A page from one of the itinerary books used on the Protection tour detailing crew members names and their responsibilities on the tour.

Typical Setlist Of 1995-1996 Tour

Not so much information exists concerning the first few years of the Protection tour, but what is certain is that Five Man Army with Willy Wee on guest vocals was played for the probable majority of the 1995 leg but dropped along with Willy Wee at the start of 1996 tour. Another interesting entry on the setlist for both 1995 and 1996 was an instrumental version of Protection that was played at the very start of each show as a brief prologue that seemlessly segued into the opening of Safe From Harm. One last difference between the two years was that on the 1995 tour, the version of Eurochild played was the same arrangement as on the album Protection. From 1996 onwards, the version of Eurochild played changed to an alternative version known as Euro Zero Zero, which came about from Massive Attack wishing to add more live instrumentation elements to the song.

Click on the song titles in the setlist below to go straight to the Live Appearances paragraph regarding these songs in the Song Info section. The songs denoted with a * are the songs that changed the most frequently on the setlists during the 1995-1996 shows.

Typical Setlist Of 1997 Tour

Three of the songs (Dissolved Girl, Risingson and Man Next Door) played on the 1997 setlist would feature the following year on Mezzanine, along with the rare b-side track, Wire, which was typically the last song played with an occasional reprise of Euro Zero Zero appearing as a sort of epilogue on some dates. One other interesting feature of this year’s tour was the beginning song which was an untitled duet between 3D and Daddy G which combined some elements of a proto-Angel combined with the lyrics to Mezzanine. This intro was probably the basis for the finished song Mezzanine.

Click on the song titles in the setlist below to go straight to the Live Appearances paragraph regarding these songs in the Song Info section. The songs denoted with a * are the songs that changed the most frequently on the setlists during the 1997 shows.

Additional Info

Beginning in the summer of 1995, the following 3 year tour would be Massive Attack’s first outing using a live backing band of trained musicians much like any conventional band – guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. The impetus for dropping the soundsystem ethos which had been all the band had known from the days in The Wild Bunch was partly to simply try something new and also because some of the scathing reviews Massive Attack had received, particularly in their soundsystem tour of North America the preceeding year, where the whole soundsystem concept involving a rotating roster of MC-ing, toasting and DJ-ing, was’nt understood at all by the audience. 3D said of the North American soundsystem tour Quote – “Did’nt go down to well at all. The worst show was Minneapolis. Prince’s Club. What was it called? Glam Slam? In the end they had to put the curtain down on us, we were so bad. Bloody terrible”. [Details Magazine - Febraury 1995]

Apart from how the music would be presented, 3D being the visual artist of the group also had some grand designs for the Protection tour from a visual aspect. The Eurochild character, which is on the front cover of the Protection album and was the effective mascot of the band at the time, was present at the shows in 1995-1996 in the form of large inflatable Eurochild dolls arranged either side of the stage. 3D also had some grander plans for the tour that were never really realised, such as having Quote – “This whole installation/exhibition/animation underway at the upcoming live shows using computer graphics and virtual reality”. [The Face Magazine - September 1994]

The tour itself was co-financed by Levi Jeans, who had some form of advertising at the shows (like on the Eurochild’s for example). Levi Jeans would also serve the same role for the Mezzanine tour as well. It was also the Levi’s connection that brought the Massive Attack’s current manager, Marc Picken to them, who worked for Levi’s at the time and had some form of organizing role for the Protection tour, left Levi’s to manage Massive Attack full-time and also setup their Melankolic record label as well with them.

After assembling the touring party, which notably excluded Tracey Thorn (which except on a few precious dates) and Nicolette, but still had Wild Bunch hanger-on Willy Wee, who was another remnant from the soundsystem days, the tour got under way. Throughout 1995 apart from the live touring dates, there was also some TV appearances on few noted British music programmes such as Later With Jools Holland, The White Room and MTV where Massive Attack would perform some interesting performances of their songs, like Protection (with a very rare Tracey Thorn appearance) and a great re-interpretation of Karmacoma more like the Fake The Aroma version featuring Talvin Singh playing the tabla. Generally, since then Massive Attack have not done these type of shows or performances again sadly, with the recent Abbey Road performance being an exception.

Their was not much change in the touring setup between 1995 and 1996 except Willy Wee left the touring band and Massive Attack on a permanent basis (therefore dropping Five Man Army from the setlist forever) and Winston Blisset who had come on as a replacement bass player halfway through the 1995 tour was made a permanent member.

It was in the final year of the Protection tour, 1997, which was really also more of a tour for debuting and roadtesting the new songs which would very soon find a place on Mezzanine, that there were a few big changes. This tour was mostly focused on festival dates, much like the 100th Window tour of 2004, and was a small tour that began around the same time that Massive Attack launched the Risingson single, which was released both to help promote the 1997 tour while also previewing what the upcoming, still nearly a year away Mezzanine album would sound like. Even the backdrop to the stage in this year was the same artwork used on the front cover of the Risingson single. Of the new songs, debuted for the first time on the 1997 tour which would later be Mezzanine bound, Man Next Door and early forms of Mezzanine and Angel were heard for the first time. Dissolved Girl (again an early version) and Wire were also both played at every show, as Sara Jay, the vocalist of these two songs was present on this tour (but only this one). Her absence on subsequent tours has meant the 1997 tour is the only time these songs have been played.

Vocalists

3D: Provided vocals on the songs Safe From Harm, Risingson, Karmacoma, Daydreaming, Eurochild/Euro Zero Zero, Five Man Army and Heat Miser with new vocals written just for the live version.

Daddy G: Provided vocals on Risingson, Karmacoma and Daydreaming, Eurochild/Euro Zero Zero, Five Man Army along with the heavy breathing noises on Heat Miser.

Horace Andy: Provided vocals on Eurochild/Euro Zero Zero, Spying Glass, One Love, Hymn Of The Big Wheel and Man Next Door.

Deborah Miller: Provided vocals on Hymn Of The Big Big Wheel, Safe From Harm, Daydreaming and Unfinished Sympathy. She also helped do many backing vocals on certain songs such as Dissolved Girl, Wire, and Spying Glass. Apart from this she also played the tambourine on Unfinished Sympathy. This was her first tour of many with Massive Attack providing replacement diva vocals filling in for Shara Nelson.

Sara Jay: Provided vocals on Dissolved Girl and Wire on the 1997 tour only.

Musicians

Mushroom: Would do the ‘DJ-ing’ and scratching noises heard on the live songs behind a pair of Technics turntables as he would do on the Mezzanine tour later on. On Heat Miser, he would also do some softer breathing noises down the microphone to complement Daddy G’s heavy breathing on this song.

Angelo Bruschini: Angelo typically uses a Boss GT5 guitar as his main effects, plus a Ground Control Plus midi footswitch. Unfinished Sympathy is the only song were Angelo is absent from the stage as electric guitar is not required for this song. The Protection tour was Angelo’s first time touring with Massive Attack. How he came to be Massive Attack’s full-time guitarist, was that after he had done some guitar parts on the album Protection, the previous year, he got an unexpected call from 3D only two weeks before the Protection tour was due to start, desperate to find a replacement guitarist, as the one already hired had to pull out. Angelo accepted the offer and in his words “never looked back” and has become Massive Attack’s full-time guitarist both on stage and in the studio.

Winston Blisset: Winston is the bass guitarist and used a footswitch controller, which is used for bringing in effects when needed or routing to a tuner. The amp his bass is attached to is a 600 watt head and the spare is a 350 head, both of which are made by Boogie. Winston came onto the Protection tour roughly half through the 1995 leg of the tour, as replacement bass player for then bass guitarist, Steve Lewinson and gradually became Massive Attack full-time live bass player in the same manner that Angelo came on board. Winston was also the bass player on the Mezzanine album.

Proshot Footage Links

Live Performance of Unfinished Sympathy From The Phoenix Festival 1996
Live Performance of Safe From Harm From The Phoenix Festival 1996
Live Performance of Eurochild From The Phoenix Festival 1996
Live Performance of Heat Miser From The Phoenix Festival 1996
Live Performance Of Dissolved Girl In Berlin, Germany 1997
Live Performance Of Wire In Berlin, Germany 1997

Watch this video on YouTube.

A page from one of the itinerary books used on the Mezzanine tour detailing crew members names and their responsibilities on the tour.

Typical Setlist Of 1998 Tour

Along with all the additions of the new Mezzanine songs, there were two songs introduced on the second half of the tour roughly around September/October. The first was Superpredators, which acted as a short two minute prologue at the beginning of the show before fading seamlessly into Angel. The other new song debuted live as well around the same time, was Reflection. Neither of these songs would make the cut onto the setlist on the 1999 tour.

Click on the song titles in the setlist below to go straight to the Live Appearances paragraph regarding these songs in the Song Info section. The songs denoted with a * are the songs that changed the most frequently on the setlists during the 1995-1996 shows.

Typical Setlist Of 1999 Tour

The 1999 tour featured no new additions or surprises, instead copying the setlist that was played for the majority of the 1998 tour, with both Superpedators and Reflection being dropped after appearing briefly towards the end of the 1998 tour.

Click on the song titles in the setlist below to go straight to the Live Appearances paragraph regarding these songs in the Song Info section. The songs denoted with a * are the songs that changed the most frequently on the setlists during the 1997 shows.

Additional Info

The strains and conflicts, that had nearly always been within the band and had become more pronounced during the recording of Mezzanine was fully exposed to the public during the live schedule throughout this tour. This tour being so exhaustive and tiring on Massive attack with just over 150 dates in total (3D spoke of some of this tediousness when he said Quote – “doing every last ice rink in Europe”), naturally wore the band down and their growing dislike of each started appearing on stage and in interviews given out around this time, even going to the extreme of having no interviews with all three members together in the same room. The British media in particular were very aware of the breakdown within Massive Attack during this tour and once or twice during it falsely reported on Massive Attack’s breakup.

While the breakup thankfully never happened, the rumors of Mushroom’s particular distaste for his touring partners was very real. After the last shows at the Anson Rooms in Bristol in December (which would be the last Massive Attack would ever play), Mushroom quietly made the decision to himself to effectively leave the band permanently. When the 1999 tour started up again in May 1999, Mushroom’s very noticeably absence was explained by official word that he had merely left the live band because of his dislike of touring but would still feature on future Massive Attack albums. Only at the end of September would the real truth about Mushroom’s departure from all things Massive Attack would break. Even with this blow, the remaining members of Massive Attack were still able to finish up the Mezzanine tour which ended in November at the Melkweg, Amsterdam. This would also be the last Massive Attack live show for nearly three and half years (the longest gap between shows for Massive Attack) until the start of the 100th Window tour.

Besides all the internal band politics going on at the time throughout the Mezzanine tour, in terms of the actual music and the touring party assembled resembled pretty much the same as the previous Protection tour. The inner sleeve booklet of the Mezzanine album actually lists out all the major tour personnel from the band to crew as it was at the very beginning of the Mezzanine tour. This is the only album from Massive Attack to give out this information.

Vocalists

3D: Provided vocals on the songs Safe From Harm, Risingson, Karmacoma, Daydreaming, Eurochild/Euro Zero Zero, Mezzanine, Reflection and Heat Miser with new vocals written just for the live version.

 Daddy G: Provided vocals on Risingson, Karmacoma and Mezzanine, Eurochild/Euro Zero Zero, Mezzanine along with the heavy breathing noises on Heat Miser.

 Horace Andy: Provided vocals on Eurochild/Euro Zero Zero, Spying Glass, One Love, Hymn Of The Big Wheel and Man Next Door and Angel.

Deborah Miller: Provided vocals on Hymn Of The Big Big Wheel, Safe From Harm, Daydreaming and Unfinished Sympathy.She also did backing vocals on Spying Glass. Apart from this she also played the tambourine on Unfinished Sympathy.

 Elizabeth Fraser: Provided vocals on Teardrop and Group Four. She was only present for a very small indeterminable number of dates at the beginning of the 1998 tour, before having to bow out due to pregnancy. Her only definite show she played with Massive Attack was at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England even though there may have been a few others. Her vocal duties were filled in by Deborah Miller for the rest of the tour after she left. She would not return to the live band until the start of the Collected tour in 2006.

Musicians

Mushroom: Would do the ‘DJ-ing’ and scratching noises heard on the live songs behind a pair of Technics turntables. On Heat Miser, he would also do some softer breathing noises down the microphone to complement Daddy G’s heavy breathing on this song. He also played on the tambourine during the climax of Group Four.

 Angelo Bruschini: Angelo typically uses a Boss GT5 guitar as his main effects, plus a Ground Control Plus midi footswitch. Unfinished Sympathy is the only song were Angelo is absent from the stage as electric guitar is not required for this song.

 Winston Blisset: Winston is the bass guitarist and used a footswitch controller, which is used for bringing in effects when needed or routing to a tuner. The amp his bass is attached to is a 600 watt head and the spare is a 350 head, both of which are made by Boogie.

Proshot Footage Links

Live Performance of Inertia Creeps Recorded in France 1998
Live Performance of Teardrop On “Later With Jools Holland 1998″
Live Performance of Mezzanine On “Later With Jools Holland 1998″
Live Performance of Angel From The NPA, France 1998
Live Performance Of Inertia Creeps Recorded For “MTV Europe” 1998
Live Performance Of Mezzanine Recorded For “MTV Europe” 1998
Live Performance Of Safe From Harm Recorded For “MTV Europe” 1998
Live Performance Of Teardrop Recorded For “MTV Europe” 1998
Live Performance Of Karmacoma Recorded For “MTV Europe” 1998

Watch this video on YouTube.

Typical Setlist Of 2008 Tour

A sample setlist from the 2008 tour detailing the order of the songs, the vocalists for each one and what pedals to use on each song for the live musicians. Photo Credit.

The setlist this year underwent a big overhaul, with many songs that had been permanent fixtures in the past been dropped such as Black Melt, Future Proof, False Flags, Hymn Of The Big Wheel and Group Four. In their place though was an exciting new list of songs which were been debuted for the first time (to a live audience or otherwise). Somewhat like the 1997 tour, Massive Attack would use the 2008 tour to showcase the upcoming tracks to be destined for what would be their next studio album, Heligoland. Seven brand new tracks were played for the first time this year (not including 16 Seeter, which had been played the year before on the Iberian mini-tour).

There was also some mild varation in the setlist this year. The setlist below is the most common one that was played on the 30 odd dates, however for the first 3 dates of the tour back in June, there was no Karmacoma on the setlist, before it entered the setlist as the new finale song, replacing Dobro with that privledge. Karmacoma‘s position in the show switched around a little bit in July, between being the finale or appearing midway during the show (in which case, Dobro was the last song), but generally it was favoured as the finale. For one date only at the end of tour in Manchester in September, United Snakes opened the show accompanied with a one-off cinema screen projection mounted in front of the stage.

Click on the song titles in the setlist below to go straight to the Live Appearances paragraph regarding these songs in the Song Info section. The songs denoted with a * are the new songs that were played for the first time on this tour (16 Seeter included), which should feature on the next Massive Attack album.

Additional Info

Promo poster for Massive Attack’s Meltdown Festival, which was undoubtedly the highlight of their 2008 European tour.

With no specific album or major release to promote with this tour of just over 30 European destinations, Massive Attack would use the opportunity to debut new material to their fans, in an attempt to get some feedback on the new tracks which were destined to end up on the next studio album, Heligoland. In terms of stage setup and lighting (once again provided by UVA) a new stage set was made, with a wide, sculptural LED screen (most closely resembling the 2004 tour screen configuration) as the centrepiece. The visual treatments, created in collaboration with 3D, would be the group’s most explicitly political yet. 3D spoke of Massive Attack’s collaborations with UVA in the past during this tour when he said [Quote] – “We’ve remained tight with them since we started working together in 2003 on our 100th Window tour. We share a common ideology in terms of how lights should work with the music, whether cinematically or transmitting information. I had a bit of an idea about what I wanted to do but, pixel by pixel, they extended and developed it. The end experience is different for every viewer; each one feeds it in a different way”.

The low rise touring screen upstage of the band was made up of 15 custom frames populated with 2 x 10 high stacks of 8 alternating strips of Barco O-Lite 510 giving approximately 1440 pixels wide over 15 metres. The frames were designed and built by XL Lighting in conjunction with UVA – also containing inbuilt moving lights – for fast assembly and dismantling, making it practical for the band to retain their full visuals show in festival situations with short changeover times.

During each show this year, flickering references to rendition flights, detention without charge and surveillance societies lit up the stage and computer-controlled lights, also designed by UVA, were all in perfect synchronisation between the music and the visuals. Many of these statistics came from an organization known as Reprieve, who uses the law to improve and enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Massive Attack had first become aware of Reprieve, the year before, in the process of scoring the film, ‘In Prison My Whole Life’.

Besides all this, there was probably two big events on this years tour, which were pretty noteworthy. The first was Massive Attack playing the Glastonbury festival as headliners of the Second Stage on the Saturday night of the festival. This was the first time since 1997, that Massive Attack had played this iconic festival. The other notable date of the 2008 tour was Massive Attack’s cu ration of London’s annual Meltdown festival held in various locales of the Southbank area of the city, the week before Glastonbury. As curators, Massive Attack in a unique capacity for the first time in their career, were tasked with coming up with the musical and artistic lineup for the 10 day long festival. Massive Attack used the opportunity to present and distill their wide range of influences from the cultural to the political (much of which was inspired by Massive Attack’s links to Reprieve).

[Quote - 3D and Daddy G together about Meltdown] – “We came into Meltdown with the same ideology we applied to the jams and parties we used to put on: we’d come up with an image to describe it, flypost it everywhere till people were bored, choose the DJ’s and the tunes, borrow a generator, decorate the room and sell a load of beer out of the boot of a car. Well… that bit’s a little different this time”.

[Quote - 3D about Meltdown] – “We’re trying to distill all the things we want out of a festival: to share information and learn things ourselves about how we can put on, play with and be around some of the great bands who have influenced us, and what we can do visually in the space we’ve got. We want to mess with the fucking space. I want people to go into spaces and feel there’s something going on everywhere, there’s messages, information and ideology. We want everyone to have a good time. Every night should be a party, a good laugh, a thrill. It’s a Meltdown reflecting our tastes and influences. It’s very personal”.

You can read more about Massive Attack’s curation of the 2008 Meltdown Festival by checking out the 8 page feature on it that was published in “The Observer” newspaper back in June 2008, which is available through this link.

Vocalists

3D: Provided vocals on the songs Risingson, Butterfly Caught, Mezzanine, Safe From Harm, Inertia Creeps, along with new tracks Marooned, Marakesh and Dobro. 3D also performed United Snakes once on this tour at the Manchester show, which was the first time this track had been performed live since the 2004 tour. Apart from vocals, 3D also used a small sampling machine attached to a small pedestal beside his microphone to sample his own vocals live and trigger some song samples. He was also a bit more animated on this tour on certain songs giving an impromptu ‘kung-fu’ inspired dance rather than turing his back to the audience on the 100th Window tour.

Daddy G: Provided vocals on Risingson, Karmacoma and Mezzanine along with one new track alongside Yolanda, All I Want. Not only this, but much like on the Collected tour but Daddy G’s role in the live band was expanded upon as he undertook some DJ-ing (scratching) on certain songs like Risingson and Unfinished Sympathy.

Horace Andy: Provided vocals on Angel and one new track 16 Seeter. Noticeably, this tour marked the first time that Hymn Of The Big Wheel was left off the setlist.

Stephanie Dosen: Stephanie’s first time touring with Massive Attack on tour. She had been brought into the studio to record vocals for Massive Attack’s fifth album in 2007 and was asked to tour and perform them with the band on the following tour. Those new tracks she sings are Kingpin, Red Light, Marakesh along with crowd favourite, Teardrop (Elizabeth Fraser was sadly not apart of this year’s tour as she had been on the last one). Stephanie’s dress on stage varied from black to white most nights of the tour alongside her accoutic guitar which was usually the opposing colour to her dress on the night.

Yolanda Quarty:Yolanda is a member of Brostol based band “Phantom Limb” and was brought on board by Daddy G to record vocals for the next Massive Attack album which naturally led to her been asked to take int he tour with them. She repleaced Deborah Miller in the live lineup as the designated ‘soul singer’ in the live band, singing classic tracks such as Unfinished Sympathy and Safe From Harm along with new tracks All I Want and Harpsichord (later to be retitled Paradise Circus on Heligoland). Also just like Deborah Miller before, she would used the tambourine the during the climax of Unfinished Sympathy

Musicians

Angelo Bruschini: Angelo typically uses a Boss GT5 guitar as his main effects, plus a Ground Control Plus midi footswitch. Unfinished Sympathy is the only song were Angelo is absent from the stage as electric guitar is not required for this song.

Winston Blisset: Winston is the bass guitarist and used a footswitch controller, which is used for bringing in effects when needed or routing to a tuner. The amp his bass is attached to is a 600 watt head and the spare is a 350 head, both of which are made by Boogie.

Andrew Smalls: Andrew provides the drums and percussive elements to the live tracks. He used Yamaha electric pads along with a number of Emu samplers triggering specfic loops which had been cut up into elements. Andrew’s setup was like the other drummers Damon’s setup with the added Sennheiser mic in the kick.

John Baggott: A new addition for this year’s tour was John Baggott, replacing Arden Hart who had been doing keyboards for the last few tours. Before this year’s tour with Massive, he was Portishead’s live keyboardist.

Damon Reece: Former drummer of Bristol based alt rock outfit Lupine Howl and husband of Elizabeth Fraser, Damon Reece joined Andrew Small on the Collected tour as the band’s second drummer to provide a tighter rhythm section behind the music. His drum vintage kit is miked with Shure SM91/Beta 52 (kick), SM57 (snare) and SM98s (toms); and Audio-Technica 4050 (hi-hat/overheads). The 2008 tour was Damon’s 2nd tour with Massive Attack, after the Collected tour.

Wired Strings: The trio of women who would come onto the stage to do the live string arrangements on Kingpin, Harpsichord (later to be retitled Paradise Circus on Heligoland) and Unfinished Sympathy came from an outfit known as Wired Strings, who provide hired violinists for live performances and studio recordings for different artists. This was the first time they had done a tour with Massive Attack. It was also the first time Massive Attack had used a violinist(s) since Lucy Wilkins on the 2003 tour.

Proshot Footage Links

Six Song Set Recorded At Glastonbury Festival Including All I Want, Teardrop, Karmacoma, Safe From Harm, Angel and Unfinished Sympathy
Live Performance of Marooned From The Glastonbury Festival
Live Performance of Inertia Creeps From The Meltdown Festival
Live Performance Of Risingson In Copenhagen, Denmark
Live Performance Of Teardrop In Copenhagen, Denmark
Live Performance Of Paradise Circus In Copenhagen, Denmark

Watch this video on YouTube.

Some of the tour dates from the 2003 tour from an itinerary booklet issued only to crew members on the tour.

Typical Setlist Of 2003 Tour

Up until the end of April 2003, the setlist did not include Karmacoma, as the LED visuals (showing the different cities across the world where Massive Attack were due to play in 2003) to accompany it had not been completed. Both Butterfly Caught, Special Cases and Black Melt were played continuously during the first half of the tour but gradually saw less and less appearances live, until the end of the 2003 tour where they were both omitted entirely. Also, festival dates cut down on the typical setlist listed below, down to 12/13 songs, with Everywhen and Name Taken nearly always getting the cut for these shows. There were also usually encore breaks of roughly a minute each after Safe From Harm and Antistar.

Click on the song titles in the setlist below to go straight to the Live Appearances paragraph regarding these songs in the Song Info section. The songs denoted with a * are the songs that changed the most frequently on the setlists during the 2003 shows.

Typical Setlist Of 2004 Tour

I Against I was played once and once only on this tour at the Brixton Academy show in London, UK on the 9th July. Immediately after this date, Antistar was dropped for the majority of the rest of the tour. Speed Of Dark was and still is an unreleased song that was debuted and played throughout the 2004 tour. For a little more information on this song, please refer to it’s sister track, United Snakes, which was also played on the first few dates of 2004 tour on the South American leg (as “Bullet”), but then quickly dropped and never played again.

Click on the song titles in the setlist below to go straight to the Live Appearances paragraph regarding these songs in the Song Info section. The songs denoted with a * are the songs that changed the most frequently on the setlists during the 2003 shows.

Additional Info

The theme for the 100th Window tour was put quite succinctly by UVA (United Visual Artists), the visual art installation company behind the visuals for the tour by saying, Quote – “From the very smallest (atoms and molecules) to the very largest (star constellations), the show explored digital representations of information, filtering real-time news, stock-market prices, weapon shopping lists, spam emails, virus alerts and weather reports to create a ‘picture of now’ translated into 36 languages, all perfectly synchronised to the band’s computers. Our first project, and the model for the ones that followed”. The 100th Window tour was the very first live tour for any band UVA had been tasked with for providing the visuals to. They would later go on to supply visuals for tours for U2, Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx and U.N.K.L.E, as well as subsequent Massive Attack tours, after the major success of the 100th Window tour. Apart from tours, UVA also do art installations as well as evidenced by the Volume installation which had a Massive Attack connection.

Many of the ideas behind the visuals came from not only 3D himself, but other well-known visual artists such as Marc Quinn, Nick Knight and Tatsou Miyamija. These ideas included same day localised newsfeeds tailored to the country Massive Attack were playing live in at the time (Future Proof and Antistar), showing a revolving map of world detailing all the dates Massive Attack had played and had yet to play (Karmacoma), up to the minute stock data from around the world’s currency exchanges (Butterfly Caught), statistics on the 2003 American occupation of Iraq (Risingson) and the current expenditure of different countries around the world on weapons of mass destruction (Safe From Harm). What made all this even more impressive was that all this data was translated into the local language of whatever country Massive Attack happened to be in at the time.

Another important part of the 2003 tour, that was well-publicized and has yet to be incorporated again into subsequent Massive Attack tours, was that fans could send short messages for any specific show on the tour via a special website (100thwindow.com) and these messages would get displayed on the giant LED screen at the show, usually at the very end during Group Four. This was possible through a close collaboration between UVA and Hi-Res!, the designers and developers of the official Massive Attack website. To capture all these fantastic images from the shows, a professional photographer was hired to accompany the band around the world documenting everything in photos which were them uploaded to the official website. The photographer’s name was Annabelle Dalby and you can check out her portfolio website here.

The only unfortunate consequence of having such a spectacular visual show, was that the giant LED screen made the 100th window economically unfeasible for Massive Attack to take it over and tour North America, which disappointed many fans over there at the time. 3D commented on this by saying Quote – “A SHAME BOUT AMERICA AND CANADA-TOO EXPENSIVE TO TAKE THE 100TH PRODUCTION CONCEPT OVER-INSTANT BANCRUPCY-GONNA TRY A REDUCED CONCEPT NEXT SUMMER-MORE EXPERIMENTAL AUDIO AND VISUAL-ON SMALLER SCREENS-MAYBE LCD-MORE FUCKING AROUND ON STAGE -LESS OF A GRAND SHOW.MAYBE WE CAN DO US/CANADA/S.AMERICA THEN.” [Official Massive Attack Forum - October 2003]

Indeed, Massive Attack would take the 100th Window tour over to the American continent the following year, but only in South America, making the unusual decision to neglect North America (who would not get a tour until the Collected tour in 2006). The lighting backdrops and production values afforded for this small South American leg of the 2004 tour were limited. This fact is noticeable upon examining any photos from these dates, by discovering that the LED screen devised by UVA for the 2004 tour was absent for these five South American dates. Instead just simple backlighting and coloured spotlights were used instead. The LED screen for the 2004 tour (which was also different from the screen employed on the 2003 tour), would not make it’s first appearance until the first of the European dates which was at the Super Rock Festival in Lisbon, Portugal on the 14th June.

The 2004 part of the 100th Window tour was a reduced version of the same basic concept of the 2003 tour, partly in order to reduce the cost of the giant LED screen of the preceeding year. Once again from UVA Quote – “Rejecting conventional rock-star lighting, the band opted to be silhouetted by a more focused, distilled version of the 2003 show. Relying less on text and information, and more on abstract imagery, this ‘greatest hits’ festival touring show was built for speed and convenience, mining the fertile ‘middle ground’ between lighting and video”. Another major difference between the 2003 and 2004 variations of this tour was that the 2004 tour was mostly confined to just festival dates, with no indoor Massive Attack-only shows except for two once-off shows held at the Brixton Academy in London, UK.

After finishing up the 100th Window tour at the V Festival on 22nd August 2004, Massive Attack would make a brief return to the stage as part of the special “Tsunami: Crisis In Asia” fund-raisers at the Bristol Academy in February 2005, before making their formal live return as part of the Collected tour at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, USA in April 2006.

Vocalists

3D: Provided vocals on the songs Future Proof, Risingson, Butterfly Caught, Mezzanine, Safe From Harm, Inertia Creeps, Antistar and Group Four. Apart from vocals, 3D also used a small sampling machine attached to a small pedestal beside his microphone to sample his own vocals live and trigger some song samples.

Daddy G: Provided vocals on Risingson, Karmacoma and Mezzanine. This was also the first tour where Daddy G did not have any ‘DJ’ duties to perform on stage.

Horace Andy: Provided vocals on Everywhen, Angel, Name Taken and Hymn Of The Big Wheel.

Dot_Allison: Provided vocals on Black Melt, Special Cases, Teardrop and Group Four. Apart from vocals, Dot also played the electric guitar during Black Melt and Group Four.

Deborah Miller: Provided vocals on Hymn Of The Big Big Wheel, Safe From Harm and Unfinished Sympathy. Apart from vocals, Deborah also played the tambourine on Unfinished Sympathy during it’s climax. She was noticeably absent during the 2004 tour, instead being replaced by Hazel Fernandez. The 2004 tour has been the only tour Deborah has not been apart of since Massive Attack started touring in 1995.

Hazel Fernandez: Provided vocals on Hymn Of The Big Big Wheel, Safe From Harm and Unfinished Sympathy on the 2004 tour, substituting for Deborah Miller who for unknown reasons was absent for the tour this year. She has not toured with Massive Attack before or afterwards and has become a touring member of Jamiroquai since.

Sinead O’Connor: Provided vocals on What Your Soul Sings, Special Cases and A Prayer For England. Sinead O’ Connor herself only did live vocals on this song a total of four times at shows in Glasgow and Manchester,UK during April 2003. All other live renditions of Special Cases feature Dot Allison substituting for Sinead O’ Connor’s absence.

Mos Def: Provided vocals on I Against I for one date only at the Brixton Academy in London, UK on 9th July 2004. This was a lucky occurrence as Mos Def was at the time filming his role in the film “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” at the same time in London and found the time to perform at the show.

Musicians

Angelo Bruschini: Angelo typically uses a Boss GT5 guitar as his main effects, plus a Ground Control Plus midi footswitch. Unfinished Sympathy is the only song were Angelo is absent from the stage as electric guitar is not required for this song.

Winston Blisset: Winston is the bass guitarist and used a footswitch controller, which is used for bringing in effects when needed or routing to a tuner. The amp his bass is attached to is a 600 watt head and the spare is a 350 head, both of which are made by Boogie.

Andrew Smalls: Andrew provides the drums and percussive elements to the live tracks. He used Yamaha electric pads along with a number of Emu samplers triggering specific loops which had been cut up into elements.

Arden Hart: Arden uses an array of keyboards and synthesizers including a Korg Trinity, Yamaha Electric Piano, Access Virus 3, Yamaha 01v desk, Akai Z8 sampler and an S5000. One of his main roles during a show, is to trigger album sounds and samples which are too complex to re-produce live on stage. Arden also sings a couple of backing vocal parts on Risingson and a few other songs as well.

Lucy Wilkins: Provided violin on the songs, Special Cases, Butterfly Caught, Antistar and Unfinished Sympathy. On the 2004 leg of 100th Window, Lucy wa dropped from the touring setup, with any violin elements been sampled/triggered by Arden. She is now working and touring with Dot Allison whom she met on this tour.

Proshot Footage Links

UVA Compilation Showcasing The LED Visuals Of The Tour
Live Performance Of Antistar At Pinkpop Festival
Live Performance Of Safe From Harm At Pinkpop Festival
Live Performance Of Group Four At Pinkpop Festival
Live Performance Of Future Proof At Fuji Rock Festival
Live Performance Of Risingson At Fuji Rock Festival
Live Performance Of Safe From Harm At Fuji Rock Festival

Watch this video on YouTube.

Typical setlist from the 2006 tour. This one is from the Chicago show which had a rare performance of Live With Me with Terry Callier on stage. Photo Credit.

Typical Setlist Of 2006 Tour

Both False Flags and Black Melt were fixtures on nearly all non-festival dates, but were usually dropped at festivals. Man Next Door was played on the first three dates of the tour beginning in North America, but were dropped for the entirety of the European leg of the tour and were then put back on when Massive Attack once again returned to North America in September and October. It was also on this second leg of North America that Karmacoma was dropped from the setlist as Daddy G was on paternity leave but returned when he rejoined with the band at beginning of October to finish up the tour for the last remaining shows. Finally, one last hiccup came in the middle of the tour when Horace Andy got injured in May which forced his absence for a handful of shows at the beginning of June in Greece and Eastern Europe. For these shows all the usual Horace led songs, such as Angel and Hymn Of The Big Wheel were dropped and a bit of improv led to a more atypical inclusion on the setlist of an instrumental version of Everywhen (never played before) and Heat Miser (not played since the Mezzanine tour).

Click on the song titles in the setlist below to go straight to the Live Appearances paragraph regarding these songs in the Song Info section. The songs denoted with a * are the songs that changed the most frequently on the setlists during the 2006 shows.

Typical Setlist Of 2007 Tour

There was very little difference between the setlists the following year in 2007. The first three shows held in February in Birmingham and London for the HOPING Foundation, had the same setlist as the final North American dates last October. The surprise but brief Iberian (with one lone UK date) tour in September held one notable change on the setlist. Off went Man Next Door and in came a brand new previously unheard of song called “16 Seeter” sung by Horace Andy, that was eventually renamed to Girl I Love You. Finally, on the only two festival dates in 2007, at the Weekenddance Festival held in Madrid and Barcelona, Black Melt, Butterfly Caught and Mezzanine were dropped off the setlist with no substitutions.

Click on the song titles in the setlist below to go straight to the Live Appearances paragraph regarding these songs in the Song Info section. The songs denoted with a * are the songs that changed the most frequently on the setlists during the 2007 shows.

Additional Info

The first obvious fact about the Collected tour was it’s starting point – Seattle, USA – the first North American Massive Attack live show in nearly eight years. There would be only two other North American dates in April 2006, one being in Denver and the other at the Coachella Festival playing just before alt rock group Tool. They would later return to North America in September after touring Europe over the Summer. There was however a slight complication at the beginning of September just before the North American tour was due to start. Owing to difficulties acquiring visas for everyone in the band, the first two Canadian dates in Montreal and Toronto and one in Detroit, USA had to be cancelled permanently with the Chicago date being rescheduled. 3D spoke of this unfortunate turn of events Quote – “That was unfortunately Horace Andy’s particular difficulties, being Jamaican, and we had some visa application forms which he filled out wrong, which basically set a whole chain of events in motion causing us to miss the first week, which was quite annoying”.

The next most obvious difference again in the tour from the last two 100th Window tours was the new lighting and LED setup which UVA, the same visual art designers of the 100th Window tour said of Quote – “For our third Massive Attack tour, we created a more organic, audio-responsive show presented on a hemispherical screen made of ultra-bright beamer LEDs”. Some of the visuals displayed on the new LED screen were designed and programmed by Samuel Christopher, visual and music installation designer (website here) and Vince Foster who had designed the lighting and stage productions for other artists shows ranging from Roger Waters to Kylie Minogue (website here).

The lighting setup was augmented somewhat when the tour returned to North America in September with the arrival of three long rectangular LED ticker displays arranged along the stage. These tickers conveyed data related to whatever city they happened to be in at the time along with statistics about daily living and the American occupation of Iraq much like the giant LED screen of the 2003 tour but on a smaller scale. It was this scaling down of some of the production elements of the 2003 tour, which made it economically possible for Massive Attack to tour the American continent for the Collected tour.

It was not long after the end of the 2006 Collected tour, that word of a few special 2007 dates arrived in the form of three charity shows in Birmingham and London, UK to raise money and awareness of the HOPING Foundation which seeks to help the children of Palestine. these shows had the augmented stage setup from the North American tour the preceding year, but were of themselves nothing special in terms of what the setlist was, with no surprises there. After these three dates, it was assumed that the Collected tour had finished until word broke during the Summer that a quick and surprise mini-tour of the two Iberian countries Spain and Portugal would take place in September. There was also one final UK date added to the end of these shows which was the Pilton Fayre in the town of Glastonbury, which was the very final date of the Collected tour. At these September shows a brand new, previously unheard of song was debuted, sung by Horace Andy going under the unusual name of “16 Seeter” which was first reported by the Spanish and Portuguese media. “16 Seeter” would eventually become Girl I Love You, that was released more than 2 years later upon the release of Heligoland, and was therefore the first track from that album to be previewed live or otherwise.

Vocalists

3D: Provided vocals on the songs False Flags, Future Proof, Risingson, Karmacoma, Butterfly Caught, Mezzanine, Safe From Harm, Inertia Creeps and Group Four. Apart from vocals, 3D also used a small sampling machine attached to a small pedestal beside his microphone to sample his own vocals live and trigger some song samples. He was also a bit more animated on this tour on certain songs giving an impromptu ‘kung-fu’ inspired dance rather than turning his back to the audience on the 100th Window tour.

Daddy G: Provided vocals on Risingson, Karmacoma and Mezzanine. Not only this, but Daddy G’s role in the live band was expanded upon as he undertook some DJ-ing (scratching) on certain songs like Risingson and Unfinished Sympathy. During the whole of September 2006, for the happy reason of a new birth in his family, Daddy G was absent from the North American leg of the tour. To accommodate this Man Next Door was brought back permanently onto the setlist in exchange for Karmacoma, while 3D took on both his and Daddy G’s dual vocals on Risingson and Mezzanine.

Horace Andy: Provided vocals on Man Next Door, Angel and Hymn Of The Big Wheel. For a handful of dates at the beginning of May 2006, due to an injury Horace was’nt available for those dates, which forced Massive Attack to improvise their setlist a little with the atypical inclusions of Heat Miser and a instrumental version of Everywhen.

Deborah Miller: After being noticeably absent on the 2004 tour Deborah returned to provide vocals on Hymn Of The Big Big Wheel, Safe From Harm and Unfinished Sympathy. Apart from vocals, Deborah also played the tambourine on Unfinished Sympathy during it’s climax.

Elizabeth Fraser: Returning to the Massive Attack touring schedule after a brief stint on the 1998 Mezzanine tour, Elizabeth took up vocal duties on Black Melt, Teardrop and Group Four, which had all been sung by Dot Allison on the previous 100th Window tour. Not only was Elizabeth Fraser on tour with Massive Attack, but so was her husband, Damon Reece, the new second drummer for the band.

Terry Callier: Terry Callier only played four dates on the Collected tour, which were both Wireless Festivals in the UK, the Montreax Festival in Switzerland and the Riveria Theater in Chicago, USA in which he performed Live With Me.

Musicians

Angelo Bruschini: Angelo typically uses a Boss GT5 guitar as his main effects, plus a Ground Control Plus midi footswitch. Unfinished Sympathy is the only song were Angelo is absent from the stage as electric guitar is not required for this song.

Winston Blisset: Winston is the bass guitarist and used a footswitch controller, which is used for bringing in effects when needed or routing to a tuner. The amp his bass is attached to is a 600 watt head and the spare is a 350 head, both of which are made by Boogie.

Andrew Smalls: Andrew provides the drums and percussive elements to the live tracks. He used Yamaha electric pads along with a number of Emu samplers triggering specific loops which had been cut up into elements. Andrew’s setup was like the other drummers Damon’s setup with the added Sennheiser mic in the kick.

Arden Hart: Arden uses an array of keyboards and synthesizers including a Korg Trinity, Yamaha Electric Piano, Access Virus 3, Yamaha 01v desk, Akai Z8 sampler and an S5000. One of his main roles during a show, is to trigger album sounds and samples which are too complex to re-produce live on stage. Arden also sings a couple of backing vocal parts on Risingson and a few other songs as well.

Damon Reece: Former drummer of Bristol based alt rock outfit Lupine Howl and husband of Elizabeth Fraser, Damon Reece joined Andrew Small on the Collected tour as the band’s second drummer to provide a tighter rhythm section behind the music. His drum vintage kit is miked with Shure SM91/Beta 52 (kick), SM57 (snare) and SM98s (toms); and Audio-Technica 4050 (hi-hat/overheads).

Proshot Footage Links

UVA Compilation Showcasing The LED Visuals Of The Tour
Three Song Set Recorded At Wireless Festival Including Future Proof, Angel And Safe From Harm
Three Song Set Recorded At Abbey Road Studios Including Teardrop, Angel And Mezzanine
Live Performance Of Angel At SummerSonic Festival
Live Performance Of Teardrop At SummerSonic Festival
Live Performance Of Mezzanine At SummerSonic Festival

Watch this video on YouTube.