By Edna Gundersen
USA TODAY

As blue light specials go, this one’s a rattle-and-humdinger. Already regarded as the biggest rock band in the world, U2 aims to surpass itself with an ambitious stadium tour, announced Wednesday at a packed press conference in New York’s Kmart.

The PopMart Tour, billed as “a giant, sci-fi disco supermarket setting,” starts April 25, at the Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, the first of 33 U.S. cities on the 1997 itinerary. The global outing, expected to gross $260 million, hits 62 cities in 20 countries this year and should easily upstage 1992’s visually dizzying and financially dazzling Zoo TV Tour.

The Irish rock quartet’s new show will boast a golden arch rising 100 feet, a 35-foot mirrored lemon, a glowing stuffed olive on a 100-foot toothpick, plus 1,000 lighting fixtures, a plexiglass dance floor, six lightning machines and 100 strobe lights. U2’s flashiest prop: the world’s largest video screen. At 150 feet by 50 feet, it covers 833 square yards and requires 22 miles of cable and 21,000 circuit boards.

“We believe in trash, we believe in kitsch,” guitarist The[sic]Edge said at the crowded Kmart, where singer Bono pushed a shopping cart while singing _Holy Joe_. “That’s what we are up to at the moment.” Tickets ($37.50 and $52.00) for shows in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., go on sale Saturday at Ticketmaster outlets. MTV and VH1 viewers can order early though Tickets First from 8-11 p.m. ET/5-8 p.m. PT Friday.

On four consecutive Fridays, the networks will sell tickets for all U.S. dates a day before they are offered to the public. The MTV/VH1 pact includes U2’s only 1997 U.S. television performance, the Sept. 4 MTV Video Music Awards.

The PopMart Tour follows the March 4 release of U2’s eight studio album, _Pop_, predicted to be a monster seller on par with 1991’s Achtung Baby (10 Million copies worldwide) and 1993’s Zooropa (7 million).

The music industry, mired in its second year of sluggish growth, “is placing a lot of importance on this record, assigning it almost savior status,” says _Hits_ managing editor David Adelson, one of few to have heard all of _Pop_. “There was some alarm that _Pop_ would be a huge departure that the public won’t go for, but it’s a great U2 record and core fans won’t be disappointed.”

Reports of U2’s sonic shift caused retailers, stung by 1996’s disappointing sales of superstar releases, to place prudent orders, says _Billboard_ charts director Geoff Mayfield, noting that Island’s initial shipment to stores is a hefty 1 million copies.

Mayfield expected 1996 albums by R.E.M. and Pearl Jam “to make more progress in the marketplace. Will U2 fall into the same pit? You can expect a handsome first-week number, but people are hesitant to predict past that.”

That caution extends to the tour’s local promoters, who will receive a set fee rather than a percentage of the gate. “Agents and tour support people are all raising eyebrows and wondering if they can make money,” Adelson says. “Nobody doubts the tour will draw people. The question is whether it can be profitable given the huge guarantee that has been negotiated by U2.”

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