U2 (lost Tokyo Dome TV broadcast footage of Zoo TV Tour; 1993)
The Zoo TV tour was a series of concerts by the band U2 between the years of 1992 and 1993 that served as their live promotion of their albums Achtung Baby and Zooropa, released in 1991 and 1993 respectively, but this tour was also memorable because of the fact the stage used various screens that displayed different images and also TV channels depending on which country they were playing at the time with the help of a satellite. Also, lead singer Bono played two characters every night on stage, which would picture a fictionalized idea of a rockstar at the peak of their career and then their downfall when fame practically corrupts them. They would be The Fly,[1] and for the encores it would be Mirrorball Man in 1992 and Mr Macphisto in 1993.
This was one of U2's most famous tours, and for the beginning of the 1990s, what they would do with the stage work would be a pretty innovative thing, which would also continue with their subsequent tour, PopMart, which would use one of the world's biggest screens as part of the stage.[2] The tour began in February 1992 in Lakeland, Florida;[3] and ended in December 1993 in Tokyo, Japan, with two shows at the Tokyo Dome, Japan's biggest venue, on the 9th and 10th of that month.[4]
TV Broadcast
Despite there being footage of plenty of U2 shows from this tour, including the opening night in Lakeland in 1992, various concerts shot by the audience, and even a couple shows shot professionally, there is no footage of either of U2 final shows at Tokyo Dome available currently. However, that doesn't mean that footage doesn't or didn't exist at some point, since in 1993, the Japanese TV station known as "Asahi TV" broadcasted some footage of one of the shows (which one is unknown). There's a single picture showing a collage with stills from the broadcast, indicating that the concert was professionally shot (probably partially though) and shown in Japanese TV. The reason why it's strange that there's no footage of any of these shows around it's because U2 was at the peak of their career at that point in time, and most shows in Japan of these kind of bands at the time were recorded either professionally or by the audience, so it could only be assumed that there would be at least some footage from the U2 shows there, even more considering these were the final shows from this tour.
Availability
The two final concerts at the Tokyo Dome aren't entirely lost though, there's complete audio from both nights in the form of bootlegs, along with a video of Bono and The Edge being interviewed as the stage is being built behind them, and they're pretty easy to find. But when it comes to pictures and footage from the show itself, it is very unlikely to come across anything. Again, the collage showing stills from the broadcast is the only proof that footage from any of these shows actually exists, but only time will tell if it ever surfaces or be uploaded by someone.
Gallery
References
- ↑ "Zoo TV: The Inside Story" (DVD documentary), Zoo TV: Live from Sydney.
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20101127073403/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2009/0227/1224241848766.html
- ↑ McGee (2008), p. 142
- ↑ de la Parra (2003), pp. 171–172