2011-07-14

Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Set List of Show:

Main Set:

"Even Better Than the Real Thing"
"I Will Follow"
"Mysterious Ways"
"Until the End of the World"
"Get On Your Boots"
"Magnificent"
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
"Stay (Faraway, So Close!)"
"Beautiful Day"
"Elevation"
"Pride (In the Name of Love)"
"Miss Sarajevo"
"Zooropa"
"City Of Blinding Lights"
"Vertigo"
"I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"
"Sunday Bloody Sunday"
"Scarlet"
"Walk On"

Encore One:

"One"
"Where the Streets Have No Name"

Encore Two:

"Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me"
"With or Without You"
"Moment of Surrender"
"Happy Birthday"

Additional Music

Pre-Recorded Intro Song: "Space Oddity" - David Bowie
Pre-Recorded Exit Song: "Rocket Man" - Elton John

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

"Young Americans" (David Bowie) / "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" (Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson) / "The Promised Land" (Bruce Springsteen) / "Space Oddity" (David Bowie) / "It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)" (Rolling Stones) / "Discothèque" (U2) / "Life During Wartime" (Talking Heads) / "Psycho Killer" (Talking Heads) / "Hallelujah" (Leonard Cohen) / "C Moon" (Wings) /

Show Details:

The U2360 tour is rapidly coming to an end. There are just five shows left after this one, and each is a single show in a city. This show in Philadelphia was originally scheduled for July 12, 2010, and had to be rescheduled due to Bono’s back injury and subsequent surgery. Interpol joins U2 as the opening act.

Tonight the big surprise is the return of “Magnificent” to the set list. The song had been a tour staple, but has been missing since mid-June, when the band stopped experimenting with a remixed version of the song. Tonight it returns after “Get On Your Boots” and instead of the remixed version, the band stays closer to the album version of the song. To make it fit into the show, “The Fly” is dropped this evening.

Bono speaks at length about Philadelphia throughout the show, sharing there would be no where he would rather be than “where men would rather be hung for treason than give up on a crazy mad idea called America. That’s right – this is not just a country, its an idea, we love that.” References to Philadelphia are peppered throughout tonight, from Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, callouts to both the Eagles and Flyers, and naming off the subway lines stations.

At the end of the show Bono gets the crowd to join him in singing “Happy Birthday” to Nelson Mandela, who is turning 93 in a few days. The song is filmed and shown on Mandela’s birthday at a New York dinner honoring him, attended by Morgan Freeman and other celebrities. Mandela was not in attendance.

Snippets tonight include “Young Americans” during “Mysterious Ways” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” in “Until the End of the World”. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” ends with “The Promised Land”. Bono picks up the “Space Oddity” lines from the International Space Station video and includes them as a snippet. “Vertigo” includes “It’s Only Rock And Roll (But I Like It)”. “Discotheque”, “Life During Wartime” and “Psycho Killer” all make an appearance during “I’ll Go Crazy”. “Where the Streets Have No Name” is introduced by Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and ends with a snippet of “C Moon”.

In his diary for U2.com, Willie Williams shares, “We arrived quite late at the venue so had a bit of a run around to catch up with everything that needed doing before show time. There was a decision to include Magnificent in the show tonight, precipitating the need for a quick sound check. The band decided to revert to the original version of the song (rather than the ‘Primal Scream’ version that featured a video clip of Desmond Tutu) so it was deemed a good idea to run though it in comparative privacy before unleashing it on the public. It sounded great – the tempo is slightly elevated now, which helps it ride in the stadium and it was very good to hear it again. The show was visited by a spectacular full moon, rising over the back of the stadium. It moved elegantly into the picture as the top mirrorball burst into action and I’m not sure which was the more beautiful.”

Dan DeLuca in The Philadelphia Inquirer shared, “Tops on the list, along with ‘Beautiful Day,’ would be ‘One,’ the most perfectly realized example of the U2 strategy of forging an emotional connection with the listener on a scale that’s both effectively intimate and transcendently grand. When that happens, U2 can’t be beat. It is the last enormous, unifying rock band, and its communal powers will probably never be duplicated, thanks to a music industry and pop-cultural landscape that the Internet has fractured into a million little niches.”

Officially Released Tracks