"Live at the Apollo For One Night Only" - U2

Fan Club Album

Track Listing (CD One: Main Show):

Track Listing (CD Two: Encore):

Track Listing Notes:

The first four tracks of the encore were performed with the Sun Ra Arkestra. Recordings that have aired on SiriusXM to date have excluded the track “Red Flag Day” and run about 80 minutes in length.

Background Information

The 2021 gift for subscribing to U2.Com is a two CD release featuring a live performance by the band at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, from June 11, 2018. The CDs are packaged in a photo book featuring photos from the event. Also included is an essay from Bill Flanagan, author or U2: At the End of the World. Along with the CD, a special face mask with artwork by Bono is included, as is five postcards including art and photos from the package. The CD is dedicated to longtime U2 collaborator Hal Willner, who passed away from COVID-19 in 2020. Willner directed the Sun Ra Arkestra segment of the Apollo show. Although this concert has been widely bootlegged, and officially aired on SiriusXM, this is the first official release of this show.

The gift was first announced on December 22, 2020. At the time it was announced to be an audio release, and suggested to be a single CD release. At the time the full contents of the gift were not announced, and that tracks, formats etc would follow in early 2021. The announcement itself lists only, “Now the set will be released in a special commemorative CD and download package, the latest of our U2.com limited editions.” The track listing was announced on April 14, 2021, and it was revealed at that time that this would be a double CD set, and would include all of the songs performed in the concert, including “Red Flag Day” which had not been part of the SiriusXM broadcast.

Downloads from the gift were first made available on May 6, 2021. At that time, the first three songs were made available through subscriber’s profile page as a single Zip file. These were compressed M4A files, and included the first three songs on the album, “I Will Follow,” “The Electric Co.” and “Out of Control.” All three were available in one .Zip file from the profile page at U2.Com if you are a paid subscriber. These are direct from full album, and there is no fade out at the end of “Out of Control” – it ends abruptly. Although “Walking on the Moon” is included as a snippet during “I Will Follow,” the snippets of “Send in the Clowns” and “I Can See for Miles” that were included during the concert in “The Electric Co.” have been edited out. The following day, May 7, 2021, these three tracks were taken down and were replaced with three different tracks for some reason, “Red Flag Day,” “Angel of Harlem,” and “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” were available in this second set of downloads. This later set was the intended download, and it appears that the first three were uploaded in error. On June 10, 2021, the download was expanded to include the “Red Flag Day”, “Angel of Harlem” and “Who’s Gonna Ride” tracks, and added to these “The Electric Co.”, “All Because of You” and “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” in one Zip file containing all six tracks. On August 2, 2021 the download was once again expanded, this time to 9 tracks in total, adding “Desire,” “Love is Bigger Than Anything in its Way” and “Vertigo” to the download along with the other six tracks.

Physical copies of the discs were shipped in early August, and the first reports of these arriving with subscribers started August 7, 2021. If you have not received a shipping notice at this point, do not fret, the shipping process will sometimes take 3-4 months once it has started.

The concert at the Apollo Theatre was held on June 11, 2018. The concert was announced on May 15, 2018, and it was put on in conjunction with SiriusXM as part of a two month limited run U2 station, “The U2 Experience.” The show was a one-off concert at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, held between dates on the Experience + Innocence tour, playing to approximately 1500 people. The show was open to contest winners only, with most winners attending via SiriusXM, but there were also smaller contests held via U2.Com as well. Although there was no opening act, U2 were joined on stage during the encore by the Sun Ra Arkestra who will play on this gift. The Apollo show and the appearance of the Sun Ra Arkestra was done in conjunction with U2’s long time collaborator, Hal Willner, who passed away from COVID-19 in 2020. For a detailed look at the concert at the Apollo, we took a closer look in our news section here.

This fan club release will be the first time “Red Flag Day” has been released from this show. It was not present in earlier edits of the show which were broadcast on U2’s own SiriusXM stations. In 2018, the concert was aired on June 13, 2018, just days after the show happened. That broadcast featured all of the tracks played in concert with the exception of “Red Flag Day”. The show reaired a number of times before that station left the air in July 2018. The concert returned to SiriusXM on March 17, 2020, this time in a new edited form. “Red Flag Day” was still absent from the airing, but additional changes have also been made. “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” now followed “Love is Bigger Than Anything in its Way” at the end of the broadcast, instead of the reverse order in which they had been played. It was this new edit of the show which was used when U2 X-Radio launched, and was aired a number of times in July 2020 on the new station. Also of note, one song, “Vertigo” has also been played as a standalone track from the concert on SiriusXM, and also was released via YouTube as a standalone track for promotion of the 2018 station and the concert, in advance of the full show being aired.

Bootlegs of this show exist, in vinyl, CD and DVD formats. The audio for these bootlegs is taken from the SiriusXM station airings, and is the equivalent in sound quality to a low quality mp3. This new release through the fan club will be the first release in true uncompressed audio, and should be a leap forward in audio quality. None of these previous releases on CD or vinyl are official.

The Apollo concert was also filmed with 360° cameras, for a possible web project that has never been released. We have been told that the audience was jumping so much that the vibration of the theater caused problems for the footage done with the 360° cameras, especially the one located on the stage. Traditional video footage of the show exists as well, with a few handheld cameras being used from further back. U2 have released one minute clips of “When Love Comes to Town“ and “Angel of Harlem“ via YouTube.

The full announcement of the release on December 22 reads:

In June 2018, U2 played a one-off show at Harlem’s historic Apollo Theatre and it was a night to remember. ‘Felt like something you’d never come across again,’ was how Stereogum put it. It was. Performing before just 1500 fans and originally aired for Sirius XM radio subscribers in the US, the show rapidly gained a stellar reputation amongst fans.

Variety caught the vibe. ‘None of the dazzling special effects that have become a hallmark of their big-room shows; just lights, a stage, and one of the greatest live rock bands in history at full throttle, roaring through songs from their nearly 40-year catalog.’ Including an encore to take your breath away when the 13-piece Sun Ra Arkestra appears from the back of the stage for a dazzling Rattle and Hum moment featuring ‘Angel of Harlem’, ‘Desire’ and ‘When Love Comes to Town’. Now the set will be released in a special commemorative CD and download package, the latest of our U2.com limited editions.

The artwork used with the announcement of the gift is the same art that was used for the T-shirt given to attendees of the concert, and was also printed on the lanyard given at admission to the venue. However, instead of blue, like the T-shirt and lanyard, the image with the announcement is orange.

Liner Notes

Music by U2. Lyrics by Bono and The Edge.
Engineered by John Harris. Mixed by Steve Lillywhite, Toby Alington and Kelana Halim. Mastered by Scott Sedillo, Bernie Grundman Mastering.
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Rattle and Hum Suite: Musical director: Hal Willner. Produced by Hal Willner and Rachel Fox.

Artwork

Cover photography: Anton Corbijn.
Additional photography: Ross Stewart, Kevin Mazur, Harry Kantas, Sharon Blankson, Toby Tenenbaum, Babette Ross, Diego Osorio, Off-Screen from U2 at the Apollo by Matt Askem.

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