Today we celebrate the 16th Birthday of Britney’s iconic ‘Oops!…I Did It Again Tour.’
The ”Oops!… I Did It Again World Tour” was Britney’s first world tour, reaching North America, Europe and Brazil. The show was more elaborate than her previous tour and included pyrotechnics and other special effects. Reviewers praised the tour, adding that the concert “proved that many criticisms are off-base observations from people who have never actually attended shows.” Britney was guaranteed a minimum of $200,000 per show before the tour began, and many of the shows sold out in one day.
The Oops!… I Did It Again World Tour grossed $52,143,517 with 1,452,014 million in attendance and became the second highest-grossing tour of the year by a solo artist.
This was Britney’s first time touring outside Northern America, “I’m going to go to Europe, and just basically go everywhere for six months, […] I’ve never toured outside of the U.S. I’ve never experienced other fans in other places, and performing in front of them is going to be so exciting.”
Tour sponsors from the 2000 leg of the ‘…Baby One More Time Tour,’ Got Milk? and Polaroid, remained. Clairol’s Herbal Essences was also added as a sponsor. Britney recorded a song for the latter called “I’ve Got the Urge to Herbal” to be used on their radio campaign. Although there was a later photo shoot, Britney initially chose to miss a photo shoot for the product when she decided to support an 86-day strike by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). She later donated $1 from each ticket sold from her Inglewood, California show on July 28, 2000 to the union.
For the European Leg of the Tour, Britney originally was going joint with *NSYNC following their No Strings Attached Tour, as a co-headliner. However she ended up with her own headlining tour.
Jamie King was chosen as the tour’s director, who also worked on Britney’s Circus Tour. Britney described the tour as “like a Broadway show”.The set-list included material from her first studio album …Baby One More Time (1999) as well as seven songs from Oops!… I Did It Again. “I’ve been singing the same material for so long now. It’ll be nice to change it up a little bit.”
The ‘theater style’ stage included video screens, movable platforms and different props.It cost $2.2 million to build. For the performance of “Born to Make You Happy”, Britney sang in a set resembling a children’s bedroom, complete with large toys and a pillow fight routine. On the contrary, she unveiled a more sophisticated image for “Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know”, and followed it with raunchy performances for “…Baby One More Time” and “Oops!… I Did It Again”.
Britney was praised for singing live, whilst at the same time keeping to her high energy dance routine. Critics were impressed with her ability to juggle the two with such ease, which is unheard of in the industry.
The show began with the video introduction “The Britney Spears Experience”, in which three images of Britney welcomed spectators to the show.Then, a giant metal orb was lowered onstage and lifted again to reveal Britney standing behind it, wearing glittery jeans and an orange (also pink) halter top. Britney started with two dance-oriented performances of ”(Your Drive Me) Crazy” and ”Stronger.” This was followed by “What U See (Is What U Get)” in which she danced around a stripper pole. The first set ended with Brit talking to the audience and sitting on a stool to perform ”From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart,” with her guitarist Skip.
After she left the stage, there was a video interlude hosted by *NSYNC in which contestants did different games in order to meet Britney. She appeared onstage to meet the chosen fan and then welcomed the audience into her ‘bedroom.’ Wearing pajamas and slippers, she performed ”Born To Make You Happy”, which included a dance segment near the end. ‘Lucky’ featured a navy theme, followed by ‘Sometime,’ in which she wore an outfit similar to the one she wore in the music video of the song. At the end, she climbed the staircase and briefly spoke to the audience before moving into a performance of ”Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know,” for which she wore a long white dress trimmed with boa feathers.
Britney then reappeared to perform her cover of Sonny & Cher’s, ‘The Beat Goes On.’ During the performance, she was lifted into the air wearing a kimino that covered most of the stage. She continued with “Don’t Go Knockin’ On My Door” and her cover of The rolling Stone’s ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, which ended with a dance sequence set to the original version. Britney then took to the stage in a conservative schoolgirl outfit to perform ”…Baby One More Time,” which she ripped off halfway through the song to reveal a cheerleader ensemble.
Britney then thanked the audience and left the stage. She returned shortly after to perform ”Oops!… I Did It Again,” that included pyrotechnics and other special effects.She ended the performance disappearing through a tunnel of fire.
On November 30, 2000, the September 20 concert at the Louisiana Superdrome in New Orleans aired on Fox. The special was titled There’s No Place Like Home.The show at London Arena was filmed and broadcast by Sky1. The show at Rock In Rio was broadcast on DirecTV.
Celebrate with us by watching the full tour.
And by watching this amazing Backstage footage:
Happy Birthday Oopsney!
