2009-10-12
Cowboys Stadium, Dallas, TX, USA
Set List of Show:
Set List:
- "Breathe"
- "Get On Your Boots"
- "Magnificent"
- "Mysterious Ways"
- "Beautiful Day"
- "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
- "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of"
- "No Line on the Horizon"
- "Elevation"
- "Until the End of the World"
- "The Unforgettable Fire"
- "City Of Blinding Lights"
- "Vertigo"
- "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"
- "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
- "MLK"
- "Walk On"
- "One"
- "Where the Streets Have No Name"
- "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
Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:
-
"My Sweet Lord" (George Harrison) /
"Blackbird" (The Beatles) /
"Stand By Me" (Ben E. King) /
"Mofo" (U2) /
"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" (Sly and the Family Stone) /
"Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" (Michael Jackson) /
"Get Up Stand Up" (Bob Marley) /
"You'll Never Walk Alone" (from Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein) /
"Amazing Grace" (John Newton and William Walker) /
"All You Need is Love" (The Beatles) /
Show Details:
The next stop on the tour is Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, Texas. It is the first of two shows in Texas, but it is the only show in Dallas, the other will be in Houston. Muse is the opening act for the show. There are troubles fitting the Claw into the stadium tonight, due to the high definition video screen suspended in the stadium, and the view of U2’s screen is blocked from many of the seats. The stadium is new, and the football team have only played four games in the new building. The stadium tonight has a roof, and like other shows with a roof, the sound quality varies throughout the venue.
At one point in the evening Bono name checks former president George W. Bush, thanking him for his contribution for the fight against AIDS, which results in a huge roar of approval from the crowd. “The Unforgettable Fire” tonight is dedicated to Stephen Gately, one of the singers in Irish band Boyzone, who died this week.
The show is pretty routine, without any big changes or surprises. U2 are working on a plan for the video shoot planned for the Rose Bowl so are tweaking one show to prepare for the night they film. The big change is “Magnificent” moves up to the third song, coming before “Mysterious Ways” and “Beautiful Day” tonight. It used to be early in the set list, but for most of this leg it’s been coming in behind those songs.
Snippets throughout the show include “My Sweet Lord” in “Mysterious Ways”, “Blackbird” during “Beautiful Day”, “Stand By Me” during “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, and “Mofo” during “City of Blinding Lights”. During “I’ll Go Crazy” Bono adds both “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”, and in “Sunday Bloody Sunday” we get “Get Up Stand Up”. “Walk On” has the usual “You’ll Never Walk Alone” addition. “Amazing Grace” leads into “Where the Streets Have No Name” which also contains a brief reference to “All You Need is Love”. Bono also adds the extra “hear us coming” lines into “One” tonight.
The new video for the encore using Cosmo reciting words from the show appears again tonight, and will continue through to the end of the leg.
In the Dallas Morning News Mario Tarradell shared, “And of course, there’s Bono, Larry Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton and The Edge. These guys couldn’t be more comfortable before a humongous mass, or underneath such high-tech gadgetry. For about two hours the U2 members sang and played with passionate precision. They backed up the spectacle with plenty of dramatic substance.” John McAlley reporting for NPR shares, “And despite the need to enthrall the masses — over 70,000 attended the Dallas show and larger crowds have made dates in New York and Los Angeles sell-outs — the U2 song list doesn’t pander. The band fearlessly pushed forward material from its new No Line On The Horizon album and paraded — through the use of video images and Bono’s impassioned preachifying — noble causes ranging from the staunching of AIDS in Africa to the pursuit of justice.”
Speaking of the show in his diary for U2.com, Willie Williams shares, “The venue’s strange. It’s the new Cowboys gazillion dollar Stadium which is absolutely vast, with multi-layered bars and restaurants overlooking the field, concourses, corporate suites and a 95 million dollar video screen. It should all add up to something spectacular but it really felt like playing in the atrium of a shopping mall. The fact of the house video screen obliterating the top half of our stage didn’t help, but all the same it felt pretty soulless. There was a good crowd though, so no real complaints and before we knew it we were heading back to the airport. The building did sound good though, which was a relief because it has a roof and often these enclosed metal and glass rooms sound awful.”
A number of instrumentals can be heard at the soundcheck, likely the techs working on setting up, as the band appear to arrive later to the venue.
Tony Romo, an American football player is in the house tonight. Tiger Woods, one of the world’s top golfer’s is also in the crowd. American theologian Eugene Peterson is also at the show.
Related News
Officially Released Tracks