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  1. Out of boredom, interest and to curb expectations as i'll be attending the opening night of the upcoming tour i'm gonna have a look back at the setlists of the opening nights of U2's previous tours from ZooTV onwards to have a look at what surprises they have served up hopefully giving some indication of how much the boys may mix it up in less than 2 weeks time.

    I'm only looking at opening nights of the tour itself and not indiividual legs.
    In each case I will hilight in bold what would have been considered 'surprises' to fans that night, ignoring the old classics and new songs that were pretty much a cert to get played.


    ZOO TV Opening Night
    1992-02-29: Lakeland Arena - Lakeland, Florida, USA

    1. Zoo Station
    2. The Fly
    3. Even Better Than The Real Thing
    4. Mysterious Ways
    5. One
    6. Until The End Of The World
    7. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
    8. Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World
    9. Angel Of Harlem
    10. Satellite Of Love
    11. Bad
    12. Bullet The Blue Sky
    13. Running To Stand Still
    14. Where The Streets Have No Name
    15. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
    16. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

    encore(s):
    17. Desire / Not Fade Away (snippet)
    18. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
    19. With Or Without You / Shine Like Stars (snippet)
    20. Love Is Blindness

    Notes : Perhaps the only surprising notes on this setlist iis the amount of material from the new album featured in the one gig which coupled with the shortish setlist didn't allow for many other surprises. Apart from Satelite Of Love, every other song was either new or featured on the previous tour.

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    Popmart Opening Night
    1997-04-25: Sam Boyd Stadium - Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

    1. Mofo
    2. I Will Follow
    3. Even Better Than The Real Thing
    4. I Do You Feel Loved?
    5. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
    6. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
    7. Last Night On Earth
    8. Gone
    9. Until The End Of The World
    10. If God Will Send His Angels
    11. Staring At The Sun
    12. Staring At The Sun
    13. Daydream Believer (Edge Karaoke)
    14. Miami
    15. Bullet The Blue Sky
    16. Please
    17. Where The Streets Have No Name

    encore(s):
    18. Discothèque
    19. If You Wear That Velvet Dress
    20. With Or Without You
    21. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
    22. Mysterious Ways
    23. One

    Notes : Perhaps the most famous opening show of all U2 history but one not too full of setlist surprises. Karaoke aside, only I Will Follow (which was featured here and there on the Zoorpa tour and given a techno flare) and HMTMKMKM stand out. Again apart from new songs and singles from the previous album this setlist features only the Joshua Tree classics So again another not too exciting setlist for opening night enthusiatss although looking back, some of the Pop songs weren't seen all that often afterwards, but for the sake of this topic that wasn't to be known at the time.

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    Elevation Tour Opening Night
    2001-03-24: National Car Rental Center - Sunrise, Florida, USA

    1. Elevation
    2. Beautiful Day
    3. Until The End Of The World
    4. New Year's Day
    5. Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of
    6. Gone
    7. Discothèque
    8. New York
    9. I Will Follow
    10. Sunday Bloody Sunday
    11. Sweetest Thing
    12. In A Little While
    13. The Ground Beneath Her Feet
    14. Bad
    15. Where The Streets Have No Name
    16. Mysterious Ways
    17. The Fly

    encore(s):
    18. Bullet The Blue Sky
    19. With Or Without You
    20. One
    21. Walk On / 40 (snippet)

    Notes : Probably the best so far. A few surprises. The main one probably being The Sweetest Thing getting only its second ever performance. Sunday Bloody Sunday made it's full electric return after only minor stints on the previous 2 tours in slightly reworked fashion. Promo appearances aside, The Ground Beneath Her Feet and Bad would have been huge welcomes (especially Bad with its transition into Streets). Last surprise of the night would have been the welcome return of The Fly in it's gloriously reworked Elevation fashion having only featured in snippeted form on Popmart and not having featured during promo appearances. Not bad

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    Vertigo Tour 1st leg: North America
    2005-03-28: San Diego Sports Arena - San Diego, California, USA

    1. City Of Blinding Lights
    2. Vertigo
    3. The Cry
    4. The Electric Co.
    5. An Cat Dubh
    6. Into The Heart
    7. Beautiful Day
    8. New Year's Day
    9. Miracle Drug
    10. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
    11. Love And Peace Or Else
    12. Sunday Bloody Sunday
    13. Bullet The Blue Sky
    14. Running To Stand Still
    15. Zoo Station
    16. The Fly
    17. Elevation

    encore(s):
    18. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
    19. Where The Streets Have No Name
    20. One
    21. All Because Of You
    22. Yahweh
    23. 40

    Notes : Easily the most surpising opening night of all the U2 tours. The Boy material was a fantastic curveball. The Electric Co hadn't been seen since mid 87 annd sounded fantastic. Even rarer were the An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart performances. These particular songs hadn't been heard live in over 20 years and would be the equivalent of U2 playing something like Rejoice or Surrender in the upcoming tour. We also got Running To Stand Still and Zoo Station returning after brilliant stints during ZooTV and got the glorious '40' back as a proper closer after minor outtings on Popmart and snippets during Elevation. We should all be hoping for soomething similar to this in Barcelona.

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    360° Tour 1st leg: Europe
    2009-06-30: Camp Nou - Barcelona, Spain

    1. Breathe
    2. No Line On The Horizon
    3. Get On Your Boots
    4. Magnificent
    5. Beautiful Day
    6. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / Movin' On Up (snippet)
    7. Angel Of Harlem / Man In The Mirror (snippet) / Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough (snippet)
    8. In A Little While
    9. Unknown Caller
    10. The Unforgettable Fire
    11. City Of Blinding Lights
    12. Vertigo
    13. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
    14. Sunday Bloody Sunday
    15. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
    16. MLK
    17. Walk On / You'll Never Walk Alone (snippet)
    18. Where The Streets Have No Name
    19. One

    encore(s):
    20. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
    21. With Or Without You
    22. Moment of Surrender

    Notes : Ignoring the previous nights dress rehearsal this really isn't a bad setlist. In a hark back to the ZooTV days the band opened with a succession of 5 new songs. Unusual move when you consider they also opened with a non single (first time since ZooTV again). In A Little While may be seen as a neat little addition though it sucked live. Then came The Unforgettable Fire. First performance in almost 20 years and it went down well although Bono did make a few changes to the lyric. MLK made an appearance, albeit not followed by UF as has been so often the case through the years. Why they chose to play Walk On after it before Streets is beyond me. Walk On itself featured quite a bit during Vertigo and we knew it would feature due to U2.com and their masks no no surprises here. Then came Ultraviolet. First performance since 1993 and sounding as fresh as ever. A true timeless classic and a massive surprise to us all whether we saw it from the rehearsals or waited until the night to see the setlist. For me, the highlight of the tour.

    A decent setlist. Mostly standard with the UF and UV curveballs to give it that extra spice.

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    My summary. Vertigo is the only setlist that really stands out here. It featured quite a few songs that hadn't been played in years and would have been eye openers to the die hards attending that night. The setlist didn't feature anything 'rare' though. Although they hadn't been played in decades the songs themselves like Electric Co and Into The Heart had all been well played in the early days. The 360 tour list came in rather nice though only The Unforgettable Fire and Ultraviolet would have really surprised. These 2 songs in any setlist though guarantees greatness

    I don't want this to turn into another 'i think they'l bring this back next tour' topic. Boredom got the better of me. I hope it's an interesting read.
  2. It was
  3. Great read Gerard. I hope they play a very special and greatly shaken-up setlist for us. For the moment, we know some of the candidate songs to ring the bells
  4. Agree with the rest, great overview! Interesting to see that the tour which didn't grab me really had the most surprising opening setlist.
  5. Originally posted by MWSAH:Agree with the rest, great overview! Interesting to see that the tour which didn't grab me really had the most surprising opening setlist.


    +1. Nice to see that you welcomed the Fly on Elevation? Thought you didnt liked that version.


  6. taking an opening night perspective
  8. that was interesting, man, cheers for compiling it.
  9. Great analyis there

    Looks like "removed" will be the only surprise for this one (by which i don't want to fuck up your topic into a "i guess it will be..." topic, but it just looks it will be the only one )
  10. Originally posted by BelgianBono:Great analyis there

    Looks like "removed" will be the only surprise for this one (by which i don't want to fuck up your topic into a "i guess it will be..." topic, but it just looks it will be the only one )


  11. Trying to keep the rest of the forum spoiler free guys. We can analyze the Barcelona setlist after the actual show
  12. Gerard obviously meant **during**
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Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.