Staged in support of the group's 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the tour visited arenas and stadiums between March 2005 and December 2006.

The first leg through North America consisted of 28 sold-out indoor arena shows and finished on 28 May in Boston, Massachusetts.

The band then returned to North America in the autumn for the third leg, playing 50 sold-out shows in indoor arenas, starting on September 12 in Toronto and finishing up on December 19 in Portland, Oregon.

A fourth leg began on 12 February 2006 in Monterrey, Mexico, and ran through March visiting Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile; many of these locales had not seen a live U2 performance in nearly a decade and proved to be a hugely successful leg, with massive audiences attending these shows.

On 9 March 2006, it was announced the final 10 shows in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Hawaii were postponed due to guitarist The Edge's 7-year-old daughter Sian's diagnosis of leukaemia.

The fifth leg started on 7 November in Brisbane, Australia and concluded on 9 December 2006 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii after thirteen shows.

Four screens suspended above the stage showed close-ups of each member of the band, another element reused from the Elevation Tour.

[9] For the European, Latin American and Australian stadium shows, the bead curtains were replaced by an LED screen behind the band.

[10] The arena shows of the first and third legs usually began with the same trio of songs: "City of Blinding Lights", "Vertigo", and "Elevation".

On the first leg, "City of Blinding Lights" would alternate with "Love and Peace or Else", and sometimes "Beautiful Day" appeared in the opening trio.

"New Year's Day", "Until the End of the World", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", and "Miracle Drug" were examples of songs that often appeared in the main set.

There was then a sequence of politically based songs (usually "Love and Peace or Else", "Sunday Bloody Sunday", and "Bullet the Blue Sky"), based around the theme of "Coexist" (written to show a Muslim Crescent, Jewish Star of David, and Christian Cross).

The usual concert finisher in the first leg was "40" where Adam and Edge would switch instruments, but over the course of the tour, many other closing songs would be used as well.

The Vertigo Tour has also featured Larry Mullen, Jr. on vocals on "Elevation", "Miracle Drug" and "Love and Peace or Else".

All but two songs ("A Man and a Woman" and "One Step Closer") from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb were performed on the tour.

During the European stadium leg of the Vertigo Tour in the summer of 2005, four more concerts were filmed: two in Dublin and two in Milan.

Ten songs performed at the Milan concert appeared as a special edition bonus DVD in U2's November 2006 compilation album U218 Singles.

[15] Support slots were taken up by Ash, Arcade Fire, Athlete, Dashboard Confessional, Feeder, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Kanye West, Keane, The Killers, Kings of Leon (U.S. leg only), Scissor Sisters, Snow Patrol, Starsailor (Cardiff only), Paddy Casey (Dublin only), Razorlight, Pearl Jam (Honolulu only) and The Zutons.

[19] It was bested only by The Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang Tour, which took place at roughly the same time but was longer overall.