The Rainbow World Tour was the fourth concert tour in 2000 by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey, and supports her seventh studio album Rainbow (1999). The tour started in Europe on February 14, in Antwerp, Belgium, also an itinerary that included North America and ended on April 18, in Toronto. The tour's nine-date North American leg grossed $7.1 million according to Billboard.[2]
Background
The Rainbow Tour marked Carey's first tour in the U.S. in seven years since her 1993 Music Box Tour garnered a flurry of bad initial reviews. In addition to visiting more European countries, Carey also visited Singapore for the first time. During this tour, Carey debuted new songs from the Rainbow album such as: "Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)", "Heartbreaker", "Thank God I Found You" and much more, including some of her biggest hits. Once again, longtime friend Trey Lorenz was featured as a backup singer. On tour merchandise shirts, a date in Dallas, Texas is listed, but was never actually scheduled. Footage recorded from the tour was used for the music video for "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)".[3]
Critical response
The tour received generally mixed reviews. Phil Gallo of Variety said: "Mariah Carey's show begs for either simplicity or coherency", and called the show a visual "mess".[4] While reflecting that this was the first time Mariah was scantily clad touring, Jim DeRogatis from the Chicago Sun-Times said that Carey had "been transformed from a wannabe Whitney to a wannabe Britney", and called her approach to concert performance "difficult to fathom" considering she was "the only artist to have scored a No. 1 hit in every year of the '90s, selling some 125 million records worldwide."[5]
Set list
The following set list is from the February 17 concert in Milan. It is not intended to represent all dates throughout the tour.[6]
"Mariah & Bianca" (Introduction) (contains elements of "Rainbow (Interlude)" and "Butterfly")
The "Vulnerability" video interlude was cut from the set list on March 4.
"Vision Of Love" was not performed in Tokyo.
Carey sang a snippet of Lauryn Hill's “Ex-Factor” in Singapore.
Starting on March 13, "Always Be My Baby" was moved up earlier in the set list, being performed after "My All". Additionally, "Heartbreaker" was performed before "Dreamlover".
A snippet of "Daydream Interlude (Fantasy Sweet Dub Mix)" was performed in Los Angeles, San Jose, Boston and Toronto.
A snippet of "Vanishing" was performed in Las Vegas.
^The April 13, 2000 concert in Boston, Massachusetts at the Fleet Center was originally planned to take place on April 4 but was rescheduled due to illness.[11]
^The April 18, 2000 concert in Toronto, Ontario at the Air Canada Centre was originally planned to take place on April 7 but was rescheduled due to illness.[11]