2015-07-31
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY, USA
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"
- "Invisible"
- "Even Better Than the Real Thing"
- "Mysterious Ways"
- "Desire"
- "Party Girl"
- "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"
- "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
- "Stand By Me"
- "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 Fly" - Gavin Friday
Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:
-
"God Save the Queen" (Sex Pistols) /
"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" (Patrick Gilmore) /
"Love and Peace or Else" (U2) /
"Words" (Bee Gees) /
"Burning Down the House" (Talking Heads) /
"Young Americans" (David Bowie) /
"Not Fade Away" (Buddy Holly) /
"19" (Paul Hardcastle) /
"The Hands that Built America" (U2) /
"Hungry Heart" (Bruce Springsteen) /
"New York, New York" (Frank Sinatra) /
"Mother and Child Reunion" (Paul Simon) /
"California (There is no End to Love)" (U2) /
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 eighth and final show of the run, and the next show will be held in Europe in September.
Tonight’s show sets a new record for U2, the most shows at one venue in a row, outside of the earliest days of the band. The record will hold until Las Vegas in 2023, where the band will do 25 shows in a row. Bono has been told that the show is U2’s 100th show in the city, and he shares with a laugh “to play here so many times and still be so young and handsome.”
Bono pulls a group of fans from Brazil dressed up to look like U2 from the “Discotheque” video. Bono either misses the U2 reference or chooses to ignore it, mentioning the Village People instead. With the fans on stage, Bono opens some champagne and toasts the fans. He then launches into “Party Girl”, a tour debut tonight, which he calls a “special treat”.
The run in New York has been filled with special guests performing onstage during shows, from the likes of Jimmy Fallon, Roots, Lady Gaga, and Paul Simon. Tonight, a guest appears who’s been rumoured since these New York shows started, Bruce Springsteen. He joins the band on stage during the encore to perform “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “Stand By Me”. After the Springsteen performance Bono said that this was the best show on the best tour. And although “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is usually a show closer, the audience are treated to “40” at the end of the night as well. It is dedicated to Dennis Sheehan, U2’s tour manager, who passed away during the early days of the tour. Sheehan’s wife Pam is at the show.
Bono is aware that President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are at the show tonight. They are cheered when they take their seats at the show by the crowd, and Bono later speaks about them during the show. Bono thanks Clinton for all of his work to help Ireland find peace. Bono also takes an opportunity to bring up marriage equality, and how Ireland has passed it ahead of the US. The Clintons’ daughter Chelsea had attended the previous show in New York. Longtime friend of U2, Helena Christensen is also at the show tonight.
“God Save the Queen” is an early snippet added to “Vertigo”. “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” make an appearance in “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Love and Peace or Else” and “Words” are referenced in “Until the End of the World”. “Burning Down the House” and “Young Americans” both appear in “Mysterious Ways”. “Desire” includes Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away”. “19” by Paul Hardcastle is referenced by Bono during “Bullet the Blue Sky” and “The Hands that Built America” is in the transition between “Bullet” and “Pride”. Bono includes snippets of Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart” and Sinatra’s “New York, New York” during “Beautiful Day”. “Mother and Child Reunion” is the introduction to “Where the Streets Have No Name” and the song references U2’s own “California (There is no End to Love)”.
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 red.
The eighth, and final show for New York was first announced on March 6, 2015. The U2.com members pre-sale started on March 9, and the general sale for this show was March 13, 2015. Unlike the other shows in North America which used credit cards for entry, this show used hard tickets.
As the show drew to a close, U2 posted a video filmed at an earlier night by Oliver Jeffers. The video shows them leaving the stage during “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and ends with a message saying thank you to “USA and Canada” along with a note that the band will “see you soon”. U2’s next full shows in the USA will be in May 2017
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