1980-09-13

Queen's Hall, Leeds, England

Set List of Show:

Known Set List:

"A Day Without Me"
"An Cat Dubh"
"The Electric Co."
"11 O'Clock Tick Tock"

Additional Music

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

Show Details:

U2 perform at the Futurama 2 Festival, held in Leeds at the Queens Hall. They are one of a large number of bands that play at the festival, including bands such as Modern English, Simple Minds, and Siouxsie & the Banshees. The festival runs for two days with U2 appearing on Saturday September 13th. The acts listed to the side were part of the line up the first day, and the second day included acts such as the Psychedelic Furs, Hazel O’Connor, Gary Glitter and many others. The original festival had been held in 1979, and the festival continued to be held annually for a number of years in Leeds.

Not only are bands featured, but there are also stalls selling merchandise, video games and lasers at the festival. Tickets for the event are £6 for one day or £10 for both. Some of the festival was advertised to be filmed by Focus Films, but no footage exists to our knowledge of the U2 performance. U2 are listed between Echo and the Bunnymen and Wasted Youth on the posters for the festival.

U2 get a few mentions in the press as part of this festival appearance. In NME a reviewer states: “U2 of course should be a today tennybop group. People remain unconvinced by them — some say they lack heart! — but if U2 were in the right chart environment the cynics would understand. Their music tends towards the elaborate — hence few see that they want to be a radio band — but is sustained by a devastating rhythmic propulsion. Why should pop necessarily be hard square blocks? Singer Bono hams it up. “I felt like Pope John Paul,” he said afterwards, but he just loves to flop into audiences and rouse them. He falls over a lot. “I try to stay poised but I just can’t.” He overacted, the band concentrated. They went down well. It was a lot sharper than their poor Lyceum show a few days before.”

Over in Melody Maker Lyden Barber writes a lengthy piece about the festival itself. Included he mentions, “Despite the conditions, U2 perform brilliantly, throwing themselves maniacally into their set, lifting the audience’s emotions out of their depressing physical surroundings. U2 play truly great rock music which inspires the heart. They make Echo & The Bunnymen sound as stupid as their name.”

In the Record Mirror Chris Westwood says “U-2 are making precious, apocalyptic music, the last truly great open music there’ll ever be, a wasted youth falls dazed to the floor.” and later adds, “Insided U-2’s music for the end, a subline chiming away of devoted euphoric pop that heals wounds, a breath of relevance for the first time, something to stand up for. In front of me, someone fell over, defeated in front of me. U-2 were the first group of the day to go for the people instead of the hall. I’ve seen and felt things in U-2, things that are there to see and feel, that I never saw or felt in Altered Image or Wasted Youth or Siouxsie & the Banshees or (even) Echo & the Bunnymen. Love. U-2 may lack light and shade at times, image, and many other things people will ascribe as keys to “success” but they’re the finale, the life and death. Things like “A Day Without Me” and “An Cat Dubh” and “Electric Co.” should be better known then they are, but soon will be, if you don’t see a solution in U-2 you don’t deserve them. U2 are calling you.

U2’s full set list is unknown. The tracks we know that have been played come from Chris Westwood’s review in the Record Mirror.

Officially Released Tracks