Mezzanine Tour (1998 - 1999)
Total Shows Played In 1998: 120
Duration Of 1998 Tour: 15th April - 18th December
Total Shows Played In 1999: 26
Duration Of 1999 Tour: 25th June - 28th November
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.
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 definate show she played with Massive Attack was at the Royal Albery 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.
Mushroom: Would do the ‘DJ-ing’ and scracthing 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.
Additional Info:
The inaugural show of the Mezzanine tour was in April 1998 in Dublin, Ireland and would take another one and a half years to see its completion. within that time, 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 absense 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. The picture below is from one of the Mezzanine Tour Itinernary books which gives the names of everyone involved on this tour.
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