2015-07-19

Madison Square Garden, New York, NY, USA

Set List of Show:

Act One:

  • "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)"
  • "Gloria"
  • "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"
  • "Volcano"
  • "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of"
  • "October"
  • "Every Breaking Wave"
  • "With or Without You"
  • "City Of Blinding Lights"
  • "Bullet the Blue Sky"
  • "Pride (In the Name of Love)"
Encore:

  • "Beautiful Day"
  • "Bad"
  • "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 Fly" - Gavin Friday

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

    "Gloria" (Van Morrison) / "God Save the Queen" (Sex Pistols) / "She's Lost Control" (Joy Division) / "Transmission" (Joy Division) / "Summer in the City" (The Lovin' Spoonful) / "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" (Patrick Gilmore) / "Love and Peace or Else" (U2) / "The Hands that Built America" (U2) / "Moment of Surrender" (U2) / "Mother and Child Reunion" (Paul Simon) / "Summer Rain" () / "California (There is no End to Love)" (U2) / "People Have the Power" (Patti Smith) /

Show Details:

U2 do their biggest run of shows at one venue in North America with eight shows in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The shows start on July 18, and run until July 31, and finish off the first leg of the Innocence + Experience tour, before the band moves to Europe. This is the second of eight shows.

There’s a heat warning in place for New York City, and Bono sings a bit of “Summer in the City” tonight at the show and is thankful for the air conditioning at the Garden tonight. “We’re going to turn up the temperature, Irish people don’t complain about the heat. The only heat we don’t like is humidity.”

After a surprise debut last night, “October” remains in the show again tonight. And this time it’s joined by another song from the album October, “Gloria” is early in the set, and is played for Steve Lillywhite who produced the album, who is thrilled with the name check. “October” is played tonight for astronaut Mark Kelly, and his wife, congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Mark often spoke to U2 audiences as part of the crew of the International Space Station on the U2360 tour.

Late in the show, “Bad” makes an appearance with Bono telling the band he wants to do the song. It’s not been a staple of these shows, but was played recently in Boston. It looks like at one point the song wasn’t a sure thing to be played at this show.

Van Morrison’s “Gloria” makes an appearance in U2’s song of the same name. “God Save the Queen” (Sex Pistols) and “Transmission” (Joy Division) both make appearances in “Vertigo”. “Summer in the City” makes an appearance during “I Will Follow”. “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” appears in “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and a reference to “Love and Peace or Else” during “Until the End of the World” rounds out the first act. “The Hands that Built America” has its usual position between “Bullet the Blue Sky” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” tonight. Bono is in a “Moment of Surrender” mood tonight with snippets of the lyrics included in “Beautiful Day” and at two different locations during “Bad”. “Mother and Child Reunion” opens “Where the Streets Have No Name” which also has references to U2’s own “Summer Rain” and “California (There is no End to Love)”. Bono ends “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” with lyrics from “People Have the Power”.

Others spotted at the show this evening include Steve Lillywhite, U2’s longtime manager and Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, who has been rumoured to be part of the backing vocals on “Iris”. Director Spike Lee is at the show, as is Senators Lindsay Graham and Chris Coons, and businessman Ronald Perelman. Bono mentions “Democrats and Republicans working together…” in reference to the Senators being there tonight.

For each show at the Garden, a unique T-shirt and poster is sold, dated with the date of the performance. The back lists all eight dates, and has U2 over top of the symbol for protection used on the album. The front has the U2 over the symbol, surrounded with stars and listing “Madison Square Garden * NYC” in a design reminiscent of some older Ramones logos. Tonight the shirt is bright yellow.

The first four New York shows were announced on December 3, 2014. Pre-sales for U2.com members started on December 4, and the general sale for these started on December 8, 2014. Unlike the other shows in North America which used credit cards for entry, this show used hard tickets.

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Officially Released Tracks

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