2011-07-23
TCF Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Set List of Show:
Main Set:
- "Even Better Than the Real Thing"
- "The Fly"
- "Mysterious Ways"
- "Until the End of the World"
- "I Will Follow"
- "Get On Your Boots"
- "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
- "Stand By Me"
- "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of"
- "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"
- "One"
- "Where the Streets Have No Name"
- "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me"
- "With or Without You"
- "Moment of Surrender"
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:
-
"Rain" (The Beatles) /
"Anthem" (Leonard Cohen) /
"Space Oddity" (David Bowie) /
"I Can't Stand the Rain" (Tina Turner) /
"Singin' In the Rain" (Gene Kelly) /
"Miss You" (Rolling Stones) /
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" (B.J. Thomas) /
"Discothèque" (U2) /
"Life During Wartime" (Talking Heads) /
"Psycho Killer" (Talking Heads) /
"Please" (U2) /
"Purple Rain" (Prince) /
"Hallelujah" (Leonard Cohen) /
Show Details:
Minneapolis at one point was due to be the end of the U2360 tour. When the 2011 rescheduled dates were finally confirmed on July 13, 2010, the show was the end of the dates. However a later added show for Pittsburgh went on sale in October, and even that didn’t stay the end of the tour with a later addition of Moncton as the final show. Bono references the change in the status of this show from being the end of the tour, by calling it the “start of the ‘end of tour’ party”. Interpol join U2 as the opening act for this show.
“Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” makes an appearance this evening. Bono dedicates the song to British singer Amy Winehouse who had died earlier in the day, “We wrote this for Michael Hutchence… but tonight you will understand when we play it for Amy Winehouse.”
K’naan, a Somali-Canadian musician is at the show tonight, and joins U2 on stage for “Stand By Me”. The song is dedicated to people suffering from hunger in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Ahead of the show, Bono had met with representatives of the local Somali community to discuss efforts to combat famine in Eastern Africa. Later in the Bono once again thanks K’naan, and the Neighbors for Nations group, and dedicates “Moment of Surrender” to the “12 Million souls in jeopardy tonight.” K’naan had once lived in the twin cities.
Snippets for this rainy show include “Rain” during “Mysterious Ways”, “I Can’t Stand the Rain” in “Elevation”, “Singin’ in the Rain” for “City of Blinding Lights”, “Where the Streets Have No Name” and again during “Moment of Surrender”, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” during “I’ll Go Crazy”, and “Purple Rain” during “One” and “Where the Streets Have No Name”. Non-rainy snippets include “Anthem” during “Until the End of the World”, and “Space Oddity” during “Beautiful Day”. “I’ll Go Crazy” includes “Miss You”, “Discotheque”, “Life During Wartime” and “Psycho Killer” and there’s a small snippet of “Please” as part of “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. Bono also starts “Where the Streets Have No Name” with a bit of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. During some of the heaviest of the rain, Adam Clayton stripped off his shirt and played bass without.
Rain wasn’t the only show in the sky, the Aquatennial fireworks display being held in the city can be seen in the sky above the stadium. The Aquatennial is a four day festival celebrating the City of Minneapolis and it is on while U2 are in town for the show. The fireworks go off before the worst of the weather starts, just after the U2 concert begins.
The weather is really rough during the show. It starts to rain during “Until the End of the World” and there is lightning and wind picking up during “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” with the heavy rain starting during “Elevation”. In his tour diary for U2.com, Willie Williams shares, “It came down so hard that the stadium seemed to be full of steam and boiling vapour, the air solid with water and massive drops smacking the stage then bouncing knee high. It was utterly apocalyptic and I have to tell you, it looked absolutely fantastic. The light bursting through the fully-open screen, the massive noise and the TV freak-out images all going full tilt whilst engulfed in this elemental carnage, turned Zooropa and City of Blinding Lights into a Sensurround meltdown, the like of which I’ve never seen.” He goes on to share, “Overall, we’ve not done too badly for rain-shows on this tour. Zurich night 2 holds the duration record, Moscow had the best lightning and Glastonbury the most insidious rising damp, but nothing comes close to the brief spectacle of the ‘Disco on the Titanic’ that Minneapolis threw at us tonight. I won’t forget that one in a hurry.”
In the Twin Cities Pioneer Press Ross Raihala writes, “what lead singer Bono and the rest of U2 proved to the sold-out crowd – who braved road construction and stormy weather to get to the University of Minnesota football stadium’s first major rock show – was just how skilled they are at creating a memorable and, yes, even intimate evening. Saturday’s show was U2’s third-to-last stop on a world tour that started more than two years ago, with the Minneapolis gig delayed a year thanks to Bono’s back problems. But the band rarely felt tired and instead rallied like a marathon runner in the final mile.”
The original date for this show was planned to be June 27, 2010. It was postponed when Bono injured his back and required surgery. Tickets for this show went on sale originally on November 20, 2009, with a U2.com presale on November 17, 2009.
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Officially Released Tracks