2019-11-19

Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, Australia

Set List of Show:

Main Set:

"Sunday Bloody Sunday"
"I Will Follow"
"New Year's Day"
"Pride (In the Name of Love)"
"Where the Streets Have No Name"
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
"With or Without You"
"Bullet the Blue Sky"
"Running to Stand Still"
"Red Hill Mining Town"
"In God's Country"
"Trip Through Your Wires"
"One Tree Hill"
"Exit"
"Mothers of the Disappeared"
"Angel of Harlem"

Encore:

"Elevation"
"Vertigo"
"Even Better Than the Real Thing"
"Every Breaking Wave"
"Beautiful Day"
"Ultra Violet (Light My Way)"
"Love is Bigger Than Anything in its Way"
"One"

Additional Music

Pre-Recorded Intro Song: "The Whole of the Moon" - The Waterboys
Pre-Recorded Exit Song: "Never Tear Us Apart" - INXS

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

"California (There is no End to Love)" (U2) / "The Star-Spangled Banner" (John Stafford Smith / Francis Scott Key) / "Hallelujah" (Leonard Cohen) / "Eeny Meeny Miny Moe" (Children's Rhyme) / "It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)" (Rolling Stones) /

Show Details:

This is the fifth show of the tour, and the fourth city that the tour visits. It is the first time U2 have visited Adelaide since the Vertigo tour in 2006, and before that the Zoo TV tour in 1993.

The show in Adelaide starts early, around 8:10pm local time. There is a curfew in the city and the show is adjusted to match, however this means the band takes the stage while the sun is still up, leading to a well lit front part to the show. Like the show previous, “I Will Follow” appears in the set between “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day” but unlike the previous night, the band skips over “Bad” in the early part of the show. Bono dedicates Pride to the firefighters: “Women and men. Australian firefighters. Volunteers. I met some of them today. We have a message of love for them.

“Red Hill Mining Town” includes a “Hallelujah” snippet tonight, recalling shows done in Australia for Zoo TV. Introducing “In God’s Country” Bono mentions the album, “Welcome to side 2 of the Joshua Tree Album. If you had been listening on cassette, that’s the bit where you eject and flip us over.” he then thanks Australia for making them guests of the nation.

Bono stops at the end of “In God’s Country” to talk about the Irish. “This is the Irish flag as portrayed by the great Dutchman Anton Corbijn. The green, white and orange. Let me tell you, the Irish here, we don’t take it for granted that you took us in,” and continues to give an example of things that the Irish brought to Australia, or think they invented, “The Irish tend to think we invented everything. Like boats, beer, or country music.” Asking Larry Mullen if the Irish invented country music, Larry replies “I think it may have been Australia actually. But I do know that we did invent something very useful. The flavoured potato chip. The Tayto potato chip.” The Edge and Adam Clayton are also both asked for Irish invention. Edge mentions an Irishman who moved to Australia invented the helicopter. Adam Clayton mentions it was the Irish who invented the ejector seat. “One Tree Hill” is introduced with Bono speaking about Greg Carroll, “We always have him with us in our heart.” “Angel of Harlem” follows “The Joshua Tree” as what came next, before the encore break.

The encore starts with “Elevation” with Bono asking “Are you ready to get high?” and then moves into a ferocious version of “Vertigo” complete with snippets of “It’s Only Rock N’ Roll” and non-stop into the band introductions where Bono calls them “the greatest rock and roll band that would have me for a singer.” Bono gets a laugh introducing the band as well as he introduces Adam as “now bossed around by a two-and-a-half year old, I watched it today” and they go right into “Even Better than the Real Thing” where Bono asks “Is it so wrong that we need you tonight so much more than you need us?”

The show finishes with the now expected “Every Breaking Wave” having only missed one show so far this tour for the second night in Auckland. “Beautiful Day” and “Ultra Violet” come next. “Love is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way” starts off with some musical difficulties leaving even Bono to comment “that was interesting” The show finishes with “One” which Bono asks to do in the dark.

Initially when tickets went on sale, the stage was shown at the far end of the pitch, but a few weeks before the show the stage is moved forward on the field. Ticket holders in seats that would have been able to see the stage in the original configuration are contacted with information about relocated seats, in many cases with tickets that were better than those originally purchased. Three sections in total are affected on one side of the field, and two on the other side of the field. (24 sections are sold at ground level, 29 were initially available)

Officially Released Tracks