Thread by @u2gigs

How about a bit of PopMart trivia before the show hits the Virtual Road? #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Over the 93 PopMart concerts, 17 songs were performed every night; concerts generally had between 22 and 24 songs. One of those 17 songs, Staring at the Sun, was performed 95 times - twice at both Las Vegas and Memphis. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Until i+e in 2015, PopMart was the last U2 tour were one song opened every concert - MOFO! #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

PopMart is the only U2 tour to have visited every inhabitable continent, including first visits to Africa and South America. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

PopMart is also the last time Edge took centre stage on vocals on a regular basis, thanks to his "karaoke" slot mid-set. He did the same on Lovetown and ZooTV, but nothing in the quarter-century since. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

U2 were short on rehearsal time pre-tour, and that shows in the bootleg recordings of days leading up to opening night. Just one song was heard in rehearsal that never made it to tour: Stay (Faraway, So Close!) #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

This also makes PopMart the only U2 tour where the band did not play a single song from the preceeding album. Only i+e comes close, which featured a solitary performance of Magnificent. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Despite that, there was a lot of love shown for one song from Zooropa, with a giant LEMON car the band rode in for the encore while LEMON (Perfecto Mix) played. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

The concert in Oslo also featured the only time a Zooropa song was even snippeted during the tour. Perhaps predictably, that song was LEMON. Also the only time it has appeared in any form since ZooTV. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

PopMart joins the Lovetown Tour as the only occasion where every song from it's associated album appeared live in some form, with The Playboy Mansion being snippeted 53 times during Streets. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Sunday Bloody Sunday has the greatest number of live appearances in our database at 1048 times. This is largely thanks to PopMart, as 93 of it's recorded 105 snippets came during this tour, all of them in Please #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

(If you don't know what I'm talking about with this, Larry subtly inserted the drumbeat into Please during the "September, streets capsizing" verse. Yes, he did it every night. I checked by ear). #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

One was arguably the closing song of the tour, as when it was followed by another song it was almost always just a portion. You may be surprised to know that Wake Up Dead Man was in this slot just 20 times, beaten by Unchained Melody at 22. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Wake Up Dead Man wasn't the only Pop song in this closing role, however. After being skipped in the main set, Staring at the Sun closed out the night in Greece. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

I could go on more about the tour itself, but shall we go on to some Pop song facts? #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Following the end of the PopMart Tour, Please has been performed full band electric just once, 19 October 2001 in Baltimore. This also makes it the only full band Please to NOT include the Sunday Bloody Sunday drumbeat (I checked that too). #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Rather pleasingly (see what I did there?), that full band Please led into Streets in a nice little callback to PopMart. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

You probably think that (not including snippets) Discotheque or Staring at the Sun is the most played Pop song. You'd be quite wrong. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Though they do top the list at 156 and 158 appearances respectively with snippets included, when it comes to pure song they are both dwarfed by GONE at 146 compared to their 114 and 139. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

At this point I'll give a reminder that Gone was last played 27 August 2001. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Incidentally, Gone has never been snippeted. The margin is far greater when you take away the very recent 27 performances of Staring at the Sun on e+i in 2018. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Since the end of the Elevation Tour some two decades ago, just two Pop songs have appeared in a U2 set. Discotheque has been played just twice, both on the Vertigo Tour in 2005. The first of those two was preceeded by Pop Muzik in the encore break. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

It honestly baffles me that Discotheque was done only twice. If you haven't seen it for a while, take a look at that Vertigo version from Chicago, the last time it was played. It is arguably the best performance of the song they have ever done. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Beyond that, it appeared at a handful of 360 shows as a snippet during Crazy Tonight. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Apart from those two lonely performances of Discotheque, between the end of the Elevation Tour in 2001 and the start of e+i in 2018 a Pop song was played just one solitary time: Staring at the Sun in 2011 at the Decade of Difference concert. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

For those keeping score, that is 3 Pop song performances in 17 years. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Mofo, Last Night on Earth, If God Will Send His Angels, If You Wear That Velvet Dress, and Do You Feel Loved have not been played since the end of the PopMart Tour in March 1998. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

In other words, Pop has been outperformed by not just October and Zooropa, but also the forgotten album that many don't even consider a U2 album (I do): ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACKS 1. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

But you know what? Despite the negative outlook fans have towards future Pop song performances, it isn't all doom and gloom. The band may not be happy with the original finished product, but they DO seem to like the album as a whole. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Bono is on record on multiple occasions saying Staring at the Sun is one of his favourite U2 songs. The band are happy with the various mixes given to Pop songs for their single releases and the Best of 1990-2000. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Mofo was rehearsed extensively during the third leg of the Vertigo Tour, and when fans mid-leg asked Bono when they would play it he told them it was coming. Sadly it didn't, but we know it was on their mind for a long time. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

If God Will Send His Angels was rehearsed leading up to the opening of the 360 Tour. There were (unconfirmed) reports that the beginning of Gone was rehearsed before the start of the second leg too. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Meanwhile, THE PLAYBOY MANSION (of all songs!) was rehearsed leading up to the opening of i+e in 2015, and Staring at the Sun was done during the first leg of e+i in 2018. Pop has been rehearsed every tour since Elevation ended. It's not doom and gloom. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

And if you go to the wider Pop era of time then I raise Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me to all the doubters. It was played more than Ultraviolet on 360 and we all remember that incredible Intermission. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Pop unfairly gets a bad rap among fans because it is known as the "unfinished", the "rushed", or the "incomplete" U2 album. Some go so far as to call it the first of the "two crap albums and we're out" comment. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

In my own opinion, this is all just drivel. The rush to complete it is so well known that this fact alone is what has given it a stigma. If you listened to the album without being aware of the rush, you would not think it was incomplete. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

This has in turn reflected back on the band; comments that they wish they had more time to finish the album, or that they used the Best of 90-00 to complete some songs, have been interpreted as them disliking it, even hating it. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

And so without the band saying a word, it has become a known "fact" that it is the worst U2 album, the album none of them like or they wish they could forget. What utter nonsense we convince ourselves of. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

The Pop era has a few things working against it that cement all of this as so-called "fact". Obviously the rush we just discussed in one thing. The other, unfortunately, is Bono's voice. The range he reached in ZooTV was lost in cigarette smoke. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

It is honestly shocking to watch ZooTV Sydney and PopMart Mexico back-to-back and hear the difference in his voice in just a few years. It's even an audible difference on the record itself. His voice lost a lot, and it has taken years to come back. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Pop will always be unfairly maligned. But switch the songs around with their final versions at your pleasure and what you will find is a really good album. As Edge says, "U2 albums are never finished, they're released". #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Discotheque is a banger live (especially that Vertigo version), Last Night on Earth is a forgotten rocker, and Please is one of the best anti-war songs they have ever done. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Staring at the Sun is great even acoustic, and the full Wake Up Dead Man is almost beyond words. Meanwhile Gone is the star that never was, the highlight of the album and one of their most powerful songs that was somehow never a single. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

I'm not sure anything can save Miami though ;-) #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

Anyways, as the concert comes to a close so does the trivia that somehow slowly turned into a rant. There's lots more I'd love to say about the tour and the songs, but I've probably prattled on long enough! #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

I'm glad I finally got to experience a Virtual Road with everyone, and wish I'd been able to join in for Slane and Red Rocks. I hope you enjoyed the trivia while watching this #remasteredpiece. It was great to see and hear in such high quality. #PopMart #TheVirtualRoad

"Tell me, tell me the story
The one about eternity
And the way it's all gonna be..."

#PopMart #TheVirtualRoad