U2 360º Tour Leg 1 Europe 2009 CREW Itinerary (Short term)

Three years after the first leg of the 360º tour I knew about the existance of this itinerary book.

This is quite rare as according to the information I had, there was only one itinerary book printed for both Band and Crew for the first leg of 360º tour so I did not expect to find a book made specially for the Crew.







According to the seller this was a "short term itinerary produced before U2 agree to be printed" so I understand this was kind of a test pressing or printing proof.

The book shows U2 Europe routing for summer 2009, starting on Tuesday June 30th at Nou Camp Stadium in Barcelona and ending on Sunday August 23rd at Cardiff Millennium Stadium...but when you go deeper into its pages it only contains detailed information for the dates from Milano to Berlin both included.

It has a total of 32 pages and apart from some general information related to the tour as a calendar and a personnel list, this book has basically information related to the crew, including their travel plans, hotels and so.








As the rest of the Crew itineraries issued by U2 for the 360º tour we notice that the staff is divided in 3 big groups called Blue, Red and Green Steel that are working as advance teams stadium to stadium.

The book contains two different pages for every day on the road. One contains the info for the 3 staff groups (hotels, travels and everything) while the other page contains info related to the venue, promoter and phone numbers.

As mentioned before, the detailed information covers from Milano first show (July 7th'09) to Berlin load in (July 17th'09). This is why this is called a "short term itinerary". Considering this, shall we expect a new "short term itinerary" for the second part of this 1st leg of 360º tour? Who knows.....



RATING: A+
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The Collector

U2 360º Tour Leg 1 Europe 2009

Probably due to the album release delay, this tour surprised everybody by starting in Europe instead of the US.

Nou Camp stadium in Barcelona is the place where 360º tour will be rehearsed and off course seen for the first time.

As usual, itinerary book design was directly related to tour iconography. So the black front cover was printed with the "Infinity is a great place to start" sentence in the middle of it. That phrase is part of the song "No line on the horizon" lyrics as you all might know. It was also used on the plane that U2 customised for this first leg of the tour.

Even though the itinerary book is covering Rehearsals from June 28th the truth is that the band arrived on June 16th (Larry on the 17th) and they spent more than 2 weeks rehearsing in town before the opening show.

About Dress Rehearsals, according to the book U2 had planned two nights which are June 28th and 29th. It seems only the second of those nights was used as a Dress Rehearsal in front of a 500 people audience. They were Netjets guests and Amnesty International members.

About the crew, they had hotel rooms reserved from June 6th to July 3rd.

Once again, Nice was the U2 headquarter  and they were travelling around Europe and back to the South of France from most of the european venues. Even after the 3rd Dublin show and the final one in Cardiff the band went back to Nice.

The shows list on the itinerary is exactly the same it finally was so nor final changes on dates neither on countries/cities.

A Tower of Babel page was included on the itinerary.


U2 thanks NASA and The International Space Station on the itinerary book. Now we all know why.




RATING: B 
Wanna know what this rating means? Just click HERE


The Collector

PS: Thanks to u2kite and Mofobcn for their help

U2 360º Tour Leg 2 US 2009

After 25 shows in Europe, U2 360º was ready to hit North America. A leg of 20 concerts will have U2 in the US and Canada for September and October'09. Later on, U2.com announced new legs both in North America and Europe for 2010.

Itinerary book for this leg was pretty similar in terms of design to the European one but this time "Running down the road like loose electricity", a phrase from Breathe, was used on the cover.

As it happened also on the Vertigo tour itinerary books, some colours where used on this book pages so if you see or have one with pages completelly B/W I'm sorry but it's a fake.

Many fake copies of this itinerary were in fact sold on Ebay during and after the tour with colour cover but completely black and white pages.

A beautiful colour page showing the U2 plane design was included in the book. You can now compare fake versus original under these lines.

Another way to compare original versus fake is the spiral bound. As you can see on the previous couple of pictures, they are also different.

Back to the content of the itinerary, a "Tower of Babel" page with some words from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" can also be found.

Before the first night of this leg, band and management were in NY and they flew to Chicago on September 10th. They had a rehearsal session on that evening and also on the 11th before they opened the tour on the 12th.

Twelve years after cancelling Raleigh show in 1997, U2 fans there could finally see the band live on October 3rd 2009.

Between Dallas and Oklahoma shows, U2 spent some days off in Cancun. A few pictures from those holidays in Mexico could be found on the internet.

Once this tour leg was over, back to NY.....MTV show in front of Brandenburg gate in Berlin......and holidays until they meet again for the third 360º leg.

I have also known that there was a second itinerary for this leg. Apart from the one I'm showing above, a different book was specifically printed for the crew. So the band and the management people were using the one I just showed and the rest of the crew working on the tour were handed copies of this white one (picture shows front and back of the Crew book).

I think this is a way to protect the band information and keep it for a very few people only.

More information on this Crew Itinerary can be found in an specific entry I have created for it.


RATING: B 
Wanna know what this rating means? Just click HERE

The Collector

U2 360º Tour Leg 2 US 2009 CREW Itinerary

As I mentioned on the 360º US 2nd Leg Itineray book entry, there was a second itinerary book for this leg. Apart from the one printed for the band and their management, a different book was specifically printed for the crew. So the band and the management people were using one and the rest of the crew working on the tour were handed copies of this white one I'm talking about and I'm showing on the pictures. 

This book has no information related to the band itself but plenty of information related to the crew, their travel plans, hotels and so. I think this is a way to protect the band information and keep it for a very few people only.

So the info contained on this book is probably not as interesting as the one on the band itinerary but it is still nice to have a look in order to understand how a massive tour like the 360º works.

Apart from general info related to the tour as a calendar, personnel list, companies involved on the leg the most interesting thing we notice is that the crew is divided in 3 big groups called Blue, Red and Green Steel. Every "day page" of the itinerary details all the info related to hotels, travels and everything for every one of those three groups.

So while Green Steel group was already working on September 2nd (Traveling to Chicago), Red Steel group didn't travel to Toronto until September 9th and the final group called Blue Steel stayed at home until the 12th when they flew to Boston.


All in all a lot of info that as I said is helpful to understand how life on the road is for the nearly 300 people involved on this tour.

RATING: C
Wanna know what this rating means? Just click HERE

The Collector

U2 360º Tour Leg 3 Europe 2010 Itinerary

What had to be 360º 4th leg, became the 3rd leg due to Bono's back injury and US dates being postponed till summer 2011.

After a few weeks of high expectation about this european leg, U2.com finally confirms on July 13th that the band will be in Torino and the tour will open on August the 6th as expected .

So, this leg will travel across Europe in a total of 22 shows, 13 countries and first ever appearances in Russia and Turkey.

In terms of itinerary books, this leg had 2 itinerary books: one for Band & Management that we'll see on this entry and a second one for the Crew. I have created an specific entry with all the details regarding that Crew book.

Focusing on the Band & Management itinerary book for this leg,  they followed the same rule they did on the two previous legs.  U2 plane for this 3rd leg of 360º had the "Let me in the sound" sentence on it so that was also the sentence they put on the itinerary book cover.





This book's first page is something we never saw on previous books, some kind of second cover. It features the 360º tour logo, first and final dates of this leg, a printing date for this book edition and last but not least mentions the late Dennis Sheehan as Tour Manager.

As the other itineraries we show on this blog, this book comes with a list of tour personnel, a list of european leg dates and cities and a daily page with all the details regarding hotels, timings, contact persons and other useful information.

According to this book, the rehearsals for this leg started in Torino on July 27th and finished at the same venue on August 5th, one day before the opening show at Stadio Olimpico. The band wasn't there everyday but they were for sure on the two final rehearsals, named on the book as Dress Rehearsals.

This book is also including a U2 plane schedule. The plane was named THREE SIXTY AIR and this page shows all the information regarding departure and arrival times for all the flights the band did during this european leg.

The 2010 European Leg ended on October 8th the same way it had started, with a show in Italy....and at Stadio Olimpico, but this time it was in Rome . After the show, band and management flew back to Dublin.





This book is missing in my collection so if you own it and want to sell, trade or just share some information with us please contact me at: xbalart gmail com. 

The Collector

U2 360º Tour Leg 3 Europe 2010 CREW Itinerary

As I mentioned on the entries about the 360º US Leg 2, we should expect two different itineraries were  printed when the tour reached Europe on summer 2010.

But...the truth is that I never saw the band/management itinerary and the only one that I'm sure  was issued is the one that was prepared and printed for the crew only.

No big differences if we compare this one to the one used by the crew during the Leg 2 of the 360º tour.
Again a colorful cover with the tour logo and the "Europe 2010 Crew Itinerary" text and a very similar structure in terms of information and content.

Again Blue, Red and Green Steel groups will travel around Europe in order to built the stage and have everything ready for the band.

What I'm showing below are the pages related to the 2 shows U2 played in Spain on this new european leg. This time the chosen cities were San Sebastian and Seville.

For the rest of the tour, U2 staff will get all the information on a PDF and very few copies will be printed. 



RATING: C
Wanna know what this rating means? Just click HERE


The Collector

U2 360º Tour Leg 4 Australia&N.Zealand 2010

U2.com confirmed on August 22nd 2010 that the band would visit New Zealand and Australia before the end of 2010. So after the European leg and months before their return to the US, the band will take some time to travel down under.

Starting on November 25th 2010 in New Zealand the leg would also include 4 dates in Australia. After almost instant sold out sales new dates were added in every city so the ROW leg becomes a 10 shows tour.

If we check previous U2 tours we might think that this leg would also include concerts in South America and Japan but it didn't happen this time so this was a leg of 10 shows only.

PDFs were sent out to most of the Crew members but also a new itinerary was pressed in order to cover these shows.

I'll update this entry with some information about this book very soon.

This book is missing in my collection so if you own it and want to sell, trade or just share some information with us please contact me at:  xbalart gmail com. 

The Collector

U2 360º Tour Leg 7 US 2011

After Bono's surgery in Munich, the 3rd leg of the 360º that had to start in Salt Lake City on June 3rd 2010 was postponed until summer 2011. So European leg was now the 3rd leg and these "new dates north american leg" became the 6th one after the ROW dates announcement and the final addition of 2 concerts in South Africa for February 2011.

On July 13th 2010, U2.com confirms the final dates for this 4th Leg that will visit Canada and the United States from May to July 2011. Opening show will be held at Invesco Field in Denver on May 21st 2011 and the tour initially had end at Minneappolis TCF Bank Stadium on July 23rd.

On September 21st 2010 a show in Mexico City is added for May 14th 2011 so this becomes the first show of this 5th leg. Once this mexican show was sold out, a second date was added for May 15th.

On February 1st 2011 U2.com announced an additional and final North American show in Moncton (Canada) on July 30th 2011.

As far as I know only a Crew itinerary was pressed to cover this final leg of 360º. 

This book cover from the LOAD IN Day at Azteca Stadium in Mexico (May 8th) to the day after the end of the tour at Moncton's Magnetic Hill (July 31st).

Two double rehearsal sessions were already planned when the tour started for Mexico on May 9th&10th and Denver on May 19th and 20th.

Also a very special day was planned on their agendas. That was June 24th , Glastonbury show day.

As it had also happened on the previous legs the crew was divided in 3 different groups (Blue Steel, Red Steel and Green Steel) and the books details the trip plans for the 3 of them.




At the end of the leg a big crew party was held for which the management printed out dollar bills with the band, management and crew member faces on them. I have created a special entry to cover this curious items.

http://u2itinerarybooks.blogspot.com/2011/10/360-crew-dollar-bils.html

So that's all for the 360º tour itineraries. Now it's time to wait until next tour.

RATING: A-

The Collector