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  1. Originally posted by BizzieIt 's not easy to plan a setlist. It's always the balance between classics and fan favorites.

    If you look at the setlists of Bruce Springsteen, you see that he doesn't play all the hits but mostly fan favourites (for instance Badlands).

    If you look at the the current tour of The Cuure, they play over 35 (!) songs eacht night. With such a list you can do classics and favourites.

    My opinion is that a U2 show should care a minimum of 27 songs, with such a repertoire.

    They can do 9 new songs, 9 classics and 9 favourites and classics and favourites should be roulated.

    An example of a setlist oculd be:

    1. Mofo/Streets/Zoo station/COBL
    2. new song
    3. Electric co./The fly/Vertigo
    4. new song
    5. I will follow/Gloria/Elevation
    6. new song
    7. I still haven't found what I'm looking for/Beautiful day/New Year's Day
    8. etc.


    U2 playing 35 songs in one night? I'm there!
    Perhaps it also depends on how the new allbum will sound. The make and feel of the new material could have a bearing on what "old" songs they decide to perform around it.

  2. I doubt U2 will ever do a 3 hour show. But it will really depend on the album as somebody said. Look at Zooropa, none of the songs there worked well live, they played very few of them like every show...if their new album doesn't quite lives on the stage maybe we will get more older material.
  3. i would be great if they do some old stuff from, october, war, boy en TUF!

    but not the electric co or something like that(very good song btw!!).
    just songs they rarely performed in al these years but are great album songs...wire, a sort of homecoming, tommorow, rejoice, Another Time Another Place, a day without me,
    drowning man, two hearts beat as one.

    i know it has to fit into the new songs but i would like it if they dust these up and play it new style coool but certain songs has to remain; one, streets, wowy, i will follow, bullet(popmartstyle), desire, vertigo, walk on, elevation.

  4. Originally posted by KaiserJose[..]

    You forget that there will be new songs to play: based on recent tours it will probably take up around 8 songs each concert. Add that to the 10 songs they more or less HAVE to play (the classics) and another set of songs they NEARLY HAVE to play (such as Mysterious ways, the Fly etc. - songs you would expect but that you probably wouldn't be appalled at if they left out)
    Therein also lies a few issues for the band: time-wise it wouldn't make sense to reinvent & practise all of those songsyou mentioned to perforrm each of them two/three times per tour. More than likely they will do for the next tour as what they did for Vertigo: pick a certain set of songs they hadn't played in a while & play them 10 times plus, provided they are going down well and feel right (which is apparently why they gave up on Discotheque). Another issue is Bono's voice, despite sounding very good in the film its nowhere near as good as they days of...say Zoo TV. Most probably you're not going to hear him perform a rendition of Lemon or UF ever again.

    And while maintain that U2 concerts are mainly for the hardcore fans in today's world you're not going to hear them perform songs they were never comfortable with or that didn't get the crowd going when they were recently released. Zooropa is my favourite song and clearest example of this. I could imagine going to Croker next year for one (or all) of the concerts, and were the band to actually play it I could imagine most people going "What's this?"

    At the end of the day I think you have to accept that the casual fan has not heard of the songs I referred to as "favourites". Even then most of the corporate crowd that turn up at these things probably wouldn't even register as casual fans.



    Can't help agreeing But those songs I mentioned at least deserve a re-appearance, for at least one time. Still think Bono is capable to sing most of the songs I mentioned.

    Next thing of course is: Would it fit in the show? A son like Zooropa wouldn't really fit in the Vertigo tour for example. And I don't think the next tour would really be like ZooTV (where Zooropa does fit). It's just a list of songs I really like to see one time. It isn't possible to do all these songs, but maybe those song's appearance will be the tour after, or further in the future

    Dream out the world you want to live in, dream out loud!
  5. About Bono's voice..(a little off-topic, I know), but when I listen to the last Vertigo shows from Australia and Japan, I'm really impressed with Bono's voice. It's so good....... This sure is promising for the next album and tour.
  6. I wouldn't complain about any of these Zooroopa songs making a return to the setlist: Zooroopa, Numb, Lemon, Dirty Day - it's been a long time between drinks for all of them.

    The Wanderer would be a riot as part of an encore!
  7. Zooroopa
  8. A bit of bumpage for some of our newbies...

    What sort of balance would you like to see this tour?

    Are U2 obligated to play a set number of "regular classics"?

    For me, there's plenty of "classics" to go around and make setlists interesting.

    Take into account that they will be playing around 8 new songs. That leaves about 14 non-new songs. Should half of those (about 7) be taken up by "classics" such as One, Sunday, Pride, Streets and the like?

  9. Originally posted by aussiemofo:A bit of bumpage for some of our newbies...

    What sort of balance would you like to see this tour?

    Are U2 obligated to play a set number of "regular classics"?

    For me, there's plenty of "classics" to go around and make setlists interesting.

    Take into account that they will be playing around 8 new songs. That leaves about 14 non-new songs. Should half of those (about 7) be taken up by "classics" such as One, Sunday, Pride, Streets and the like?




    It really depends on the feel of the tour. I would be alright with dropping pride though, and definitely lose SBS
  10. Originally posted by aussiemofo:A bit of bumpage for some of our newbies...

    What sort of balance would you like to see this tour?

    Are U2 obligated to play a set number of "regular classics"?

    For me, there's plenty of "classics" to go around and make setlists interesting.

    Take into account that they will be playing around 8 new songs. That leaves about 14 non-new songs. Should half of those (about 7) be taken up by "classics" such as One, Sunday, Pride, Streets and the like?




    My guess is that Streets, Bad, One, AIWIY, BTBS, BD, MW and The Fly certainly will be regulars, if not played every evening. Songs like IWF, SBS, NYD, TUF, RTSS, WOWY and maybe Stay will be played occasionally.
  11. Streets and Pride are definitely classics they should play. Stay would be cool as well.
    New tracks like GOYB and Magnificent will do just fine in a stadium setting. Moment of Surrender would be nice as well, of course.

    Well, at least U2 always plays a lot of new songs during their tours. Not every band does that: there are bands out there that go on tour after every album release but only play 2 or 3 new songs and stick to their classics for the rest of the set. That's very boring.

  12. Originally posted by aussiemofo:I wouldn't complain about any of these Zooroopa songs making a return to the setlist: Zooroopa, Numb, Lemon, Dirty Day - it's been a long time between drinks for all of them.

    The Wanderer would be a riot as part of an encore!


    Hear hear,
    the Wanderer was fantastic at that Johnny Cash tribute (the Edge's falsetto vocalisations were a nice touch).

    Hearing Zooropa and Lemon live again would be fantastic (though i doubt Bono has the voice to pull off Lemon anymore, but maybe with NLOTH and MoS in the setlist he's vocal training)

    I would also love them to do a proper version of Stay for once, not the stripped down, laid back acoustic form we always get, which rob the song of its atmosphere.

    PS: I swear if they don't drop Pride from the regular setlist, it will show how out of touch they are (with fans and pop culture), theyve been flogging that dead horse on tours for way too long.

    Elevation should also be ejected, seeing as GOYB is a very similar newer replacement.
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U2start is run by fans for fans. Help us reduce personal costs. Consider to make a donation to support us.
U2start is run by fans for fans. Help us reduce personal costs. Consider to make a donation to support us.