1981-11-04

Metropol, Berlin, Germany

Set List of Show:

Main Set:

"Gloria"
"Another Time, Another Place"
"I Threw a Brick Through a Window"
"An Cat Dubh"
"Into the Heart"
"Rejoice"
"The Electric Co."
"I Fall Down"
"October"
"Stories for Boys"
"I Will Follow"
"Twilight"
"Out of Control"

Encore:

"11 O'Clock Tick Tock"
"The Ocean"
"I Will Follow"

Additional Music

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

A Little Night Music

Show Details:

U2 move on after a disastrous night in Hamburg with a hostile crowd, and head for Berlin. The show in Berlin is being held at Metropol, and about 350 people are in attendance at the show (the venue has a capacity of 1,300 and is relatively empty.) U2’s performance is being televised as part of the Rockpalast concert series on German TV (WDR). The broadcast is not live, and won’t happen until a few months later. The show in Berlin is the final night on the European leg of the tour and the band will next head to North America later in the month. The band are introduced on stage by Alan Bangs, a British music journalist and DJ who lives in Germany and works for WDR television on the Rockpalast program.

The show at the Metropol is better than the show in Hamburg but again the audience poses a challenge to U2 throughout the show. The audience appears bored, and are unresponsive throughout and Bono is struggling to reach them. Prior to “I Fall Down” Steve Iredale comes on stage to hand Bono his guitar, and Bono introduces him to the audience and clapping his hands, and gets zero reaction. “There’s a custom in our country, clapping hands!” Bono quips. During “I Fall Down” he alters a lyric to be “I think I’ll go home, I think I don’t like this show.” Bono also struggles with the lights that are in his eyes, and mentions this a number of times.

The band includes both “Cry” and “Send in the Clowns” as part of “The Electric Co.” During “The Electric Co.” Bono heads down closer to the crowd below the stage and plays with the TV camera there before returning to the stage. Finally having some success with the crowd, Bono doesn’t give up on the show, and by the end has gotten them more involved in the show. A fan dives on stage during “Out of Control” but is rapidly removed. During “11 O’Clock Tick Tock” Bono wanders into the crowd for the song, letting himself fall backwards across the barrier into their arms. A number of fans crash the stage during the song, and while a number are chased off, Bono sits one fan down, and sings while sitting next to him. The band even play a second encore, performing a shortened version of “I Will Follow” at the end of the show.

Officially Released Tracks