2009-09-12

Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois

Set List of Show:

Main Set:

"Breathe"
"No Line on the Horizon"
"Get On Your Boots"
"Magnificent"
"Beautiful Day"
"Elevation"
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
"Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of"
"Unknown Caller"
"The Unforgettable Fire"
"City Of Blinding Lights"
"Vertigo"
"I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"
"Sunday Bloody Sunday"
"Pride (In the Name of Love)"
"MLK"
"Walk On"
"Where the Streets Have No Name"

Encore One:

"One"
"Bad"

Encore Two:

"Ultra Violet (Light My Way)"
"With or Without You"
"Moment of Surrender"

Additional Music

Pre-Recorded Intro Song: "Space Oddity" - David Bowie
Pre-Recorded Intro Song: "Soon" - U2
Pre-Recorded Exit Song: "Rocket Man" - Elton John
Pre-Recorded Intermission Song(s): "Theme from the Swan" (A Brave and Startling Truth) - Passengers with Spoken Verse by Maya Angelou

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

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Show Details:

U2 perform in Chicago at Soldier Field. It is the kick off of the second leg of the U2360 tour in North America, and the band will play two shows in Chicago. Snow Patrol is joining the band as an opening act for the initial shows on the tour.

The show itself is laid out like many of the later shows in the first leg of the tour in Europe. “Where the Streets Have No Name” is flowing into “One” and then “Bad” before going into the encore. Bishop Tutu’s recorded piece which had been used ahead of “Streets” is used in front of “One” where it was used a handful of times in Europe. The piece sees Bishop Tutu speaking about us being one, so fits much better in this new location. No new songs are added to the set this evening, although the band have continued to work on “Your Blue Room” since rehearsals in Europe.

New to North America? Bono does a full band introduction tonight, ahead of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. He had not been doing those most nights in Europe. There is also a new intermission piece, where we hear Maya Angelou reading from her poem “A Brave and Startling Truth” over music by U2 / Passengers, “Theme from the Swan”. The first stanza and last three stanzas of “A Brave and Startling Truth” are read, before Angelou breaks into a song about rainbows in the clouds, an old slave song that she has often referred to.

Snippets include “Far Far Away” and “Blackbird” as part of “Beautiful Day”. “Stand By Me” comes in at the end of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. “I’ll Go Crazy” includes “Reverend Black Grape” tonight. “Oliver’s Army” is used in “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. A snippet of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” appears in “Walk On” and “All You Need is Love” appears in “Where the Streets Have No Name”. “Bad” includes snippets of “Fool to Cry” and “40” as well as singing ‘dream out loud’ twice which is listed above as being from “Zooropa”. (“Acrobat” also uses the same line.)

The show being the first one in North America brings quite a bit of attention in the media. Andy Greene from Rolling Stone shares: “Stadium shows of the past have been marred by lousy sound and an incredible distance between the performers and the vast majority of the crowd. To overcome this U2 not only constructed an incredible soundsystem, but built a round stage with long ramps that stretch out far into the crowd. This meant Bono could never face the entire crowd, so Edge and Adam Clayton picked up the slack and made sure to often be on opposite sides of the stage. Even Larry got up from behind his kit for a dancehall remix of ‘I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight’ and walked around the stage with a tiny drum. Despite their efforts, it never felt as intimate as an arena, but was pretty much the best possible setup for a venue of that size.” Rob Mitchum in Pitchfork shares about the screen, “The screen is beautiful, no more so than when its tiles stretch out like a pine cone’s scales and start flashing epileptic abstracts during, appropriately, ‘City of Blinding Lights’ and ‘Vertigo’.”

Greg Kot in the Chicago Tribune shares, “On its previous tours, U2 had started to resemble its generation’s answer to the Rolling Stones: a band that had become predictable, a stadium act rolling out decades-old hits as its songwriting stagnated. This time, the band reconnected to deeper themes in its music and reinforced a recent development in its sound: groove.” and “The stadium did, indeed, resemble an outdoor club during the encore, when the show’s outsize ambitions produced a neon-lit moment that nearly justified teh entire costly enterprise…The lights, the songs, the audience all synched up. Sometimes size matters”

On September 10 the band do a lengthy sound check. It starts with instrument checks including “I’ll Go Crazy”, “With or Without You”, “Beautiful Day” and “Where the Streets Have No Name”. Then the band go into a lengthy full rehearsal including “Breathe”, “No Line on the Horizon” with The Edge on vocals, “Get On Your Boots”, “Magnificent”, “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)”, “The Unforgettable Fire”, “Get On Your Boots” and part of “Beautiful Day”. They take a break and then work on “Your Blue Room” multiple times, “Unknown Caller”, “Elevation”, “Uknown Caller”, “Magnificent”, “Until the End of the World” and “Moment of Surrender”.

One September 11, the band do another lengthy sound check. Initially they work on “Your Blue Room”, “City of Blinding Lights”, “Vertigo” and “Desire” without vocals. The full rehearsal includes “Breathe”, “No Line on the Horizon”, “Get On Your Boots”, “Magnificent”, “Beautiful Day”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, “Elevation”, “Your Blue Room”, “Unknown Caller”, “Until the End of the World”, “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)”, “The Unforgettable Fire” and then the band work on the introduction to “City of Blinding Lights” and “Elevation” and then do “Your Blue Room” a few times before breaking. They return to do “One”, “Where the Streets Have No Name”, and some work on the transition between “One” and “Streets”. “Your Blue Room” is done an additional number of times, and the rehearsal ends with Edge doing a bit of work on “Unknown Caller”. (Rehearsal information courtesy of U2Gigs.com and Interference)

Officially Released Tracks