[1] Although Humbug was not released until 25 August 2009, the tour started with a series of shows in Australia and New Zealand in the January of that year, followed by a break for the band to put the finishing touches on the record.

Generally, the band opened each gig with a song from Humbug (either "Pretty Visitors" or "Dance Little Liar"), followed by "Brianstorm", "This House is a Circus" and "Still Take You Home".

Following the last song of the main set (usually "Do Me a Favour" in North America and "Secret Door" in Europe), the band returned for a two-song encore.

The encore typically consisted of a new version of "Fluorescent Adolescent", which had been transposed to include a snippet of a different song (most commonly "Only You Know" by Dion or "Strange" by Patsy Kline), as well as standard closing number "505".

Both songs in the encore were generally from the band's 2007 album Favourite Worst Nightmare as a few variations included either "If You Were There, Beware", or the aforementioned B-side "Nettles".