Via Barcelona ! U2 Rocks October

Luka Biba / U2TOURFANS 2015

Luka Biba / U2TOURFANS 2015

Spain: U2 arrives into Barcelona like a freight train rolling in with a massive thunder to waken the masses.  The first of four shows set the tone for the next few days.  The boys did run a couple of numbers thru song check however the set remains tight.

Consider the amount of technical work that has to go into adding or removing a song from the list. Yes at this point is all pre loaded into the systems however the set list does require couple of changes now and again. "One"  closes out the evening and "Sweetest Thing" was placed in rotation after sitting out a couple of shows.

Bona nit Barcelona!’, shouted U2’ leader, ‘Bono’, to the nearly 17,900 people who filled Palau Sant Jordi. All the shows have been sold out for months.  Rocktober is in full swing for the boys.

Setlist

  1. The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)
  2. The Electric Co. / Send In The Clowns (snippet)
  3. Vertigo
  4. I Will Follow
  5. Iris (Hold Me Close)
  6. Cedarwood Road
  7. Song For Someone
  8. Sunday Bloody Sunday / When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet)
  9. Raised By Wolves / Psalm 23 (snippet)
  10. Until The End Of The World / Love And Peace Or Else (snippet) / Words (snippet)
  11. (Intermission - The Fly)
  12. Invisible
  13. Even Better Than The Real Thing
  14. Mysterious Ways / Burning Down The House (snippet)
  15. Elevation
  16. Sweetest Thing
  17. Every Breaking Wave
  18. October
  19. Bullet The Blue Sky / Ode To Joy (snippet) / 19 (snippet)
  20. Zooropa
  21. Where The Streets Have No Name / California (There Is No End To Love) (snippet)
  22. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
  23. With Or Without You

Encore(s):

  1. City Of Blinding Lights
  2. Beautiful Day
  3. Mother And Child Reunion (snippet) / One / Invisible (snippet)

* Snips Provided by U2GIGS

Boston In the Review Mirror, New York City Lights Ahead

Boston:   Boston Strong was the theme of U2's four night appearance. Bono and the boys had not performed consecutive shows since Elevation Tour June 2001.  The band and fans have a great love affair going on for sometime.

Daily sound checks offer possible mix ups in the set list. A bar offered a U2 experience that finally U2's twitter feed had to set the record straight. Kind of reminds us to be young NOT dumb.

One of the interesting things on the tour has been @u2bike which not many have picked up on. A member of the crew has been out around each city taking some wonderful images of the city as well as the venue. 

Social media was a buzz "I heard the Fly" " Was that the Fly" mixed in with Invisible. The Fly has not made an arrival this tour. We have go all the way back to May when we heard an acoustic version. During last nights intermission video "The Wanderer" was replaced with a video mixed by Gavin Friday and over the PA was The Fly.  ( Yea we heard that Gavin was in the house) A visual awakening with messages flashing from ZooTV.  "Gloria" made her appearance early in the evening.

Boston Strong! "No bomb can break you" U2 may have physically have left Boston however their message of uplifting hope will carry on until they return. Will they return ? Surely as the Summer turns to a Boston Winter. 

Venue Boston TD Garden July 15, 2015

  1. The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)
  2. Gloria / Van Morrison's Gloria (snippet)
  3. Vertigo
  4. I Will Follow
  5. Iris (Hold Me Close)
  6. Cedarwood Road
  7. Song For Someone
  8. Sunday Bloody Sunday / When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet)
  9. Raised By Wolves / Psalm 23 (snippet)
  10. Until The End Of The World / Love And Peace Or Else (snippet)

(Intermission)

  1. Invisible
  2. Even Better Than The Real Thing
  3. Mysterious Ways / Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves (snippet)
  4. Volcano
  5. Stuck In A Moment
  6. Every Breaking Wave
  7. With Or Without You / Shine Like Stars (snippet)
  8. City Of Blinding Lights
  9. Bullet The Blue Sky / 19 (snippet)
  10. The Hands That Built America (snippet) / Pride (In The Name Of Love)

encore(s):

  1. Beautiful Day / Happy Birthday (snippet)
  2. Mother And Child Reunion (snippet) / Where The Streets Have No Name / California (There Is No End To Love) (snippet)
  3. One
  4. 40

 

** Snippet provided by U2Gigs

Boston 3 Down, Gretchen 1 Up

U2/ U2TOURFANS / Nick Walker 2015

U2/ U2TOURFANS / Nick Walker 2015

Boston: Show #3 down and the band can see New York on the horizon. The bright city lights await the boys arrival.

The North American leg will come to a fast wrap up later in the month with New York as the final North American city for the bands U2 iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour 2015, 

Some very upset fans waited outside and inside a bar that passed around a secret event that even some blog sites picked up on. The band was not scheduled to perform on Monday night. We have a long standing policy not to engage in rumors or anything that we can not confirm.

Boston #3 had a few surprises with some movement around the setlist. The Crystal Ballroom made an appearance and Beautiful Day entered into a well deserved encore slot. The show closed with "I Shill Haven't Found, What I Am Looking For"  The highlight for the evening was "Gretchen" who Bono met earlier outside the venue. Bono asked her to join the band on stage and perform. "All I Want Is You"  Well played Gretchen, the crowd enjoyed the performance.

Venue Boston TD Garden July 14, 2015

  1. The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)
  2. The Electric Co. / Send In The Clowns (snippet) / I Can See For Miles (snippet)
  3. Vertigo
  4. I Will Follow
  5. Iris (Hold Me Close)
  6. Cedarwood Road
  7. Song For Someone
  8. Sunday Bloody Sunday / When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet)
  9. Raised By Wolves / Psalm 23 (snippet)
  10. Until The End Of The World / Love And Peace Or Else (snippet)

(Intermission)

  1. Invisible
  2. Even Better Than The Real Thing
  3. Mysterious Ways / Burning Down The House (snippet) / Young Americans (snippet)
  4. Elevation
  5. The Crystal Ballroom / Miss You (snippet)
  6. All I Want Is You
  7. Every Breaking Wave
  8. With Or Without You
  9. City Of Blinding Lights
  10. Bullet The Blue Sky
  11. The Hands That Built America (snippet) / Pride (In The Name Of Love)

encore(s):

  1. Beautiful Day / Ultra Violet (Light My Way) (snippet) / I Remember You (snippet)
  2. Mother And Child Reunion (snippet) / Where The Streets Have No Name / California (There Is No End To Love) (snippet)
  3. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / People Have The Power (snippet)

*snippets provided by U2GIGS


U2 Rocks The Roxy

HOLLYWOOD, CA -  Right smack in the middle of the 5 night run at the Forum, KROQ working with The Roxy Theatre held a surprise gig for about 500 lucky fans who managed to score free tickets for the event.

This was the smallest venue the band has played in many years. The band did come out and spend some time with the fans, signing and posing for photos. Inside the Bono even did a bit of crowd-surfing and amazed fans with a very up close and personal evening.

Wednesday night we had a photo of the set list that was to be performed at the Roxy. The photo turned out to be right on the money. The band had a very long sound check that included “11 O’clock Tick Tock”, “The Ocean” “Elevation”, “Stuck In A Moment”, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, and “California”.

The band will head back to the forum to finish out their LA gigs and head on to Denver.

* show audio available per track
 

Good Bye San Jose

Erisman/U2TOURFANS 2015

Erisman/U2TOURFANS 2015

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Last night U2 wrapped up their San Jose, stay at the SAP Center with Bono giving thanks to the people that either support the one campaign or happen to be friends. He remembered Joey Ramone’s birthday and threw out a snippet of a WHO song in honor of Townshend’s birthday. 

The show came with some expectations, fans have been waiting sometime to see Bono and the boys preform.

The set list was for the most part the same however we did get a couple of treats: The Electric Co and Bad made its way into the set list. “Bad” written in at the last minute gave fans some hope that the boys will mix in a couple of their other tunes. The complete update as well as couple of treats can be found on our city page breakdown.

U2 Concert Ready with New Sound System, Improved Health For Bono

Bono/ U2TOURFANS

Bono/ U2TOURFANS

May 14th can't get here any faster for some U2 fans. Bono has been on recovery since last falls bike accident. The boys have been in Vancouver working on the new tour.

Its different for sure, with no opening band, we have to wonder what will be the walk in music however lets talk more about what we have learned over the last few days.  The New York Times has had access to the boys over the past week to give us some insight to what we can expect.

The concert will be two sets with an intermission with the first half pretty much as fixed set and the second set to be a bit more flexible with arbitrary selections.

U2 has always been on the cut edge side when it comes to technology not only from a sound prospective, stage and lights too. The band has been working on a new audio system that will suspend the speaker arrays from the ceilings pointing down, this will provide a complete immersive experience across the area floor.

The sound will be intense for everyone with no gaps within the house. Its considered to be uniformly transparent with the volume to be constant.

Now the stage will feature three risers, one "I" shaped one for "innocence" a round one shaped like  lower case "e" for "experience and walkway called the divider stage to signify the "passage from innocence to experience. Designed by Es Devlin. 

Remember the band promised another album while don't worry about the tour interference they the finest mobile recording studio heading out with them.

Bono has been writing songs with a few titles almost ready "Red Flag Day", "Civilization" and "Instrument Flying"  We should expect the next album to be within the moment, which could mean more POP music. 

So how is Bono you ask?  Well within the TIMES report Bono stated that the recovery is going well however  "It feels like I have somebody else's hand," the singer said. He likened the feeling to rigor mortis. "They say that nerves heal about a millimeter a week, so in about 13 months I should know if it's coming back." We should not expect Bono to be playing guitar.

So we are about 14 days out from the start and it sure looks to be another amazing tour. Be sure to download your mobile app today to be apart of the experience.

 

U2 Rocks Steel City

U2 360 Tour/ Mark Peterson 2011 PITTSBURGH – The final USA show of the 360 Tour after 24 months was out of this world.  U2 had a couple of surprises.  The 2 ½ hour show ended as normal with “Moment of Surrender” which has been the last encore song for a couple of shows. Out of Control had appeared as the last song a couple of times. Well last night after a brief huddle the boys belted out “Bad” and snip of “40” Bono said the song “Bad” was inspired from someone around here. 

The boys took the stage a few minutes after 9 pm with the normal opener; “Space Oddity” by David Bowie and during “Beautiful Day” a snippet of Bowie’s song reappeared to support the space station clip. 

Bono referred to Pittsburg as “The Steel City” a few times a reference to some pretty cool people that have come from around here such as Andy Warhol, Perry Como and Bronson – We will spare you the references to the boys.

U2’s first gig was way back in 81 a place called “The Decade” Bono said “I was proud of my mullet” an interesting look during the time period.

The show was the last of a very long tour, which had its bumps along the way. However last night was not the night to rehash all of the bumps; Bono did have his chance to talk about politics, and social causes, shoot out to Aung San Suu Kyi and brief word on Amnesty International.

This was the final night of the band’s U.S. tour — the last stop of the two-year trek is Saturday in Moncton, New Brunswick — and Bono thanked fans “For this grand madness,” motioning to the band’s gargantuan, record-sized stage with its 150-foot tower.

Amazed and Delighted Rain Soaked Fans

Rain could not keep U2 from rocking the TCF Bank Stadium this past weekend. The road crew has started the removal of the stage, fans crushed in traffic and yet a hush of peace has gently taken over the crowd. 

Some fans as one of the best shows have considered the Minnesota show thus far; Bono delivered a performance as if rain was not even a concern. Fan having waited for this show had concerns that it may never happen, yet in the end Bono did provide the fans what they expected to hear, some where impressed others just happy to see them back again for one more time. A few surprises over all a show this large has very few surprises, set changes, comments customized per city and events, that sort of thing.

Opening the show with Even Better than the Real Thing, and the set list was packed with all of the fan favorite hits, including many from the album Joshua Tree. The band dedicated Stuck in a Moment to the late singer, Amy Winehouse, in a heartfelt tribute. Stuck in a Moment was originally written for the late INXS lead singer, Michael Hutchence, who sadly took his own life.

Fans enjoyed the video appearance of astronaut Mark Kelly from space! Prerecorded a message for his wife, which made the performance “Beautiful Day”.  

Fans had no fear of rain, lightening did some people for cover, who wants to be hit by lighting at U2 concert.

We are close to the finish line, we can see the end and its as clear as today, U2 will wrap up its US tour later in the week, fans that traveled the country this summer to see every show will head back to their normal lives and begin remember the summer of U2.  How do you remember it ? Did you travel the country in search of the best U2 show ? Do have photos and videos that you want to share ? Post your comments on our facebook page.