2015-06-17

Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Set List of Show:

Act One:

"The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)"
"Out of Control"
"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"

Set Two:

"Invisible"
"Even Better Than the Real Thing"
"Mysterious Ways"
"Elevation"
"Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of"
"Every Breaking Wave"
"Bullet the Blue Sky"
"Pride (In the Name of Love)"
"Beautiful Day"
"With or Without You"

Encore:

"City Of Blinding Lights"
"Where the Streets Have No Name"
"40"

Additional Music

Pre-Recorded Intro Song: "People Have the Power" - Patti Smith
Pre-Recorded Exit Song: "Same Love" - Macklemore and Lewis ft. Mary Lambert
Pre-Recorded Intermission Song(s): "The Wanderer" - U2 with Johnny Cash

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

"God Save the Queen" (Sex Pistols) / "Transmission" (Joy Division) / "Love and Peace or Else" (U2) / "Anthem" (Leonard Cohen) / "The Hands that Built America" (U2) / "Gens Du Pays" (Gilles Vigneault) / "Mother and Child Reunion" (Paul Simon) / "California (There is no End to Love)" (U2) /

Show Details:

Montreal’s Bell Centre is the home to four shows on the tour. This is the fourth of four shows in the city. The audience reception in Montreal has been off the charts, with the crowd drowning out Bono at times, and tonight is no different. It is the first time U2 have played four concerts in Montreal in one tour, and the reception they’ve gotten from fans has been noted by the band and their crew, with Bono calling it “the most beautiful sound I ever heard”.

The set list gets blended up a little bit. “Stuck in A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” is performed for the second time on the tour. “Elevation” and “40” both make an appearance tonight, the third time for each on the tour. “Elevation” is a surprise, as it was “When Love Comes to Town” listed on the original set list for the show. “40” is dedicated to six people killed in a balcony collapse in Berkeley, “We send this song from this beautiful, joyful place to the hearts that are sore across the water”. Bono mentions they have grieving Irish relatives, but doesn’t go into further detail. (Those killed included five J-1 Irish visa students from Dublin, and one Irish-American, seven others were injured.)

During “Pride (In the Name of Love)” Bono continues to talk about human rights. Tonight he turns the spotlight on Raef Badawai, a blogger from Saudi Arabia whose wife and children are in Montreal. Badawai has been jailed for “running a website where people can speak their hearts”. The first fan brought on stage for Meerkat freezes up, and Bono escorts her back to her spot. Colleen is then chosen to come on stage to film the band for the portion of the show that streams live on the internet each evening, sharing that the Conspiracy of Hope tour was her first show.

“God Save the Queen” (Sex Pistols) and “Transmission” (Joy Division) make an appearance during “Vertigo” tonight, the Joy Division snippet perhaps inspired by Adam Clayton’s Joy Division T-shirt. “Until The End of the World” has a brief reference to “Love and Peace or Else”. Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” appears during “Bullet the Blue Sky”, and Montreal is the city where Cohen was born. “The Hands That Built America” has its usual place as a segue between “Bullet the Blue Sky” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)”. “Gens Du Pays” (almost an anthem in Quebec) appears ahead of Bono’s rendition of “Mother and Child Reunion” and a return to Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” at the start of “Where the Streets Have No Name”, which also contains a reference to “California (There is no End to Love)”. Bono struggled with the lyrics to “Gens Du Pays” and turns to the crowd to finish it off, and they are more than happy to do so.

Earlier in the day during soundcheck, U2 were heard working on “The Crystal Ballroom” for the second day in a row, however, it doesn’t make it into the show. It will make its debut in Chicago, the next city to be visited by the tour.

The third and fourth night in Montreal were announced on December 9 after the first two nights sold out, with presales starting on December 10 and a general sale starting on December 15. Tickets were tied to the credit card used for purchase, and one scanned their card to enter the venue.

Officially Released Tracks