2015-05-22

US Airways Center, Phoenix, AZ, USA

Set List of Show:

Act One:

  • "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)"
  • "The Electric Co."
  • "Vertigo"
  • "I Will Follow"
  • "Iris (Hold Me Close)"
  • "Cedarwood Road"
  • "Song for Someone"
  • "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
  • "Raised by Wolves"
  • "Until the End of the World"
Act Two:

  • "Invisible"
  • "Even Better Than the Real Thing"
  • "Mysterious Ways"
  • "Desire"
  • "In God's Country"
  • "Sweetest Thing"
  • "Every Breaking Wave"
  • "Pride (In the Name of Love)"
  • "Beautiful Day"
  • "Bad"
  • "With or Without You"
Encore:

  • "City Of Blinding Lights"
  • "Where the Streets Have No Name"
  • "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"

Additional Music

Pre-Recorded Intro Song: "People Have the Power" - Patti Smith
Pre-Recorded Exit Song: "Spiritual High Part II" - Moodswings ft. Chrissie Hynde
Pre-Recorded Intermission Song(s): "The Wanderer" - U2 with Johnny Cash

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

    "Send in the Clowns" (Stephen Sondheim from A Little Night Music) / "I Can See for Miles" (The Who) / "Young Americans" (David Bowie) / "Sweetest Thing" (U2) / "America" (Stephen Sondheim from West Side Story) / "The Hands that Built America" (U2) / "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (The Beatles) / "Moment of Surrender" (U2) / "Mother and Child Reunion" (Paul Simon) / "California (There is no End to Love)" (U2) /

Show Details:

Phoenix is the second city in the US visited by the Innocence and Experience tour, and the third city overall. The band are playing the US Airways Center tonight.

There are still small changes being made to the shows. For the first four shows the band took the stage to the Ramones’ “Beat on the Brat” mixed with some of their own songs. Tonight, and for the remainder of the tour, that intro music will be switched out for Patti Smith’s “People Have the Power”. The intro also changes where Bono enters the stage. Instead of coming on stage via the main stage, he instead takes the stage at the opposite end of the arena, and walks the length of the stage during “The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)”.

The set list tonight was very similar to the prior second show in San Jose. “Bad” which was a surprise addition in San Jose returns tonight. Tonight, however, it is planned and is on the set list. Another suprise is the addition of “In God’s Country” between “Desire” and “Sweetest Thing”. A fan is brought on stage to play guitar during the song, and Bono shares that the fan had asked the band to play the song. The fan enthusiastically jumps around the stage, grabbing band members to hug, and later kissing some on the hands. Bono joked, “Ritalin is also good.”

During the show, Bono also brings three women on stage for “Mysterious Ways” and they remain on stage during “Desire” and one is given a camera to film the band playing “Desire”. The video appears on the screen separating the arena, and is streamed via Meerkat. “Sweetest Thing” is a challenge for Bono who messes it up in places. At the end, Bono jokes that “it’s time for the professionals”.

In the Arizona Daily Star, Cathalena E. Burch writes, “One of the evening’s emotional highlights was Bono’s moving tribute to his mother Iris, who died when he was 14. His voice had an intimate and emotional warmpth throughout ‘Iris (Hold Me Close),’ and at times it felt like those wounds were still fresh and he was singing it in the bedroom of his childhood home.” In The Republic Ed Masley wrote, “But for every bell and whistle, every grand attempt at making sure you understood that Bono still has something more important to convey than ‘Hello, Phoenix,’ Friday’s concert also found them operating on a very human scale, letting their hair down in moments that thrived on spontaneity and self-effacing humor.” In the Phoenix New Times, Jim Louvau writes, “U2 left fans awestruck on Friday night as they kicked off their two-night stand at US Airways Center in downtown Phoenix. To say the Innocenct + Experience [SIC] tour was a spectacle would be an understatement, as the world’s biggest band brought a visual and sonic freight train that hit the Valley in what are likely to be the most talked about shows of 2015.

The tour was announced on December 3, 2014, with tickets going on sale on Monday December 8. Presales for U2.com members started on December 4, 2014 with subscribers who joined prior to September 9 being part of the Experience group, and new subscribers, who joined after September 9 being part of the Innocence group. Both Phoenix shows were announced from the start, and both went on sale at the same time.

Soundcheck in the afternoon was mostly instrumental, and included “Raised by Wolves”, “Cedarwood Road”, “Until the End of the World” and “The Troubles”. Bono did work on “The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)” with the band as well, presumably because of the new entrance used.

Related News

Officially Released Tracks

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