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U2 - Even Better Than The Real Thing
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Achtung Baby (1991)
  1. Originally posted by LikeASong:I do think it, indeed... but I am more or less happy with how things are now. They're not on the edge of the innovation and sure their setlists have not the same dynamism as they had... wait, their setlists were never dynamic! Well, let's take Lovetown as a (bad) example. For sure the 360 setlist is not as varied (?), but they're pulling out some great performances very often (saying "night after night" wouldn't be accurate either), and they're taking some risks every now and then. I'm happy.

    Moreover, and this is my summary: they have to play for the 80.000 who are there on the stadium every night, not for the X.000 (X<5, I'm sure) who follow the concerts sat at their computers spread around the world. That's all. Accept it and be happy, or deny it and be bitter.


    Very true.I accepted that long ago my friend.I just long for the Vertigo Tour set/changes.The encore was a guessing game each night.I loved that.If they did it once,as they did in 2005,they could do it again.I will be happy with anything they play at my shows this summer.I just hope and pray, they are on top of their game,as they were in Europe 2010.
  2. "Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once",
    Even Better Than The Real Thing is putting me crazy and I want them to play Fez - Being Born !
  3. For all those who feel as thought this tour has little variation, here's a list of songs that have been rotated around in the set, introduced for the first time ever, played for the first time in years, etc:

    Angel of Harlem, Desire, I Will Follow, Bad, New Year's Day, Scarlet, One Tree Hill, Mothers of the Disappeared, All I Want Is You, Love Rescue Me, Even Better Than the Real Thing, Stay, Your Blue Room, Batman, Return of the Stingray Guitar, Boy Falls from the Sky, Glastonbury, North Star, Every Breaking Wave, Mercy, and a couple of Party Girls thrown in for good measure (perhaps a few more--this was just from the top of my head).

    That's nearly an ENTIRE CONCERT'S worth of extra material that has been played APART from the main setlist. And there are some real gems in there. I mean, Your Blue Room?! Batman?! Even Better?!? Love Rescue Me?!?! Scarlet!?!?! Mercy?!?!?! Who'da thunk it? I don't have the statistics from the Vertigo tour, but I can't imagine that they played this many extra songs back then.

    This has been a fantastic tour
  4. I think it´s been a great tour, not fantastic, but great if you consider how large the crowds are and the many songs they have played! What I think is that the problem is that the surprises have been kind of predictable:

    In Australia, you knew you should either expect OTH or something off of RH besides the normal setlist with the 2-3 ocasional changes.

    In South America, we all expect EBBTR, maybe one of the played unreleased songs and the others are the expected changes.

    In Europe 2009, fans knew that they were gonna get either Desire or Angel of Harlem.

    What I mean is, there isn´t much room for surprises because even the surprises are somewhat predictable. There´s nothing like I got in 2005 in Chicago when I suddenly got WGRYWH in the beggining, Bad opening the encore and Fast Cars. I know this is a stadium tour and I think we got a fair amount of surprises. What makes me sad is that next saturday when I´m at the show I´m going to think: "now they will play Stuck or North Star?" Stay was played but only for a part of the tour. I´d like to be: "will I get All I Want Is You, Angel of Harlem, Desire or ES?"

    By the way, Bono´s voice is better than it´s ever been in this tour... great great "wide awakes"!
  5. Originally posted by NLOTH_Victor:I think it´s been a great tour, not fantastic, but great if you consider how large the crowds are and the many songs they have played! What I think is that the problem is that the surprises have been kind of predictable:

    In Australia, you knew you should either expect OTH or something off of RH besides the normal setlist with the 2-3 ocasional changes.

    In South America, we all expect EBBTR, maybe one of the played unreleased songs and the others are the expected changes.

    In Europe 2009, fans knew that they were gonna get either Desire or Angel of Harlem.

    What I mean is, there isn´t much room for surprises because even the surprises are somewhat predictable. There´s nothing like I got in 2005 in Chicago when I suddenly got WGRYWH in the beggining, Bad opening the encore and Fast Cars. I know this is a stadium tour and I think we got a fair amount of surprises. What makes me sad is that next saturday when I´m at the show I´m going to think: "now they will play Stuck or North Star?" Stay was played but only for a part of the tour. I´d like to be: "will I get All I Want Is You, Angel of Harlem, Desire or ES?"

    By the way, Bono´s voice is better than it´s ever been in this tour... great great "wide awakes"!


    I think the "problem" or whatever you wanna call it is that once a song is played, however random, you're always gonna say to yourself the next few nights, "Well, Song X that was played last night could be played again in this spot" and it therefore loses some of the surprise it had previously. When I think of Vertigo, yeah, there was some variation/surprises. But once Bad was played in a certain spot, the chances that it'd be played there again in any subsequent night was a lot higher. It was surprising when they played it on the last leg (in Japan, I think), and then they played it a few more nights in a row it became expected. But still, the variation and surprise when it first cropped its head is what I'm going for by listing all those songs.

    In Europe back in 2009, the audience didn't know Angel of Harlem/Desire was coming, but every subsequent date it was played, you could say they "knew it was coming." And who would've thought they'd play LOVE RESCUE ME from R&H in Australia?! Not me, that's for sure. Same thing with the SouthAm gigs. Of course we all expect EBTTRT to be played NOW, but when it opened the show the other night?! No way. And then they went and threw it in the middle of the set! Stuck reappeared for the first time this year. Who's to say Stay won't either?

    What I'm taking from this tour is that what you expect doesn't necessarily always happen. Sure, there are certain songs attached to certain locations that are almost certainties to be played (OTH), but the fact that they've played, rotated, debuted, dusted off, moved around in the set, etc., etc. an additional 20+ songs...it's quite an amazing feat.

  6. Originally posted by shkee23:For all those who feel as thought this tour has little variation, here's a list of songs that have been rotated around in the set, introduced for the first time ever, played for the first time in years, etc:

    Angel of Harlem, Desire, I Will Follow, Bad, New Year's Day, Scarlet, One Tree Hill, Mothers of the Disappeared, All I Want Is You, Love Rescue Me, Even Better Than the Real Thing, Stay, Your Blue Room, Batman, Return of the Stingray Guitar, Boy Falls from the Sky, Glastonbury, North Star, Every Breaking Wave, Mercy, and a couple of Party Girls thrown in for good measure (perhaps a few more--this was just from the top of my head).

    That's nearly an ENTIRE CONCERT'S worth of extra material that has been played APART from the main setlist. And there are some real gems in there. I mean, Your Blue Room?! Batman?! Even Better?!? Love Rescue Me?!?! Scarlet!?!?! Mercy?!?!?! Who'da thunk it? I don't have the statistics from the Vertigo tour, but I can't imagine that they played this many extra songs back then.

    This has been a fantastic tour


    I think it's been a very good tour - better than the last one (Vertigo), for sure, but different than the Elevation tour. The show I attended back in 2009 was fantastic and, yes, indeed, they've done a pretty good job bringing in new songs to the set list - way more so than the celebrated Zoo TV and PopMart tours. However, I think a lot of us agree that a more consistent rotation of songs (as opposed to just having rotation in three or four spots in the set) would make this even more monumental. A little variation in the order of some of these songs (I know, I know, they have the sequencing of those backing tracks to consider) might make each night a little less predictable.
  7. Why can't you all just be happy that the band is still around? They're not like the shitty Beatles, Pink Floyd or Led Zep?
    A year ago, Bono was fighting for his life and you moan about setlists. This is the best tour ever with the best stage ever and the cheapest tickets ever. Also Bono has never been this sexy and entertaining and spontaneous on stage.

    I don't care what they play. I love every song and always jump and shout and dance in GA::M
  8. Originally posted by yeah:Why can't you all just be happy that the band is still around? They're not like the shitty Beatles, Pink Floyd or Led Zep?
    A year ago, Bono was fighting for his life and you moan about setlists. This is the best tour ever with the best stage ever and the cheapest tickets ever. Also Bono has never been this sexy and entertaining and spontaneous on stage.

    I don't care what they play. I love every song and always jump and shout and dance in GA::M


    I don't care if every single word you just wrote was sarcastic. I agree with every last word of it.

    I'm getting tired of all the bullshit because they dropped a mediocre live song in favor of one that people have literally been begging for since the tour started combined with a live rarity/fan favorite/song that people begged to be played. (EBTTRT+Bad).

    Stop being so want-want-want-want-want and be happy they haven't either ended the tour by now or retired. If you'd rather them not be touring than playing these setlists, then leave these show threads to those who still enjoy them. If you'd rather them be touring, then sacrifice the setlists you have chiseled out in your hearts and at least TRY to enjoy the shows.
  9. EDIT: Decided to delete this post. Realized arguing with some just isn't worth it.
  10. I DO agree with you Matt about setlist complainers--nothing ever seems to please them. I read yeah's post as being in direct conflict with some past confrontations I've had with him, particularly about being unnecessarily critical about the band/posting just to be a contrarian. I'm guessing he thought I advocated NO negative comments toward the band (which I don't), hence his extreme fanboy post above. I took that as an attempt to mock people who DON'T complain about the setlist and who generally like what the band is doing these days!

    Just trying to grind my gears I suppose. Some people I just don't get
  11. Hermeneutics isn't your thing, is it?
  12. Originally posted by shkee23:I DO agree with you Matt about setlist complainers--nothing ever seems to please them. I read yeah's post as being in direct conflict with some past confrontations I've had with him, particularly about being unnecessarily critical about the band/posting just to be a contrarian. I'm guessing he thought I advocated NO negative comments toward the band (which I don't), hence his extreme fanboy post above. I took that as an attempt to mock people who DON'T complain about the setlist and who generally like what the band is doing these days!

    Just trying to grind my gears I suppose. Some people I just don't get


    I know

    As long as no ones complaining, more South American love is on the way in just a few days...so may-haps we can start getting excited for that?

    Evvvveryboddyyy leeeeave each other alooooone... Don't become a monster in order to defeat a monster Does it really matter?
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