Question 1:

Q 1. Who is responsible for the impressive lighting effects at the live shows?

Starting with the 100th Window tour in 2003, United Visual Artists (UVA), a British-based technology-based art collective whose current practice spans permanent architectural installation, live performance and responsive installation. The 100th Window tour was in fact UVA’s first time developing the stage and lighting effects for a live band or performance. Their response was an immense LED screen, displaying live data centre stage throughout each performance. Information was updated daily and included geographical details about the venue of each concert, along with current news headlines, messages from fans and statistical data.
In an attempt to keep the following year’s tour within budget, a simpler but still versatile lighting soloution and LED screen were once again provided by UVA. Following the success of the 100th Window tour, UVA were invited by many other big bands to do a similar job for them at their shows, like U2, U.N.K.L.E and Basement Jaxx. They have been invited back by Massive Attack in the same capacity for each of their subsequent tours, providing a familar yet at the same time different interpretation of basic concept on how simple LED lighting can be used to subtly communicate to an live audience and at the same time enhance the whole experience. To read more about how UVA’s lighting differed from tour to tour, please check out the Gigography Guide section for more details.
Quote - UVA co-founder Matt Clark on why they decided to use the medium of LED lights in Massive Attack’s live shows - “We used a huge LED screen to display data: essentially a screen made from thousands of tiny light-emitting diodes. Before that, we mainly used projectors when designing shows. LED is an emissive medium, and produces a distinctive bright and cold look that we were attracted to. It has a power and a mystique that projection can’t match. It also lends itself far better to sculptural applications.” [Creative Review - October 2007]
The images below (click to enlarge) are examples of UVA’s lighting from each disctint Massive Attack tour of last several year, in order: 100th Window (2003-2004), Collected (2006-2007) and the 2008 tour.

Q 2. How did Massive Attack morph gradually from being a DJ soundsystem to a proper live band for their shows?

It would be a few years following the release of Blue Lines (following the minor calamity of Shara Nelson leving the band and also switching management) before Massive Attack could actually get out ont he road and start touring. The basic idea of their very first tour of 1993/1994 as to take what they knew and loved from their old Wild Bunch days and distill it into live form i.e a soundsyetem approach. However, as they soon found out it would not work out. Following on from the decidely lukewarm reception Massive Attack recieved on their soundsystem tour, with particularly disastrous reviews of their North American shows in that year, they would return in 1995 with a radically altered touring setup to help promote the recently released Protection album.
Quote - 3D said of the North American soundsystem tour - “We did a terrible tour of America which was cancelled halfway through for damage limitation reasons. And we came home, and being English, we saw the funny side of it and not giving a fuck about breaking America. We came back and thought about it again and did a more ambitious soundsystem tour and introduced instruments bit by bit.” [Planet Rock Profile - September 2003]
Deciding to drop many of the aspects (’DJ-ing’, ‘MC-ing’, toasting etc…) of when they were apart of The Wild Bunch and go for a live instrumentation approach with proper musicians backing up 3D, Daddy G and Mushroom on stage. This was also done to combat the boredom they were feeling at the time of doing soundsystem shows and trying something new. Two of these musicians who joined the touring band for the Protection tour, Angelo Bruschini and Winston Blisset are still apart of the band to this date. Following on from this more successful tour, Massive Attack retained the live instrumenation approach for all their subsquent tours, with the only throwback to their roots being Daddy G (or Mushroom when he was still with the band), doing scratching and some other minor sound effects from a DJ deck on stage.

Q 3. What’s the length of a typical Massive Attack live performance and what songs from their catalogue do they tend to play?

Massive Attack tend to play for between 90-100 minutes (15-17 songs) typically for one of their own shows. Festival shows will always be a bit shorter, were the length could be anything from 60-90 minutes (13-15 songs), depending if they are the headliner or not. Also, they nearly always take a quick 1-2 minute encore break before the final 3 songs are performed.
As for what songs are played on a regular basis, you should check out the Gigography Guide section and look at the various tours described in there to see what the typical setlist looks like. You can always expect major hits such as Teardrop and Unfinished Sympathy (unfortunately, not Protection to be played). Other songs that nearly always make the grade for every shows on every tour include Angel, Risingson, Inertia Creeps, Karmacoma and Safe From Harm. Of course, its harder to guarantee what guest vocalists Massive Attack will have singing those songs until the start of each tour.

Q 4. Why do Massive Attack mostly tour Europe? Why not places like the States and/or Australia?

The only real reason is an economic one and not because Massive Attack hates your country or another silly notion like that. They do tend to tour Europe mostly as that is where most of their fanbase is located. Outside of their home country of Britain, they have particularly strong fan followings in France, Italy and Germany, so its understandble in a sense why they tour there most often. Back in 2003, there was plans to tour North America at the beginning of the year, but these were quickly dropped, as the 100th Window tour proved to costly to take over the Atlantic. The ambitious scope of the tour with its huge LED screen and other impressive lighting effects had by the end of European tour that year, left Massive Attack slightly ‘in the red’ regarding their tour expenditure, so it was deemed impossible to take the show over to North America in its current for. At the time, some fans wrongly conjectured, that Massive Attack were not touring North America as some kind of political statement of their dislike for the currect Bush administration. Quote - 3D on the reasons for not touring America in 2003 - “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 - September 2003]
Massive Attack would finally return to North America for their 2006 Collected tour, marking their first live appearances there since 1998. As for Austrailia, (where they have’nt played since 2003), a common problem that most international bands have with Australia is that it is just simply too far away to travel to, concidering all the equipment that must be provided for that goes into the making of the show. The good news is that according to an article on Billboard.com, posted in May 2009, Massive Attack will be returning to North America, Australia and Asia as part of an extensive world tour, so fans worldwide should be able to make the opportunity to see them in 2010!

Q 5. Do Massive Attack vary their setlist and the show in general much from night to night?

If you go to enough Massive Attack shows on the same tour, or just browse through the archived setlists from shows in the Gigography section, it becomes predictable enough, what Massive Attack will or will not play on any given night. They have always stuck to fairly rigid setlist in the past and with the continued complexity of their shows with the elaborate lighting and LED screens, further prohibts much improvising in terms of switching up the setlist. If your expecting then something along the lines of Radiohead for instance, who are well known to be constantly varying their setlist from night to night, then you will be disappointed. Typically when they begin a new tour, the setlist will not chnage dramitcally for the remainder of the tour, with only very minor additions/subtractions, maybe when they are doing a festival slot or when a vocalist they have worked with before, becomes available for a one off performance (such as Mos Def at their Brixton Academy show in 2004, when they were able to perform I Against I , for the first and only time).
Even Massive Attack have commented sometimes with the lack of improvising sometimes sat their shows. Quote - 3D commenting on the occasional boredom they feel at shows and how they cope with it - “I’m fucking so bored of it. It is difficult to play the same things. We’ve played 75 shows and it’s getting more laborious every time. We keep it interesting by getting drunk. We’re onstage almost exactly half the time. I’m onstage every other song, except for two songs in a row during the end. It’s cool. It gives me more time to get drunk in between songs.” [Innerviews.org – September 1998]

Q 6. Any chance a live CD/DVD will ever be released?

Unfortunately at this time, there does not seem to be indication that there will be any official live concert footage compiled onto a live CD/DVD, like many other major bands in Massive Attack’s position have done copious amounts of time in the past before. In fact, Massive Attack have never released in kind of live footage of themselves in any medium such as over the web, video or promo CD’s. Not even the Light My Fire (Live) counts, as it is’nt really a live track to begin with.
The majority of proshot footage of Massive Attack comes from festival shows, which was broadcast on TV, where Massive Attack had no control of what was to be done with the recordings. Saying that, it is a fact that at least one or two shows during the 100th Window tour where taped professionally at the bands request. It is unknown what shows these were, but the footage has never been used. 3D did have ideas at the time to release some sort of live package to celebrate the end of the 100th Window tour, but unfortunately it never came to be. When the idea for a live DVD (packaged along with some sort of remixed facsimile version of 100th Window) of the 100th Window tour fell through, he even mentioned that they would instead just license the footage for TV around the world, but again that did not seem to come true.
A theory why we may not see any kind of physical release of live material in the form of a DVD/CD, is that live CD/DVD’s from other similar electronic British artists, liek the Chemical Brothers have release live packages before and have sold poorly, so this may all be a simple case of economics. This does not rule out in the future, using the internet as a cheaper medium to release some kind of live official material from Massive Attack.