2015-06-24

United Center, Chicago, IL, 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"
  • "Elevation"
  • "Ordinary Love"
  • "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"
  • "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: "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:

    "Send in the Clowns" (Stephen Sondheim from A Little Night Music) / "My Kind of Town" (Frank Sinatra) / "I Can See for Miles" (The Who) / "It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)" (Rolling Stones) / "Love and Peace or Else" (U2) / "Young Americans" (David Bowie) / "Anthem" (Leonard Cohen) / "The Hands that Built America" (U2) / "I Remember You" (The Ramones) / "Mother and Child Reunion" (Paul Simon) / "California (There is no End to Love)" (U2) / "People Have the Power" (Patti Smith) /

Show Details:

The Innocence and Experience tour returns to the USA for five shows in Chicago’s United Center. This is the first of five shows in the city. The band has family and friends with them for this round of shows in Chicago, and many are seen throughout the five nights. Bono is a little under the weather heading into the show, and his voice is stressed a bit during the show tonight.

Tonight’s show is identical to the first show in the last city they played, Montreal on July 12. It means “The Electric Co.”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “Ordinary Love” all make appearances in the show tonight.

Early in the show, Larry accidentally starts “Out of Control” while the rest of the band is starting “Vertigo”, but quickly recovers. “Out of Control” is not played tonight. The venue is the one in which the Chicago Blackhawks play. A few days earlier they won the Stanley Cup, and Bono dedicates “Elevation” to the team to the cheers of the crowd.

This show takes place just days after a mass shooting occurred at a African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, leaving nine dead. Bono in response to the incident brings it up during “Pride (In the Name of Love)” shouting, “Dr. King we need you more than ever…in Ferguson…in Baltimore…in Charleston!”

After “Pride (In the Name of Love)” Bono speaks of marriage equality during “Beautiful Day” and the recent win in Ireland for same-sex marriage in the Irish referendum. At the end of the night Bono shares that former manager Paul McGuinness is in the house. “The most profound influence on this band is of course a man who is seeing the show for the very very first time tonight and without this man we wouldn’t be here tonight so its a very important night for us. His first assignment managing U2 was getting us served under age in a pub in Dublin. Paul McGuinness is here tonight, still looking over our shoulder!” It’s the first known time that McGuinness is at a U2 show since announcing his retirement from managing the band in 2013.

Other guests at the show include comedian Chris Rock, musician Mick Jagger, Susan Buffet, and Jim Henke, former curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Bono also thanks Norm Winer, program director of WXRT, one of the first stations that supported the band in the area.

“Send in the Clowns”, Sinatra’s “My Kind of Town” and The Who’s “I Can See for Miles” made appearances in “The Electric Co.” and “It’s Only Rock and Roll” popped up in “Vertigo”. A short reference to U2’s own “Love and Peace or Else” appeared in “Until the End of the World”. Bowie’s “Young Americans” appeared in “Mysterious Ways” and Bullet the Blue Sky” references Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”. “The Hands that Built America” has its usual spot between “Bullet the Blue Sky” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)”. “My Kind of Town” is back in “Beautiful Day” and they finish that song with a piece of The Ramones’ “I Remember You”. “Where the Streets Have No Name” is introduced by “Mother and Child Reunion” and has a reference to “California (There is No End to Love)” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” calls back to the opening music, with Bono working in “People Have the Power” at the end of the evening.

Greg Kot shared in the Chicago Tribune, “The music, shorn of studio fussiness and radio-ready primping, had a jump to its step, a vitality that carried through more than two hours and 24 songs in what added up to U2’s most convincing Chicago performance in more than a decade.” Kot noted that “Bono’s ailing voice showed the first signs of fraying” on “Every Breaking Wave” and “For U2, the show was in many ways the band’s way of reminding not only its fans, but perhaps itself, who it is.”

Soundchecks tonight included “Ordinary Love” and “Raised by Wolves” according to U2gigs.com.

The first two Chicago shows were announced on December 3, 2014, with a pre-sale for U2.com members starting on December 4, 2014, and general ticket sales starting on December 8, 2014.

Related News

Officially Released Tracks

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