Protection Tour (1995 - 1997)
Total Shows Played In 1995: 27 (Inconclusive)
Duration Of 1995 Tour: 26th April - 9th October (Inconclusive)
Total Shows Played In 1996: 8 (Inconclusive)
Duration Of 1996 Tour: 6th Feburary - 21st September (Inconclusive)
Total Shows Played In 1997: 6 (Inconclusive)
Duration Of 1997 Tour: 26th April - 9th October (Inconclusive)
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 fropped 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 occaisonal 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.
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 Mezzanine, 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 scracthing 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 relacement 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.
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 recieved, 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
Loading ...
