New Years Day’ for Teddy Kennedy
Filed under: Setlists, Tour, Tour News, U2, U2 360 Tour North America, U2 360° Tour
New Years Day’ for Teddy Kennedy
29 September 2009
Moving night in Washington with tributes to the late Eunice Shriver and Teddy Kennedy and respect going out to political movers and shakers in DC … more than a few of whom seem to be here.
During Beautiful Day Bono remembered ‘the beautiful Eunice Shriver’, describing her as his mentor and it was another special moment when New Years Day was dedicated to Teddy Kennedy. ‘For a peaceful Ireland we salute you Teddy…’ That nearly brought the house down.
In the stadium tonight we spotted Nanci Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives and broadcaster George Stephanopoulos, as well as African leaders like Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director of the World Bank. And in keeping with the DC vibe, Bono restyled the band introducing Larry as the man who wrote U2’s constitution, Adam, the Minister of Culture, Edge, ‘the leader of my free world’ and musing that he himself might be Majority Leader… ‘verbal, elegant but tough when I need to be.’
A kid called Andy arrived on stage at the end of Unforgettable Fire and accepted the invitation to stroll around the stage for City of Blinding Lights. ‘Larry Mullen wants to go crazy, Larry Mullen is crazy…’ sang Bono as the drummer took the djemba for his own nightly walk around the stage, on a track which is without doubt one of the highlights of the show.
Can’t fail to mention The Most Stylish Man in Rock, looking particularly dapper tonight, a sparkly red guitar strap standing out on a very fine new jacket. Set list, as you can see below, got another shake-up. Were you there? Tell us what it was like and post your photos in our comments area.
Breathe
Magnificent
Get on Your Boots
Mysterious Ways
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Elevation
Your Blue Room
Beautiful Day
New Year’s Day
Stuck In A Moment
Unforgettable Fire
City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I’ll Go Crazy – Remix
Sunday Bloody Sunday
MLK
Walk On
One
Where The Streets Have No Name
Ultraviolet
With or Without You
Moment of Surrender
U2 A Futuristic Dazzler At Gillette
Filed under: Tour, Tour News, U2, U2 360 Tour North America, U2 360° Tour
U2 A Futuristic Dazzler At Gillette
Published in the Monday, September 28, 2009 Edition of By Chris Dewey
Arrogance? Check. Socially conscious anthems? More than you can imagine. Brogues? You ‘betcha. A night of consistent entertainment? Without a doubt. On Sept. 20, U2 rolled into Foxboro’s Gillette Stadium to give fans, both young and old, all of this and more within a two hour, 23-song set.
Bono, guitarist The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton, and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. arrived on stage as David Bowie’s dreary “Space Oddity” poured out of the sound system. The stage, a circular monstrosity with ramps that lead the band farther into the audience, was described by the band as their own spaceship. At various points during the show, it changed color and emitted bursts of smoke.
The band kicked off the night with a quartet of songs from their latest album No Line on The Horizon, beginning with the upbeat rocker “Breathe.” Although the album was only moderately embraced by the American public, each of these songs sounded much more vibrant live, even the inane “Get on Your Boots,” a boneheaded track perfectly designed for stadium shows. It was a risky move opening with four new tracks, but U2 managed to pull it off effortlessly.
The set did an admirable job providing the crowd with ample offerings of both new and old. Harder songs like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” sat comfortably beside more mellow tunes like “MLK.” U2 demonstrated that they are not a band that relies on hits from the past. Recent radio staples like “Vertigo” and “Beautiful Day” were received just as enthusiastically as an old classics like “New Years Day.” By playing about half of their latest album, they made it clear that they are making music today because they’re still driven, not just as an excuse to tour.
The night was marked by a few epic surprises as well. “The Unforgettable Fire,” a song from the underrated 1984 album of the same name, provided audiences with a dose of droning 1980s textured new wave as well as an impressive psychedelic light show. Also, it was somewhat shocking when the second encore began with “Ultraviolet (Light My Way),” a minor track from the album Achtung Baby.
The two encores provided what may have been the one setlist snafu of the night. Initially, Bono and co. returned to stage and launched into a one-two punch of megahits “One” and “Where the Streets Have No Name.” The crowd was dancing and singing exuberantly to what could have been a perfect end to the show. Instead, the second encore featured “With or Without You,” one of the band’s biggest sing-along tracks, sandwiched in between the aforementioned “Ultraviolet” and “Moment of Surrender” from the new album. Though none of these songs flopped, it was almost painfully obvious that the two sets should have been flip-flopped for maximum effectiveness.
Each member of the band brought everything they had to the show. If Bono’s voice has lost any range or power over the years it was not apparent that night at Gillette. Similarly, The Edge, who has never been considered a legendary guitar hero, played admirably all night as he drenched audiences in waves of his signature shimmering guitar tone. However, as some reviewers have noted throughout the tour, the expansive stage does present a bit of a drawback in that it removes some of the interaction and intimacy between band members.
Sure, you can argue that it would have been great to hear some of the other classics like “Bad” or “Pride (In the Name of Love),” but on a tour that attempts to combine the bulk of a new album with a catalogue full of popular hits, it is not surprising that a few well known tunes would be excluded. Nearly 30 years after releasing their debut album, it is still very apparent why U2 remains one of the most powerful and enduring musical acts in our lifetime.
http://media.www.bcheights.com/
Monday’s Earful: U2 @ Giants Stadium
Filed under: Tour, Tour News, U2, U2 360 Tour North America, U2 360° Tour
Monday’s Earful: U2 @ Giants Stadium
By: David Schultz
We are well beyond any debate over whether U2 is currently the biggest band in the world. They assumed that mantle quite some time ago and show no signs of relinquishing their stranglehold on the title. Unlike anyone since the Beatles, U2 makes you feel like part of something larger. Since putting away The Fly’s sunglasses and shedding the ironic patina of megalomaniacal excess that they wrapped themselves in at the end of the 90s, U2 suffused All That You Can’t Leave Behind, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and the recently released No Line On The Horizon with their passionate desire to change the world without resorting to pandering, preaching or hyperbolic hypocrisy. The Beatles thought all you needed was love and that we should give peace a chance; U2 is a bit more proactive and a lot more politically engaged.
Last week, U2 carted one of the most extravagant stadium sets into Giants Stadium for a pair of weekday shows in the Garden State. Primordial let modern, the immense stage included one of the more amazing video screen constructions ever seen in a concert setting. Due to the NFL moving Sunday’s New York Jets game up three hours, U2’s Friday night party in New Jersey had to be relocated to Wednesday. The midweek show may have dimmed the collective inebriation of the crowd but it hardly doused the electricity. A U2 concert is nothing short of a life-affirming event: if you don’t leave the show having been uplifted in a deeply existential way, rock and roll may not be the thing for you to be spending your time on. “Walk On,” dedicated to Burmese dissident and political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, not only came with an explanation as to who she is (which c’mon, you wouldn’t have known without Bono), it had a parade of children displaying her photo in a quiet and moving protest. In the lead-in to “One,” a video of Desmond Tutu reminded the audience of the power that human beings have to effectuate change. That it may have echoed the same sentiment expressed in the Pele speech from Vision Quest made it no less inspiring. The power harnessed by U2 and unleashed on their massive crowds is the exact type of influence that those hysterical suburbanites worried about in the Fifties. Fortunately, U2 adheres to the good side of the force. Blackberry bends to Bono’s whims, not vice versa.
With a monstrous in-the-round stage at his disposal, Bono is the living embodiment of a rock star. In perfect control of his surroundings, he conveys meaning with every gesture and action. Every move is equally calculated and improvised; that’s his genius. Bono’s credibility has reached the level where even his most sophomoric lyrics sound like pithy maxims expounding great truths. There’s no other explanation for “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight,” which could be ripped directly out of a teenage girls diary. However, when Bono sings about global change in the simplest of terms, we don’t think that he’s a goof: we think of him as profound. He’s found the perfect way to express the kernels of truth that underlie all clichés and make them sound inspired. Even silly stunts, like selecting a child from the audience to take a lap around the expansive ring that encircled the stage or swinging from the gigantic microphone apparatus during an encore rendition of “With Or Without You,” seem possessed of a mighty grandeur.
In the end, it’s the music everyone comes for. Parsing over the pros and cons of U2 in a critical context is an unsatisfying endeavor Hardly diluting their effect, The Edge’s razor sharp guitar riffs, Adam Clayton’s driving bass and Larry Mullen’s martial drums are unlikely to send anyone scurrying for transcriptions. They will, however, bring a crowd to their feet and keep them there for more than two hours. They can play gracious hosts too. Making reference to Bruce Springsteen’s 60th birthday, U2 offered a cover of “She’s The One” in the building that The Boss can call his second home, running the song’s Bo Diddley beat into their own “Desire.” Bono also acknowledged Quincy Jones’ presence by warbling the chorus of “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” through the ending coda of “Beautiful Day.”
Unsurprisingly, U2 featured many songs from No Line On The Horizon, opening with “Breathe” and then quickly loping through the grandiose “Magnificent” and the Escape Club riffage of “Get On Your Boots.” They didn’t leave people wanting for their back catalog. For me, the New Wave styled “New Year’s Day” and rebellious “Sunday Bloody Sunday” brought on a flood of nostalgia, bringing me back to high school keg parties held in moonlit empty fields. Gauging the younger members of the audience, they drifted backwards wistfully during “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)” and “Mysterious Ways” and an even younger segment may not have had far to travel but they went somewhere during “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.” Very few bands span generations in this manner. Although Springsteen, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan have remained active for longer than U2, their fan base remains relatively static; they aren’t capturing the imagination of a new generation or attracting legions of fans each new album.
A TRAVEL NOTE: The U2 shows marked the first opportunity for New Jersey Transit to show off their new Meadowlands line. In every sense of the word it was a monumental clusterfuck. A great concept, NJ Transit executed it with such extreme incompetence, it’s shocking that Michael Brown wasn’t involved. After widely publicizing the line, putting U2 in the banner ad on their Web site, NJ Transit greatly underestimated the number of people that would actually show up. At Penn Station and the Secaucus transfer, travelers were greeted with a woefully insufficient number of ticket booths, enduring lines of anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes in length. Having failed to schedule the proper number of trains, U2 fans were crammed onto every available car like cattle . . . and then had to suffer while a half hour train ride took anywhere from one to three hours. All this occurred with people making staggered treks to the stadium. After the show, with everyone leaving at once, NJ Transit seemed equally unprepared and their staff uninterested in providing information, directions or guidance which only added to the confusion and frustration. “Heck of a job, NJ Transit!”
U2 to continue 360° Tour into 2010
U2 to continue 360° Tour into 2010
Bono and co keep on gigging
September 25, 2009
Pic: Drew Farrell
U2 have announced that their 360° Tour is set to continue into 2010.
The Irish rockers have revealed details of a series of new European live dates in Germany, Russia, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Greece, Turkey, France, Spain and Portugal.
With a lack of UK dates in the new schedule, fans have speculated as to whether U2 will instead be hitting the festival circuit.
See the band’s official website, U2.com, for more information.
U2 will play:
Frankfurt Commerzbank Arena (August 3)
Hannover Stadium (12)
Horsens Casa Arena (15)
Helsinki Olympic Stadium (20)
Moscow Luzhniki (25)
Vienna Ernst Happel Stadium (30)
Athens Olympic Stadium (September 3)
Istanbul Ataturk Olympic Stadium (6)
Munich Olympic Stadium (15)
Paris Stade De France (18)
Seville Olympic Stadium (29)
Coimbra Stadium (October 2
U2 Concert Setlist: September 21, 2009 at Boston, MA
Filed under: Setlists, U2, U2 360 Tour North America, U2 360° Tour
U2 Concert Setlist: September 21, 2009 at Boston, MA
Venue: Gillette Stadium
Opening Act(s): Snow Patrol
Main Set:
Magnificent
No Line On The Horizon
Get On Your Boots
Mysterious Ways
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / Run (snippet)
Elevation
Your Blue Room
Beautiful Day / King Of Pain (snippet)
Unknown Caller
Until The End Of The World
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
The Unforgettable Fire
Mofo (snippet) / City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo / Stories For Boys (snippet)
Crazy Tonight
Sunday Bloody Sunday
MLK
Walk On
One / Amazing Grace (snippet)
Where The Streets Have No Name
Encore(s):
Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
With Or Without You
Moment of Surrender
Funky Stuff in New Jersey
Filed under: News, Tour, U2, U2 360 Tour North America, U2 360° Tour
Funky Stuff in New Jersey
Image: U2.com
‘New Jersey we can do some funky stuff.’ First of two shows at Giants Stadium tonight and a cover of ‘She’s The One’ to mark the 60th birthday of Bruce Springsteen.
Great opening set from Muse, whose new album is topping charts worldwide this week, Larry Mullen Jnr led U2 on stage and ‘Breathe’ set the scene for a memorable night. The ‘funky stuff’ came with Mysterious Ways and the surprise inclusion of ‘She’s The One’, for Springsteen, led into ‘Desire’.
Breathe
Magnificent
Get on Your Boots
Mysterious Ways
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
She’s The One/Desire
Elevation
Your Blue Room
Beautiful Day
No Line on the Horizon
New Year’s Day
Stuck in a Moment
Unforgettable Fire
City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I’ll Go Crazy – Remix
Sunday Bloody Sunday
MLK
Walk On
One
Where The Streets Have No Name
Ultraviolet
With or Without You
Moment of Surrender
Giant Numbers in Jersey
Filed under: News, Tour, U2, U2 360 Tour North America, U2 360° Tour
Giant Numbers in Jersey
Image U2.com
U2 smashed the house record tonight at Giants Stadium. The previous attendance record was held by Pope John Paul II after his visit to the stadium in 1995.
With gig goers in excess of 84472 it was a fantastic night at Giants. Speaking from the stage at the end of the night Bono said, “News just in. We’ve broken every record for attendance in this stadium – including the Pope. Sorry Bruce – we know its your birthday and all”. Before adding later, “I know they’re knocking this place down…we probably won’t be here again before the wrecking ball but it was a magic place for us as well as the Giants”
magnificent nights in Boston; NYC on the horizon
Filed under: News, Tour News, U2, U2 360 Tour North America, U2 360° Tour
magnificent nights in Boston; NYC on the horizon
U2 ExaminerJill Marino
Sunday night debut in Boston. Photo: U2.com
Irish crowds were calling for U2 as they played to enthusiastic crowds in Boston on Sunday and Monday night as their “360” world tour moves its orbit through North America.
One of my favorite sites, U2gigs.com, has the setlist from Sunday night and there was a little bit of Beatles action going on. “Vertigo” had a piece of “She Loves You” attached to it, while “Where the Streets” found a partner with “All You Need is Love”, and “Beautiful Day” came together with “Blackbird”. Anyone else hoping a “U2 Rock Band” should be in the works?
Bono told the crowd, which included Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and Cameron Diaz, “Great to be back home in Boston.”
At home for night two on Monday had the band use “Magnificent” as the opener instead of “Breathe” (major change on the tour so far). “Your Blue Room” and “Stay” were in the show as well. “Breathe” wasn’t performed at all! “Mofo” and “Stories for Boys” found their way into the show as snippets. U2gigs.com also has amazing photos as well, so please check them out.
Tomorrow the band hits Giants Stadium for a two-night stand. Finally it’s my turn to see “360”! I have been furiously checking the weather and Accuweather.com has the forecast I prefer to happen for the next two days. Passing evening shower for Wednesday, and rain Thursday afternoon with clear skies at night. Anyone who has been to a “360” show so far, has the weather held up for you? If it was drizzling rain, the show went on?
Blackberry’s anticipated “U2 Mobile Album” is ready for download. Visit the Blackberry website to get the download link emailed to you, or purchase it on your phone using the Blackberry App Store. And make sure your phone is the right model to support the mobile album. Mine isn’t so now I have to go get some card to make it work for my phone.
Set your TiVO’s this Saturday, because U2 will be the musical guest on the season premiere of “Saturday Night Live” on NBC. Check your local listings so you don’t miss out! It airs at 11:30pm on the East. I hope U2 is put in a skit! Megan Fox will be hosting, but does that really matter when U2 is the musical guest?
Here’s some of “Vertigo/She Loves You” from Sunday night in Boston.