Vertigo Tour

The Vertigo Tour was a worldwide concert tour by the Irish rock band U2. Staged in support of the group's 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the tour visited arenas and stadiums between March 2005 and December 2006. The Vertigo Tour consisted of five legs that alternated between indoor arena shows in North America and outdoor stadium shows internationally. Much like the previous Elevation Tour, the indoor portion of the Vertigo Tour featured a stripped-down, intimate stage design. Protruding from the main stage was an ellipse-shaped catwalk that encapsulated a small number of fans.

Vertigo Tour

World tour by U2
Location	North America Europe South America Oceania Asia
Associated album	How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Start date	28 March 2005
End date	9 December 2006
Legs	5
No. of shows	131
Attendance	4,619,021
Box office	US$389 million
U2 concert chronology

The tour grossed US$260 million in 110 sold-out concerts in 2005, making it the top-grossing tour of the year. In North America alone, the tour grossed $138.9 million from 1.4 million tickets sold. The Vertigo Tour won the 2005 Billboard Roadwork Touring Awards for Top Tour, Top Draw, and Top Single Event, and U2's management company Principle Management won for Top Manager. By the time it finished, the Vertigo Tour had sold 4,619,021 tickets from 131 shows, and became the second-highest-grossing concert tour with $389 million earned. The tour was depicted in three concert films: Vertigo 2005: Live from Chicago, Vertigo: Live from Milan, and U2 3D.

Itinerary

U2 performs in Anaheim on April 1, 2005.

After rehearsing for several months in Vancouver, and stage rehearsals at Baja Studios in Rosarito, Mexico. The tour's opening night was on 28 March 2005 at the iPayOne Center in San Diego, California. The first leg through North America consisted of 28 sold-out indoor arena shows and finished on 28 May in Boston, Massachusetts.

The second leg was a European stadium tour, commencing on 10 June in Brussels and finishing on 14 August in Lisbon. They played in a number of venues including Amsterdam, London, Dublin, Madrid, Milan, and Oslo. U2 broke Irish box office marks with ticket sales for three Croke Park concerts in Dublin, after more than 240,000 tickets were sold in record time. In The Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Austria, the tickets were all sold within 60 minutes.

The symbols of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity form the word "CoeXisT" during a performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

The band then returned to North America in the autumn for the third leg, playing 50 sold-out shows in indoor arenas, starting on September 12 in Toronto and finishing up on December 19 in Portland, Oregon.

A fourth leg began on 12 February 2006 in Monterrey, Mexico, and ran through March visiting Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile; many of these locales had not seen a live U2 performance in nearly a decade and proved to be a hugely successful leg, with massive audiences attending these shows.

On 9 March 2006, it was announced the final 10 shows in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Hawaii were postponed due to guitarist The Edge's 7 year old daughter Sian's diagnosis of leukaemia. (The initial start of the tour had been postponed for the same reason, prior to any tickets being sold.) On 20 July 2006, it was announced that they were rescheduled for November and December, with some adjustments and additions of dates. The fifth leg started on 7 November in Brisbane, Australia and concluded on 9 December 2006 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii after thirteen shows.

Stage design

The stage and LED curtain viewed from the rear at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia on 22 May 2005.

The Vertigo Tour's production was designed by architect Mark Fisher and stage and lighting designer Willie Williams. Key elements were an ellipse-shaped ramp on the floor connected to the stage, with some fans inside it and some outside it (similar to the heart-shaped ramp used on the previous Elevation Tour). The inside area of the ellipse came to be known as the "bomb shelter", in reference to the supporting album.

In the North American shows, a set of seven retractable, see-through LED-based lighted bead curtains hung behind and to the side of the stage, showing abstract patterns, maps, moving figures, and occasionally text. The curtain design permitted concertgoers around the arena to have an excellent view of the curtains above the band and the images they displayed. The roll-drop LED screens were designed by Fisher using 360deg golf-ball pixels developed with Frederic Opsomer of Innovative Designs in Belgium. The spherical LED product joined the BARCO product line as the Mi-Sphere. The Vertigo Tour used 189 strings of these "MiSphere" LED balls suspended from custom truss, which allows the LED curtains to be rolled up. High above the center stage hung the MiSphere strings, each containing 64 spheres and totaling nine meters long. Dynamic, "moving" lights were also embedded in the stage and the B-stage ramp, as well. Four screens suspended above the stage showed close-ups of each member of the band, another element reused from the Elevation Tour.

For the European, Latin American and Australian stadium shows, the bead curtains were replaced by an LED screen behind the band. The screen was assembled from BARCO O-Lite modules. The assembly of the screen was similar to the rigging used for the LED screen in the PopMart Tour. The ellipse was also replaced with two catwalks leading to two B-stages in the style of the 'Vertigo target'.

Lighting gear list

The following gear was used for the show's lighting:

• 54 Martin MAC 2000 Wash
• 15 Vari*Lite VL3000
• 37 Martin Atomic 3000 Strobe
• 66 2x2 DWE audience blinders
• 12 Lycian M2 Follow Spot
• 6 Strong 3K Gladiator Follow Spot
• 6 Saco Technologies LED Factory Light (custom)
• 24 ETC Source Four Leko
• 6 Lowell Tota light
• 6 1x4 DWE audience blinders
• 2 18K HMI Fresnel
• 1 Flying Pig Systems WholeHog 3 console (running beta version of the new 1.3.9 software)
• 189 MiSphere string
• 4 Barco G10 projector
• 5 Barco G5 projector
• 5 Folsom Encore image processor

A PlayStation controller was used to control High End Systems DL1 units for audience shots presented on the large video screens.

Set list

The show's set list varied, with notable differences between each leg of the tour.

Main set

U2 performs "City of Blinding Lights" in their home town of Dublin in June 2005.

Prior to the band taking the stage, "Wake Up" by Canadian rock band Arcade Fire was played as introduction music. The arena shows of the first and third legs usually began with the same trio of songs: "City of Blinding Lights", "Vertigo", and "Elevation". On the first leg, "City of Blinding Lights" would alternate with "Love and Peace or Else", and sometimes "Beautiful Day" appeared in the opening trio. In contrast, the stadium concerts of the second leg opened with "Vertigo", "I Will Follow", and "The Electric Co.", though "I Will Follow's" position was occasionally occupied by other songs. By the fourth leg, "City of Blinding Lights", "Vertigo" and "Elevation" were the standard opening trio that was only altered once – early on in the fourth leg. After the opening trio, songs from U2's early days were played at the arena shows, while the stadium shows featured more anthemic rock songs. "New Year's Day", "Until the End of the World", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", and "Miracle Drug" were examples of songs that often appeared in the main set. Beyond this point in the set list, the stadium and indoor sets became roughly similar. "Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own" was played at every show as a tribute to Bono's father. There was then a sequence of politically based songs (usually "Love and Peace or Else", "Sunday Bloody Sunday", and "Bullet the Blue Sky"), based around the theme of "Coexist" (written to show a Muslim Crescent, Jewish Star of David, and Christian Cross). Later, with flags of African nations displayed on the screens, "Where the Streets Have No Name" followed "Pride (In the Name of Love)". This led to a plea from Bono to participate in the ONE Campaign, while the opening of "One" played.

Encores

"The Fly" performed on the opening night of the European leg at King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels on 10 June 2005.

The encores varied from leg to leg, and night to night. The first encore was frequently a musical and visual look back to U2's Zoo TV Tour, usually featuring "Zoo Station", "The Fly", and "Mysterious Ways". However, for many shows on the third leg, this was discarded in favor of an acoustic encore. The second encore often showcased recent material, and almost all second-leg shows as well as rare first and third-leg shows ended with a repeat of "Vertigo", in homage to U2's early concert days when they would run out of songs to play. The usual concert finisher in the first leg was "40" where Adam and Edge would switch instruments, but over the course of the tour, many other closing songs would be used as well.

At the start of the much-delayed fifth leg in Australia, the usual first Zoo TV-style encore was used initially, but several shows into the leg "Zoo Station" was dropped in favour of "Mysterious Ways" with "The Fly" opening the encore, making the first encore "The Fly", "Mysterious Ways" and "With or Without You". The second encore, however, showcased three songs that had not been played until this point on the entire tour. "The Saints Are Coming" was played, following U2 and Green Day's using it to reopen the Louisiana Superdome. Up next was a full electric performance of "Angel of Harlem". Making its Vertigo Tour debut and closing a show for the first time ever was "Kite", which had not been played since the end of the Elevation Tour five years prior. "Kite" was accompanied by a didgeridoo and the show ended with Bono releasing a kite from one of the B-Stages. During the band's second show in Auckland, "One Tree Hill" replaced "Kite" as the show closer. The encore of the final concert of the tour in Honolulu included "The Saints Are Coming" featuring Billie Joe Armstrong, "Window in the Skies", and Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" featuring Eddie Vedder and Mike McCready. The tour ended with the song "All I Want Is You".

Diversity of material played

The Edge plays "Electric Co." in Pittsburgh in October 2005; the song had been a staple of the band's live act in the early 1980s, but had not been played in 17 years.

The Vertigo Tour was notable not only for its diversity of material—it was the first tour since the Lovetown Tour to feature at least one song from each of their currently released albums—but for the rarity of some songs played. "The Ocean" had not been performed since December 1982. Tracks from their debut album Boy were chosen ahead of tracks from their biggest-selling album, The Joshua Tree. A number of other songs returned to the set list after absences of more than fifteen years, including material from October, while "The First Time", from 1993's Zooropa album, was played in full live for the first time. "Miss Sarajevo", a song from U2's side project Original Soundtracks No. 1, became a concert regular despite previously only being played live twice since its release in 1995. Although Luciano Pavarotti sang the operatic vocals on the original, "Miss Sarajevo" featured Bono competently singing the operatic vocals. Also, "Discothèque", from 1997's Pop album, made its final two appearances. The Vertigo Tour has also featured Larry Mullen, Jr. on vocals on "Elevation", "Miracle Drug" and "Love and Peace or Else". All but two songs ("A Man and a Woman" and "One Step Closer") from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb were performed on the tour. "Fast Cars", a bonus track on some countries' editions of the album, was also performed. "Walk On", the Grammy Award-winning song from All That You Can't Leave Behind, was played only sparingly on the tour, and barring performances in Brisbane and Sydney, was played in stripped-back acoustic form. Also "Bad", which was a regular on the Elevation Tour playlist, was played less frequently on this tour.

Concert filming

Two nights of the band's four-night engagement in Chicago, Illinois in May 2005 were filmed for the live DVD Vertigo 2005: Live From Chicago. During the European stadium leg of the Vertigo Tour in the summer of 2005, four more concerts were filmed: two in Dublin and two in Milan. Songs from the Milan shows were featured in a band profile on 60 Minutes and on U2.COMmunication. Ten songs performed at the Milan concert appeared as a special edition bonus DVD in U2's November 2006 compilation album U218 Singles. The 20 February 2006 show in São Paulo, Brazil was broadcast live by Rede Globo. Additionally, 700 hours of footage from seven Latin American concerts were filmed in 3D HD for the film U2 3D, released in 2008 in Real D Cinemas. On 18 and 19 November, additional U2 3D filming was done at the Melbourne concerts at Telstra Dome, as additional shots of the stage's LED display and the concert audience were needed.

Support acts

Support slots were taken up by Ash, Arcade Fire, Athlete, Dashboard Confessional, Feeder, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Kanye West, Keane, The Killers, Kings of Leon (U.S. leg only), Scissor Sisters, Snow Patrol, Starsailor (Cardiff only), Paddy Casey (Dublin only), Razorlight, Pearl Jam (Honolulu only) and The Zutons.

Reception

Like its predecessor, the Vertigo Tour was a commercial success, ranking as the top-earning tour of 2005 with US$260 million grossed. In North America alone, the tour grossed $138.9 million from 1.4 million tickets sold. The Vertigo Tour won the 2005 Billboard Roadwork Touring Awards for Top Tour, Top Draw, and Top Single Event, and U2's management company Principle Management won for Top Manager. By the time it finished, the Vertigo Tour had sold 4,619,021 tickets from 131 shows, and became the second-highest-grossing concert tour with $389 million earned. It was bested only by The Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang Tour, which took place at roughly the same time but was longer overall.

Ticket presale controversy

The band's website, U2.com, was involved in a ticket presale controversy that upset fans. Users who paid $40 for a subscription to U2.com were promised the opportunity to purchase tickets in a presale that preceded any general public ticket sales. However, many fans were unable to purchase tickets, as technical glitches plagued the presale. Additionally, many scalpers had taken advantage of the system by subscribing to U2.com and purchasing as many tickets as possible, with the intentions of selling them for profit. Larry Mullen, Jr. apologized on behalf of the band at the Grammy Awards.

Tour dates

List of concerts, showing date, city, country, venue, opening act, tickets sold, number of available tickets and amount of gross revenue

Date	City	Country	Venue	Opening act	Attendance	Revenue
North America
March 28, 2005	San Diego	United States	iPayOne Center	Kings of Leon	29,140 / 29,140	$2,909,029
March 30, 2005
April 1, 2005	Anaheim		Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim		33,535 / 33,535	$3,454,198
April 2, 2005
April 5, 2005	Los Angeles		Staples Center		34,527 / 34,527	$3,673,850
April 6, 2005
April 9, 2005	San Jose		HP Pavilion		36,140 / 36,140	$3,357,098
April 10, 2005
April 14, 2005	Glendale		Glendale Arena		34,905 / 34,905	$3,198,861
April 15, 2005
April 20, 2005	Denver		Pepsi Center		36,714 / 36,714	$3,509,741
April 21, 2005
April 24, 2005	Seattle		KeyArena		30,251 / 30,251	$3,105,754
April 25, 2005
April 28, 2005	Vancouver	Canada	General Motors Place		37,031 / 37,031	$3,020,466
April 29, 2005
May 7, 2005	Chicago	United States	United Center		77,173 / 77,173	$7,541,679
May 9, 2005
May 10, 2005
May 12, 2005
May 14, 2005	Philadelphia		Wachovia Center		39,273 / 39,273	$3,767,178
May 17, 2005	East Rutherford		Continental Airlines Arena		40,347 / 40,347	$3,838,066
May 18, 2005
May 21, 2005	New York City		Madison Square Garden		18,415 / 18,415	$1,907,086
May 22, 2005	Philadelphia		Wachovia Center
May 24, 2005	Boston		FleetCenter		51,658 / 51,658	$5,071,565
May 26, 2005
May 28, 2005
Europe
June 10, 2005	Brussels	Belgium	King Baudouin Stadium	The Thrills Snow Patrol	60,499 / 60,499	$4,864,554
June 12, 2005	Gelsenkirchen	Germany	Veltins-Arena	The Thrills Feeder	59,120 / 59,120	$4,203,947
June 14, 2005	Manchester	England	City of Manchester Stadium	The Bravery Idlewild Snow Patrol Athlete	107,671 / 107,671	$11,119,740
June 15, 2005
June 18, 2005	London		Twickenham Stadium	Doves Idlewild Athlete Ash	110,796 / 110,796	$13,677,410
June 19, 2005
June 21, 2005	Glasgow	Scotland	Hampden Park	Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Interpol	53,395 / 53,395	$5,819,053
June 24, 2005	Dublin	Ireland	Croke Park	The Radiators The Thrills The Bravery Snow Patrol Paddy Casey Ash	246,743 / 246,743	$21,163,695
June 25, 2005
June 27, 2005
June 29, 2005	Cardiff	Wales	Millennium Stadium	Starsailor The Killers	63,677 / 63,677	$6,406,073
July 2, 2005	Vienna	Austria	Ernst-Happel-Stadion	The Thrills The Magic Numbers	55,645 / 55,645	$4,200,416
July 5, 2005	Chorzów	Poland	Stadion Śląski	The Killers The Magic Numbers	64,711 / 64,711	$3,127,416
July 7, 2005	Berlin	Germany	Olympiastadion	Snow Patrol Kaiser Chiefs	70,443 / 70,443	$4,725,530
July 9, 2005	Paris	France	Stade de France	Snow Patrol Starsailor The Music	160,349 / 160,349	$11,822,645
July 10, 2005
July 13, 2005	Amsterdam	Netherlands	Amsterdam Arena	The Killers Snow Patrol Kaiser Chiefs The Music Athlete	165,516 / 165,516	$13,022,200
July 15, 2005
July 16, 2005
July 18, 2005	Zürich	Switzerland	Letzigrund	Ash Feeder	44,260 / 44,260	$3,574,993
July 20, 2005	Milan	Italy	Stadio Giuseppe Meazza		137,427 / 137,427	$7,565,264
July 21, 2005
July 23, 2005	Rome		Stadio Olimpico		67,002 / 67,002	$4,010,779
July 27, 2005	Oslo	Norway	Valle Hovin	Razorlight Paddy Casey	40,000 / 40,000	$3,765,136
July 29, 2005	Gothenburg	Sweden	Ullevi	Razorlight The Soundtrack of Our Lives	58,478 / 58,478	$4,081,864
July 31, 2005	Copenhagen	Denmark	Parken Stadium		50,000 / 50,000	$3,650,294
August 3, 2005	Munich	Germany	Olympiastadion	Keane The Zutons	77,435 / 77,435	$5,343,379
August 5, 2005	Nice	France	Stade Charles-Ehrmann		51,900 / 51,900	$3,548,702
August 7, 2005	Barcelona	Spain	Camp Nou	Kaiser Chiefs Keane	81,269 / 81,269	$5,130,437
August 9, 2005	San Sebastián		Estadio Anoeta	Franz Ferdinand Kaiser Chiefs	43,720 / 43,720	$2,936,571
August 11, 2005	Madrid		Vicente Calderón Stadium		57,040 / 57,040	$3,679,354
August 14, 2005	Lisbon	Portugal	Estádio José Alvalade	Kaiser Chiefs Keane	55,362 / 55,362	$4,492,762
North America
September 12, 2005	Toronto	Canada	Air Canada Centre	Dashboard Confessional	82,572 / 82,572	$7,624,870
September 14, 2005
September 16, 2005
September 17, 2005
September 20, 2005	Chicago	United States	United Center		38,815 / 38,815	$3,795,583
September 21, 2005
September 23, 2005	Minneapolis		Target Center		19,328 / 19,328	$1,823,883
September 25, 2005	Milwaukee		Bradley Center		19,336 / 19,336	$1,782,895
October 3, 2005	Boston		TD Banknorth Garden	Keane	34,488 / 34,488	$3,381,429
October 4, 2005
October 7, 2005	New York City		Madison Square Garden		93,275 / 93,275	$9,658,009
October 8, 2005
October 10, 2005
October 11, 2005
October 14, 2005
October 16, 2005	Philadelphia		Wachovia Center	Damian Marley	39,905 / 39,905	$3,773,053
October 17, 2005
October 19, 2005	Washington, D.C.		MCI Center		38,181 / 38,181	$3,902,569
October 20, 2005
October 22, 2005	Pittsburgh		Mellon Arena		16,899 / 16,899	$1,636,798
October 24, 2005	Auburn Hills		The Palace of Auburn Hills	Institute	41,379 / 41,379	$3,951,103
October 25, 2005
October 28, 2005	Houston		Toyota Center	Damian Marley	17,002 / 17,002	$1,652,699
October 29, 2005	Dallas		American Airlines Center		17,988 / 17,988	$1,689,471
November 1, 2005	Los Angeles		Staples Center		34,291 / 34,291	$3,656,978
November 2, 2005
November 4, 2005	Las Vegas		MGM Grand Garden Arena		31,863 / 31,863	$3,864,843
November 5, 2005
November 8, 2005	Oakland		Oakland Arena		36,340 / 36,340	$3,638,620
November 9, 2005
November 13, 2005	Miami		American Airlines Arena	Institute	37,354 / 37,354	$3,589,942
November 14, 2005
November 16, 2005	Tampa		St. Pete Times Forum		19,354 / 19,354	$1,825,243
November 18, 2005	Atlanta		Philips Arena		36,334 / 36,334	$3,500,572
November 19, 2005
November 21, 2005	New York City		Madison Square Garden	Patti Smith	37,314 / 37,314	$3,859,828
November 22, 2005
November 25, 2005	Ottawa	Canada	Corel Centre	Arcade Fire	18,647 / 18,647	$1,486,710
November 26, 2005	Montreal		Bell Centre		43,294 / 43,294	$3,575,491
November 28, 2005
December 4, 2005	Boston	United States	TD Banknorth Garden	Institute	34,583 / 34,583	$3,400,861
December 5, 2005
December 7, 2005	Hartford		Hartford Civic Center		16,165 / 16,165	$1,542,471
December 9, 2005	Buffalo		HSBC Arena		18,826 / 18,826	$1,711,094
December 10, 2005	Cleveland		Quicken Loans Arena		19,765 / 19,765	$1,791,497
December 12, 2005	Charlotte		Charlotte Bobcats Arena		17,804 / 17,804	$1,672,440
December 14, 2005	St. Louis		Savvis Center	Kanye West	19,923 / 19,923	$1,839,020
December 15, 2005	Omaha		Qwest Center Omaha		16,134 / 16,134	$1,500,834
December 17, 2005	Salt Lake City		Delta Center		18,197 / 18,197	$1,709,317
December 19, 2005	Portland		Rose Garden Arena		18,233 / 18,233	$1,670,879
Latin America
February 12, 2006	Monterrey	Mexico	Estadio Tecnológico	Secret Machines	50,347 / 50,347	$4,504,026
February 15, 2006	Mexico City		Estadio Azteca		141,278 / 141,278	$10,257,284
February 16, 2006
February 20, 2006	São Paulo	Brazil	Morumbi Stadium	Franz Ferdinand	149,700 / 149,700	$11,682,557
February 21, 2006
February 26, 2006	Santiago	Chile	Estadio Nacional		77,345 / 77,345	$5,000,589
March 1, 2006	Buenos Aires	Argentina	River Plate Stadium		150,424 / 150,424	$6,966,821
March 2, 2006
Pacific
November 7, 2006	Brisbane	Australia	Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre	Kanye West	53,480 / 53,480	$1,253,964
November 10, 2006	Sydney		Telstra Stadium		206,568 / 206,568	$18,538,724
November 11, 2006
November 13, 2006
November 16, 2006	Adelaide		AAMI Stadium		60,000 / 60,000	$5,058,962
November 18, 2006	Melbourne		Telstra Dome		127,275 / 127,275	$11,188,720
November 19, 2006
November 24, 2006	Auckland	New Zealand	Ericsson Stadium		84,475 / 84,475	$6,216,819
November 25, 2006
November 29, 2006	Saitama	Japan	Saitama Super Arena	—	57,158 / 57,158	$6,096,855
November 30, 2006
December 4, 2006
December 9, 2006	Honolulu	United States	Aloha Stadium	Pearl Jam Rocco and the Devils	45,815 / 45,815	$4,486,532
Total					4,619,021 / 4,619,021 (100%)	$389,047,636

See also

• Timeline of U2
• List of most-attended concert tours

External links

• Vertigo Tour at U2.com