2009-09-26

NBC Studios, New York, NY, USA

Set List of Show:

Set List:

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

Additional Music

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

Show Details:

U2 perform on the season opener of Saturday Night Live‘s 35 season. Four songs are performed by the band in front of a studio audience, but one, “With or Without You” is not broadcast.

U2 rehearse for the live show on September 25, the day before, and again on Saturday September 26. On the 26th they rehearsed “With or Without You”, “Breathe”, “Moment of Surrender”, “Ultra Violet” and “Breathe” a second time.

The day before the band are still trying to make up their mind what to play and they soundcheck a few other options, playing “Breathe”, “Moment of Surrender”, “Angel of Harlem” and the remix version of “I’ll Go Crazy”. In his tour diary for U2.com Willie Williams also mention they had thought about doing “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.

He says, “One thought had been for U2 to perform the Crazy remix, going into Sunday Bloody Sunday, including all the video graphics from the show. To this end, at great expense and loss of life, we’d brought in an LED screen to jam into the very small space behind the stage. After rehearsal it was decided that what is such a huge moment in the show just wasn’t going to work on the small screen.”

They turned to Tom Krueger, video director for the tour, to shoot video around midtown in Manhattan to capture footage of the city to use in the background for the performance of “Moment of Surrender”.

U2 have performed on Saturday Night Live on three occasions to date, including a stop on the promo tours for All That You Can’t Leave Behind and How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. They will return in 2017 to perform while promoting the Songs of Experience album.

Related News

Officially Released Tracks

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