Elevation Tour

infobox concert tour
concert_tour_name = Elevation Tour


artist = U2
album = "All That You Can't Leave Behind"
locations=North America, Europe
start_date = March 24, 2001
end_date = December 2, 2001
number_of_legs = 3
number_of_shows = 113
last_tour = PopMart Tour
(1997-1998)
this_tour = Elevation Tour
(2001)
next_tour = Vertigo Tour
(2005-2006)The Elevation Tour was a concert tour by the Irish rock band U2, which took place in 2001, in support of the group's 2000 album, "All That You Can't Leave Behind".

The tour saw the band returning to indoor arenas with a much more stripped-down, intimate stage design after the band's previous two extravagant stadium tours, Zoo TV and PopMart. The Elevation Tour's opening night was on March 24, 2001 at the National Car Rental Center outside of Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the United States. The first leg took place in North America that spring, the second leg in Europe that summer, and the third leg back in North America that autumn, ending on December 2, 2001.

The Elevation Tour was the top concert draw of 2001 in North America, with the band's 80 shows grossing $110 million. [cite news | url=http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2005-01-23-u2-tour-dates_x.htm | title=U2 tour has the concert business getting dizzy | author=Edna Gundersen | publisher=USA Today | date=2005-01-23 | accessdate=2007-12-13] Its success saw the band perform during the Super Bowl XXXVI halftime show in 2002. Two concert films depicting the tour, ' and ' were recorded.

The stage

The Elevation Tour's stage design was done by Willie Williams, designer of a number of U2's tours. Unlike its predecessor Zoo TV and PopMart tours, Elevation was a simpler, stripped-down affair, hitting indoor arenas instead of outdoor stadiums. The key feature was the stage, which included a large heart-shaped ramp which jutted halfway out onto the arena floor, creating a glorified catwalk. Some general admission ticket-holders were placed inside the heart, on top of which band members could walk, getting closer to the audience on both sides. Visual images were presented on scrims mounted high among the lighting rigs, sometimes in dynamic swirling fashion such as for "Kite", and even on the entire indoor surface.cite news | url=http://livedesignonline.com/mag/show_business_eddy_awards_willie/ | title=The 2001 EDDY Awards: Willie Williams | author=Catherine McHugh | publisher=Live Design | date=2001-12-01 | accessdate=2007-12-13] Williams would win "Live Design" magazine's 2001 EDDY Award for his work on the tour; [cite news | url=http://livedesignonline.com/news/show_business_th_anniversary_eddy/ | title=10th Anniversary EDDY Awards Presenters Announced | author=Ellen Lampert-Gréaux | publisher=Live Design | date=2001-11-21 | accessdate=2007-12-13] the award stated, "While U2's current Elevation tour is striking in its simplicity, Williams created an almost complete amalgamation of lighting and video by using the entire space of each arena as a projection surface."

The show

Shows typically began with the powerful opening duo of "Elevation" and "Beautiful Day", but the set list overall did not present any major interpretive patterns. The live favourite "Bad" appeared as a regular again after it was only played a few times in the PopMart Tour. Lead singer Bono would reiterate during shows the promotional theme of both the tour and the new album, that after the relatively poor sales of "Pop" and sometimes poor reception of PopMart, "We're back, re-applying for the job ... And the job is best band in the world." [cite news | url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2001/02/09/bmu209.xml | title=U2 make their bid to be best band in the world - further candidates need not apply | author=David Cheal | publisher=The Daily Telegraph | date=2001-02-09 | accessdate=2006-08-20] [cite news | url=http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2001/04/05/Entertainment/Beau2ful.Days-699657.shtml | title=beaU2ful days | author=Matt Dentler | publisher=The Daily Texan | date=2001-04-05 | accessdate=2006-08-20]

The European leg of the Elevation Tour was also presented in arenas. However, several outdoor shows were played due to logistics and facility requirements. These included both of the Slane Castle shows, which were part of Ireland's annual Slane Concert. For these two performances, the "heart" was extended and widened in order to accommodate the more than 80,000 people who attended each gig. The Turin show was played in a football stadium, with a black U-shaped semi-circle extending out into the crowd instead of the "heart". The Berlin show was performed in a natural outdoor arena with a tent-like structure supporting all the band's flown gear (speaker stacks, lighting, etc). Due to the limited amount of space available for production, the top of the heart was placed at the front of the stage. During this leg, Bono regularly flew back to Dublin after each show to be with his dying father. [cite news | url=http://top40-charts.com/news.php?nid=646&string=Ramon | title=Bono Flies Back to Dying Father After Each U2 Gig | publisher=Reuters | date=2001-08-21 | accessdate=2006-08-20]

The third leg of the tour began in the U.S. only a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks and in the midst of the 2001 anthrax attacks. This nearly led U2 to cancel the leg, but they decided to continue, starting it at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, home of the "Fighting Irish". While some fans shied away from coming to an ordinarily celebratory occasion or to a large, enclosed public gathering, many other fans did not let these events stop them. The tenor of the times dramatically affected the temperament of the shows, with Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" appearing frequently in the setlist and the band's "Walk On" taking on added emotional weight.

uper Bowl performance

Following the Elevation Tour proper, the band performed a three-song set during the halftime of Super Bowl XXXVI. The set opened with "Beautiful Day," with Bono entering through the crowd. Next was "MLK". The highlight was a performance of "Where the Streets Have No Name" in which the names of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks were projected onto a pair of backdrops, scrolling up towards the sky. At the end of the song the backdrops were released, descending to the ground in a gentle revisiting of the World Trade Center's fall. Bono then opened his jacket, which he had worn throughout the Elevation Tour, to reveal the American flag printed as the lining, an image that was widely reproduced in the media. [Parra, Pimm Jal de la "U2 Live: A Concert Documentary", pg. 268, 2003, Omnibus Press, ISBN 0-7119-9198-7.]

Concert filming

Two DVDs of the Elevation Tour were released. The first, ', was released in December 2001, and included material from three different shows filmed in June 2001 in Boston at the then-named FleetCenter. The second, ', was released in November 2003. Filmed on September 1, 2001, it captured the outdoor variant of the show at the Slane Concert performance.

References

External links

* [http://www.u2tours.com/ u2tours.com]
* [http://www.u2.com/ U2.com]
* [http://www.elevation-tour.com/ elevation-tour.com]
* [http://www.u2-vertigo-tour.com/Elevation_Tour.html U2 Tour site on Elevation Tour]