The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 and The Joshua Tree Tour 2019 were two worldwide concert tours by the Irish rock band U2 commemorating the 30th anniversary of their 1987 album The Joshua Tree. The 2017 tour visited stadiums over four legs: North America from May to July and in September, Europe from July to August, and Latin America in October. The 2019 tour visited Oceania and Asia in November and December, marking the band's first ever concerts in South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, and India. The band played the whole Joshua Tree album during the concerts, which included their first live performances of the song "Red Hill Mining Town". It was the first time the group toured in promotion of an album from their back catalogue, rather than a new release. As part of the tour, U2 headlined the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, in June 2017.
U2 originally wanted to play a set of one-off shows in the US and Europe to commemorate the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree, but ultimately decided to stage a full concert tour instead. The band cited world events, such as the 2016 US presidential election, for what they perceived to be renewed resonance of the album's subject matter and a reason to revisit it. The stage featured a 7.6K resolution video screen measuring , making it the largest and highest resolution video screen of any concert tour, according to The Guardian. A silhouette of the Joshua tree from the album sleeve was painted on the screen, while a Joshua tree–shaped B-stage represented the plant's shadow. Photographer Anton Corbijn, who photographed the album sleeve, provided films that accompanied performances of the album's songs.
Initially, some critics interpreted the announcement of an anniversary tour to be an acknowledgment by U2 that they had become a legacy act, although the band rejected any characterisations of nostalgia. They instead strove to make the shows feel forward-looking and debuted two new songs that would later be released on their album Songs of Experience in December 2017. The tours received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the performances, production, and setlist. The 2017 tour grossed $317 million, making it the year's highest-grossing tour globally, and it sold more than 2.71 million tickets to its 51 shows. In 2019, the band grossed $73.8 million and sold 567,000 tickets from 15 shows, bringing the two tours' cumulative gross to $390.8 million from 3.3 million tickets sold.
Conception The inspiration for the tour came in August 2016, during show production rehearsals for U2's headlining appearances at the iHeartRadio Music Festival and Salesforce's Dreamforce conference. Initially, the band were interested in marking the 30th anniversary of their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, with one show in the United States and Europe each, but they eventually decided to expand it into a full tour. The band members gave various reasons for the tour. Lead vocalist Bono said, "it was just to honor this album that meant so much to us" and that at first there was no "grand concept". However, once they realised the record was still relevant thematically, "the thing just ran away with itself". Guitarist the Edge cited the 2016 US presidential election and other world events for what he judged to be renewed resonance of The Joshua Trees subject matter. He said, "things have kind of come full circle, if you want. That record was written in the mid-Eighties, during the Reagan–Thatcher era of British and U.S. politics. It was a period when there was a lot of unrest. Thatcher was in the throes of trying to put down the miners' strike; there was all kinds of shenanigans going on in Central America. It feels like we're right back there in a way. I don't think any of our work has ever come full circle to that extent. It just felt like, 'Wow, these songs have a new meaning and a new resonance today that they didn't have three years ago, four years ago.'"
Longtime U2 set designer Willie Williams said that there was a misconception that "because of the nature of the show, the staging could be very simple, which meant it would be achievable with a reduced lead time". He rejected the notion that the stage would be simple but did realise that much of the lead time required for U2 tours is spent defining the ideas behind them. With The Joshua Trees anniversary as the idea, the development process was simplified, as the band and their creative team were able to begin with several assumptions: that half of the concerts' set list would consist of The Joshua Tree songs; that they could use the original Joshua Tree Tour stage as a reference point; and that photographer Anton Corbijn, who shot the photographs from the album sleeve, would create video content. In October 2016, the band began initial conversations with Stufish Entertainment Architects, the firm behind the set design.
Williams said, "After talking over many possible approaches, we looked at the original Joshua Tree stadium stage and then allowed its bold, simple aesthetic to guide the design." On the original 1987 Joshua Tree Tour, the stadium stage was built on one end of the venue as a large proscenium, flanked on the sides by the sound system covered by gold scrims depicting black branches of a Joshua tree. Only at the largest North American stadiums was video reinforcement used, behind the front of house sound mixing station, but it was visible to only half the audience. Williams called the design "maximal minimalism". With concert production values having advanced since the original Joshua Tree Tour, he was initially drawn to returning to the simplicity of a "traditional festival stage", saying, "A proscenium stage is so out of fashion now that part of me wondered if U2 could do something interesting to reinvent it for the 21st century." However, he ultimately decided against that design for the anniversary tour, as it offers limited sightlines of 150–160 degrees within stadium seating. Instead, he said, "We took the spirit of that kind of minimal CinemaScope idea where the look was a huge stretched image of the Joshua Tree... and ran with it." Williams said using the original tour's stage for inspiration was a "get out of jail free card" for him, as he was not sure how he could follow up the extravagance of the stage he designed for the band's previous stadium tour, the U2 360° Tour of 2009–2011. Williams called the creative process "pedal to the metal for six months".
The first designs for the stage were presented by Stufish in December 2016. U2 expressed their preference for a large video screen similar to the one that Stufish and Williams built for the band's performance at the Dreamforce conference in October; that screen was an homage to the Geneva Drive-In Theater that previously stood on the site of the Cow Palace, where the conference was held. The band's creative team, which included stage designer Es Devlin initially as a creative consultant, were not excited by the idea of building a standard rectangular screen so the possibility of "exploding the frame was appealing", according to Williams. Their first ideas were to make the outer edges of the screen irregular. While reviewing design proposals in one of the band's creative meetings with Stufish and Williams in December, Bono drew an outline of a Joshua tree breaking through the top of the video screen. Lipson said, "At that point, we didn't know what the kit would be, beyond the hope that technology just on the cusp of being possible would be invented in time for the start of the tour in May." To see their ideas through to fruition, the band and the creative team traveled to Lititz, Pennsylvania, the site of the corporate campus of Tait Towers, the architectural engineering company behind many music tours. Ultimately, the tour concept was finalized in February 2017.
Corbijn enlisted cinematographer Sebastian Wintero to film video content for the tour. The duo used Arri Rental's Alexa 65 camera, since it captured resolutions higher than 6K but was easy enough to operate that it did not interfere in the creative process. The duo shot in a special 4.5:1 wide aspect ratio, filming mostly single takes of limited action that could play during concerts for 5–6 minutes. Due to Corbijn's experience with black-and-white photography and the camera's features, the duo were able to instantaneously color grade and design lookup tables, allowing them to experiment with various looks for the footage as they shot.
Despite knowing they would be performing songs from The Joshua Tree, U2 felt challenged in structuring the set list. Bassist Adam Clayton said, "People react a little differently when they know what's coming next, and they also react a little differently when they're having an internal relationship with that particular running order". Early in the creative process, Williams presented eight set list options to the band. These included: playing The Joshua Tree songs first; playing them last; playing them in the middle; playing songs in chronological order of their release; and grouping songs thematically. According to Williams, there were never internal discussions of breaking up the album into sections. The group considered starting shows with the album, but this would have meant leading with the song "Where the Streets Have No Name", which is usually the climax of a U2 concert. Williams also noted that it would still be daylight at the beginning of shows in Europe. Another challenge in structuring the set list was that the second half of The Joshua Tree is "relatively downbeat". Ultimately, the band chose a three-act format, with the album in the middle.
Despite honouring a 30-year-old album with the tour, U2 and their creative team rejected characterisations of the venture as "nostalgic", as they wanted it to feel forward looking and the band wanted to perform at least one new song. To aid in this, the team decided against showing archival footage of the band from their younger days in the visuals. They also decided that due to the older age of the band members and the size of the video screen, close-up shots of them would be limited.
Planning, itinerary, and ticketing 2017 concerts
The tour was announced on 9 January 2017, initially consisting of a North American leg from May to July and a European leg from July to August. It was the first time the group toured in promotion of an album from their back catalogue, rather than a new release. Kyle McGovern of Pitchfork interpreted the tour announcement to be an admission by U2 that they were entering the "nostalgia act" phase of their career. He said, "this tour announcement feels like it's coming from a U2 that's ready to put their work behind glass, as so many of their peers did far earlier... And there's no shame in that..." Pre-sale tickets were first offered to U2.com subscribers starting on 11 January before going on sale to the general public on 16 January (for European shows) and 17 January (for North American shows). Approximately 1.1 million tickets were sold in the first 24 hours of being on sale. After tickets for the tour sold out quickly, second shows were added in London, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, East Rutherford, Pasadena, and Chicago. As part of the tour's itinerary, U2 headlined the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, in June.