2015-06-29
United Center, Chicago, IL, USA
Set List of Show:
Set One:
- "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)"
- "The Electric Co."
- "Vertigo"
- "I Will Follow"
- "Iris (Hold Me Close)"
- "Cedarwood Road"
- "Song for Someone"
- "Raised by Wolves"
- "Until the End of the World"
- "Invisible"
- "Even Better Than the Real Thing"
- "Mysterious Ways"
- "The Crystal Ballroom"
- "Sweetest Thing"
- "Every Breaking Wave"
- "Bullet the Blue Sky"
- "Pride (In the Name of Love)"
- "Beautiful Day"
- "With or Without You"
- "City Of Blinding Lights"
- "Where the Streets Have No Name"
- "Happy Birthday"
- "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) /
"I Can See for Miles" (The Who) /
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Nirvana) /
"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" (Patrick Gilmore) /
"Love and Peace or Else" (U2) /
"My Sweet Lord" (George Harrison) /
"19" (Paul Hardcastle) /
"The Hands that Built America" (U2) /
"I Remember You" (The Ramones) /
"My Kind of Town" (Frank Sinatra) /
"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 stops for five shows in Chicago’s United Center. This is the fourth 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 who was under the weather for the first two shows, but seems to have bounced back vocally for the later shows.
Tonight’s set list sees the return of “Sweetest Thing” to the set list, which Bono dedicates to his wife Ali who is at these shows. The song hasn’t been played since some of the shows in Los Angeles in May. Bono shares, “So this is for the missus, can I get the lyrics?” During the song Bono gets one side of the long stage splitting the arena to sing “oh oh oh” while he gets the other to finish things off with “the sweetest thing”.
The big surprise tonight is the introduction of “The Crystal Ballroom”, which Bono explains, “There are a bunch of people who’ve been on the road since we’ve started this tour, I don’t know how they’re paying for it, I have no idea how they’ve skipped school, work, husbands, wives, but they’ve been on the road and they’ve been asking for one song, and so, we kind of nearly figured it out. I’ll tell you about it before we play it. The Crystal Ballroom was a club, a kind of punk club we used to play, it was called McGonagles in Dublin, but historically had been called The Crystal Ballroom, that’s when my mother and father used to go there. And I thought it was a bit weird that we ended up at the punk club where my mother and father would have been making out. Something just a little funky about that, in a good way. So this is about how these decisions, these incredible decisions, that begin our existence are so seemingly random, or not…”
A few other dedications in the night saw Bono dedicate “Iris” to all of the mothers of the band members, not just his own. And ahead of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” Bono gets the audience to join him in singing “Happy Birthday” for actor John Cusack.
“The Electric Co.” is littered with snippets tonight including “Send in the Clowns” (Stephen Sondheim), “I Can See for Miles” (The Who) and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Nirvana). “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” makes an appearance in “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and U2’s own “Love and Peace or Else” gets quoted in “Until the End of the World”. Bono works George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” into “Mysterious Ways” and “19” makes a brief appearance in “Bullet the Blue Sky”. “The Hands that Built America” has its usual place between “Bullet” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)”. The Ramones’ “I Remember You” makes an appearance in “Beautiful Day” and Sinatra’s “My Kind of Town” is added to “With or Without You”. In the encore Paul Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion” is performed as an introduction to “Where the Streets Have No Name” but no animated video appears on the screen tonight. “California (There is no End to Love)” is mentioned in the lyrics for “Streets” and “People Have the Power” finishes off the snippets, appearing during “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”.
In the sound check in the afternoon, U2 rehearsed both “Two Hearts Beat As One” and “The Crystal Ballroom” but only the latter is played in the show. They also did work on “Sweetest Thing” and practiced Stevie Wonder’s version of “Happy Birthday”.
The second set of Chicago shows were announced on December 9, 2014, with a pre-sale for U2.com members starting on December 10, 2014, and general ticket sales starting on December 15, 2014.
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