U2start.com | Show of the month January 2012: 1990-01-05

Every month we have a U2 show in the spotlights, the show of this month took place on 1990-01-05 - Rotterdam. You can download this show, read reviews or write your own review on the show page here. In this thread you can discuss this show!

Setlist

God Part II
Desire
All Along The Watchtower
All I Want Is You / Sexual Healing (snippet)
Where The Streets Have No Name
I Will Follow
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
People Get Ready
Bad
Van Diemen's Land
Bullet The Blue Sky / 11 O'Clock Tick Tock (snippet)
Running To Stand Still / Dirty Old Town (snippet)
New Year's Day
Pride (In The Name Of Love)

encore(s):
Angel Of Harlem
When Love Comes To Town
Love Rescue Me
40

Comments:
What is a better way to start early 2012 than with an early January show? This show featured the second and last time God Part II opened a show. Also, this shows featured the longest performance of People Get Ready (over 8 minutes) because Bono couldn't find a proper guitar played in the audience. This is real fun to listen, Bono gets pretty annoyed by the 'liars in the audience'. Enjoy!

Show Page
1990-01-05 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Sportpaleis Ahoy

LikeASong

13 years

Great show, and something special as a BOTM since it's one of the few Lovetown shows which has a full video bootleg available

Enjoy it

patou2

13 years

Great show and sound !!

it really worth !!!

Lovetown tour

eviltwin

13 years

What a shame you picked 5/01/90 to review...
...I was at the 6/01/90 show: last performance of TUF, prior to 360, rare performance of She''s a Mystery to Me.

For those who are not familiar with these concerts in Rotterdam: they were tacked onto the end of LoveTown (after the famous Point Depot shows: "dream it all up again"). As all December shows in Amsterdam had been cancelled due to illness, they were replaced by four shows in January.
http://u2start.com/topic/8157/Show-of-the-month-December-2010-1989-12-18-Amsterdam/

I do own a double CD bootleg for LoveTown Rotterdam (with some Amsterdam thrown in). IIRC this show is the bulk of that recording, great stuff. They were in top form for this part of the tour. Their collective negative attitude towards R&H/LoveTown (recently displayed again in "From the Sky Down") has always baffled me:

-they were playing indoors,
-great crowds and atmosphere,
-BB KING supporting them AND joining them with his full band ("Orchestra") on the encores (AoH, WLCTT, etc.)
-brilliant repertoire, if you like R&H

[*]

What more can you ask for? (well ZooTV perhaps...)
The only criticism I have is that some of these recordings sound a bit hollow, which is due to the acoustics in Sportpaleis Ahoy. It's not to bad for vocals or guitar, but the Drums sound a bit one dimensional. I Never knew there was a bootleg DVD for LoveTown Rotterdam, I will have to look out for it.

BTW Sorry to hijack this thread a bit, but I have to come back to praising 6/01/90; The Unforgettable Fire (Bono: "at home with the edge orchestra"), is absolutely amazing (vocals, crowd, Edge). All Along the Watchtower is brilliant too, a thousand times better than the album/movie version, excellent solo by Edge and a great snippet from Like a Hurricane. Edge is in fine form vocally too, as evidenced by Van Diemen's Land. (which incidentally has an interesting link to the Netherlands: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Diemen%27s_Land )

[*]
6/01/90 features 15 (!) tracks from R&H, plus TuF, IWF, 40 and mystery girl.
5/01/90 has 13 tracks from R&H. (+Bad + NYD + people get ready)
9/01/90 has 14 + Gloria + OTH

LikeASong

13 years

All the Rotterdam shows are superb and we had a tough time choosing the BOTM, but we chose this one just because it was the first one, and just for the sake of new-year-ism, if you know what I mean

Also, Remy really enjoys the part when Bono repeteadly asks for someone who can play guitar for People Get Ready

eviltwin

13 years

I understand, but even a classic like People Get Ready cannot come close to the wonders of TUF, or the magic of She's a Mystery to Me.
All of these shows have something interesting, whether it's Hawkmoon or God Pt.II opening, unique and rare preformances of OTH, mystery girl or TUF.
That whole joke with the playalong works best for special occasions. IE birthdays when noone in the band remembers how to play Party Girl.

If they asked me on stage I would probably say:

who cares about People Get Ready, that's great if you're a busker.
Let's play Electric Co. or Fire, or Like a Song!

Or throw them a curveball like A Celebration

BTW I do remember being slightly disappointed by them not playing NYD (at the time my favourite song) on Jan 6th, which is even stranger when you know that it was actually on their setlist, but got skipped during the show. At least Jan 5th has NYD.

My point is also that, if you don't like R&H (and I know there are some who don't care much for songs such as Love Rescue Me, Desire or AoH) then at first sight these shows might feel like R&H overkill. But those people should look out for the full four show set, since it features all of these rare tracks, just not in a single day's performance.

Show of the month January 2012: 1990-01-05 - Rotterdam

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