US, it was pretty bad results outside of their "safe havens" of NYC, Chicago, Boston and LA.

I went to Giants stadium nights 2 and 3. Night 2 was filled but night 3 had the entire upper deck blocked off.

I also remember the box scores indicated several stadiums at less than half capacity (Tampa, Denver and San Diego I think). You also have to keep in mind that expectations in the US were high due to them coming off of a huge tour in ZooTV.




Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
Click to expand...


Germany wasn't very good also.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
 
mikal said:
I'd say it all depends on perspective. Popmart was probably the coolest concert I've ever been to. Leeds is my favorite U2 bootleg too. But financially and publicly, yeah. Different story of course.
Click to expand...

That bootleg certainly scores very, very high on my list as well. :drool: Just amazing.

From what I've heard, it was completely sold out here.
 
Australia and Japan were also disappointing on Popmart. Only 1 show in Sydney sold out at a reduced capacity , and Perth sold out, but in a 15,000 seat arena.

Europe was very good, with the unusual exception being Germany . A couple of those German shows had less than 20,000 tickets sold ! Very strange how just 1 country I'm all of Europe was like that.

Mexico and South America also performed very well.

The show I attended that tour, Columbus ohio, had something like 45,000, which is one of the better attendance numbers in the US. However, the stadium was still only 2/3 full at best.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
 
Ah, POP. The album got really great reviews. Maybe the fact that it sold just a million copies in America threw the band for a loop? Maybe the US audience was just confused by U2 in the '90s in general. In the four years since Zooropa was released they put out an experimental album, they dropped a really good single for the Batman Forever soundtrack and then took a few more years to finally give the American audience POP. And well, they gave America a press conference in a K-Mart and played a non album song at that press conference...

Maybe they could not culturally connect with a young American audience that had been subjected to an awesome Brit Pop scene in the mid '90s and then the late '90s techno-rave scene, AND the emerging rap-rock scene. It's possible U2 couldn't gain traction outside of their existing fan base? It's tough to say, and it has been discussed so much here but I think and agree with Headache, that it was the right album and tour at the wrong time.
 
Tampa Stadium was 1/2 full...quite a difference between JT tour and ZooTV. I thought the show was great but I can see how that record turned a lot of people off from going to the concert. The record has grown on me over the years but it's never been my favorite.


Funniest thing was towards the beginning of the show Edge actually told everyone to feel free to spread out...
 
david said:
Ah, POP. The album got really great reviews. Maybe the fact that it sold just a million copies in America threw the band for a loop? Maybe the US audience was just confused by U2 in the '90s in general. In the four years since Zooropa was released they put out an experimental album, they dropped a really good single for the Batman Forever soundtrack and then took a few more years to finally give the American audience POP. And well, they gave America a press conference in a K-Mart and played a non album song at that press conference...

Maybe they could not culturally connect with a young American audience that had been subjected to an awesome Brit Pop scene in the mid '90s and then the late '90s techno-rave scene, AND the emerging rap-rock scene. It's possible U2 couldn't gain traction outside of their existing fan base? It's tough to say, and it has been discussed so much here but I think and agree with Headache, that it was the right album and tour at the wrong time.
Click to expand...

Interesting thoughts...

In my opinion the album had a great idea, great prospect, great plan or whatever you would call it, but in realization it failed badly. It wasn t dance record, it wasn´t rock record, it wasn´t club record, it was just weird mishmash record. It didn´t work. The album as whole had no concept and most of the songs were a bit messy. They wanted to get somewhere, but they got lost in the middle of nowhere during the process.

Nevertheless they can be proud on themselves they tried to challenge themselves again and come up with something new, reinvent themselves, even though it didn´t end up very good. Couple of songs time prooved to be great, though. It was only after Pop, with their next album where they resigned artistically and that stands lowest in their catalogue.
 
Galeongirl said:
Didnt' they cancel an Australian gig due to low ticket sales as well? :hmm:
Click to expand...

The Aussie dates were
2/17- Perth
2/21- Melbourne
2/25- Brisbane
2/27- Sydney

I don't think any were cancelled, although it can be assumed they left room for 2nd shows in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, which never happened. Melbourne and Sydney had 2 shows on Zoo TV. Tokyo was also supposed to get a 2nd show, but demand was not there.
 
The_acrobat said:
The Aussie dates were
2/17- Perth
2/21- Melbourne
2/25- Brisbane
2/27- Sydney

I don't think any were cancelled, although it can be assumed they left room for 2nd shows in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, which never happened. Melbourne and Sydney had 2 shows on Zoo TV. Tokyo was also supposed to get a 2nd show, but demand was not there.
Click to expand...

There were plans for second shows in Sydney and Tokyo that never came to pass. Neither went on sale, nor were they announced publicly. To the best of my knowledge, even though the tour itinerary appears to have a gap, there was no second show planned for Melbourne (or the idea was discarded at a very early stage, before tickets even went on sale). Keep in mind the stadium they were playing in Melbourne was much larger than the venue in Sydney.

So yeah, Popmart's weak markets were the US, Germany, Australia, and Japan. The rest of the tour sold extremely well, especially Europe outside of Germany. The common narrative only tells half the real story.
 
Extra Popmart gigs that were either rumored or were cancelled due to lack of demand.

5/29- Raleigh (cancelled due to "screen damage")
6/4- New York 4
6/9- Philadelphia 2
6/22- L.A. 2
7/4- Boston 3 (couldn't get permits to have a concert on the 4th of July, due to law enforcement being too busy with Independence Day duties)

7/20- Rotterdam 3
Sometime between 7/19 - 7/25- Tried to get a gig in Basel, Switzerland scheduled between the Rotterdam and Werchter shows that never materialized. Promotors also wanted them to cancel Sarajevo and play Basel on that date as well.
8/24- London 3
9/7- Paris 2

- The shows in Seattle and Vancouver were supposed to be at the beginning of the 3rd leg. However, due to Edge's wife's due date, they were moved at the last minute to the end of the leg. The 3rd leg was originally intended to end in Mexico City.
- 11/19- Indianapolis (included in the original tour announcement, however this show never even went to on sale. However, attendance probably wouldn't have been very good.)
- I've also heard they considered more shows in Mexico City than just the 2.

2/18- Perth 2
2/22- Melbourne 2
2/28- Sydney 2
3/6- Tokyo 2

Also gigs were listed in the tour program to be happening in;
New Zealand
Hawaii
Southeast Asia
Egypt
Singapore

These obviously never happened. I do remember March 13th was listed as a date for Singapore at one point, and Egypt on March 27th.
 
Pop was a very good album but could have been great if they'd stuck with Nellie Hooper and made him sole producer, possibly ditching Howie B's involvement.

The tour on the other hand, whilst being good and very ambitious, suffered because the whole meaning of the arch, lemon, cocktail stick etc were largely lost. The huge multi million dollar screen was hardly used other than to see the band. The overriding theme wasn't as clear as it was on ZOO TV. Of course also, coming after in my opinion the greatest tour of all time, Popmart was sadly always going to pale in comparison.
 
I was at the 2nd Rotterdam show.
Bono spent the the first 15 minutes of the show getting worked up about an entire section of the stadium directly on his right being alarmingly empty.

I don't think U2 have had such poor ticket sales in The Netherlands since.
It's a myth that Europe embraced POP.
 
I usually don't have enough money to "save", but I remember saving for that tour (first time I'd be able to watch them live)... only to be out of job a week or so the week the tickets went on sale.
I had to wait until the Vertigo Tour finally watch them.
 
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