History
The tour was announced in a press conference held underneath the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.
The tour began on 9 September 1997 in Toronto, Canada, and comprised 56 shows in North America, 9 shows in South America, 6 shows in Japan and 37 shows in Europe. It concluded on 19 September 1998 in Istanbul, Turkey. Five shows were cancelled (in Marseilles, Paris, Lyon, Bilbao and Gijón), and five more were postponed (in Italy, Ireland and Great Britain).
The production was designed by Mark Fisher, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger and Patrick Woodroffe. The show opened with a circular central screen exploding with fireworks, from which guitarist Keith Richards emerged playing the classic riff from "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". The stage design included a 46 m (150 ft)long telescoping cantilever bridge that extended from the main stage to a 'B' stage in the center of the field.
One of the innovations on this tour was the "web vote": Fans who had purchased a ticket could vote for a song which they wanted to hear. If a song was picked by the web vote 4 shows in a row it became a permanent part of the set list ("Gimme Shelter" was added early on in the tour and "Under My Thumb" came one shy of 4 on 6 occasions, but never was requested for 4 consecutive shows). A few shows had no web vote (for example at the Brazil shows where the band performed a duet with Bob Dylan on "Like a Rolling Stone").
This was the first tour where a B-stage was featured at most shows (they had used one on the Voodoo Lounge Tour, but only at one show). The band normally played three numbers on the B-stage, with the exception of the final show where only two songs were played there.
The Bridges to Babylon Tour was the largest Rolling Stones tour at the time, exceeding the sales of their record-breaking 1994–1995 Voodoo Lounge Tour. It was believed 4,577,000 people attended the tour over the 108 shows: 2,020,000 in Europe, 2,009,000 in North America, 348,000 in Argentina and Brazil, and 200,000 in Japan. The tour reached 25 countries and is the second largest North American tour of all time - second to the Rolling Stones' 2005–2007 A Bigger Bang Tour.
The tour is documented by a concert album called No Security and a DVD release of the St. Louis, Missouri show. In 1999 the band commenced another tour called the No Security Tour, which played much smaller venues and fewer destinations.
Read more about this topic: Bridges To Babylon Tour
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