2019-11-22

Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, Australia

Set List of Show:

Main Set:

"Sunday Bloody Sunday"
"I Will Follow"
"New Year's Day"
"Bad"
"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"
"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)"
"Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of"
"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:

"Never Tear Us Apart" (INXS) / "California (There is no End to Love)" (U2) / "Singin' In the Rain" (Gene Kelly) / "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" (B.J. Thomas) / "The Star-Spangled Banner" (John Stafford Smith / Francis Scott Key) / "Eeny Meeny Miny Moe" (Children's Rhyme) / "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (U2) / "Devil Inside" (INXS) /

Show Details:

U2 play the first of two shows in Sydney tonight. Ahead of the show the band are heard to sound check both “Desire” and “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” but only the latter song is played. Tonight is the anniversary of the death of Michael Hutchence, and his image appears on the screen before Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds take the stage, and Bono adds tributes to his friend, the lead singer of INXS throughout the show. It is a wet and rainy day in Sydney. The weather is bad enough a warning appears on the screens in the stadium ahead of the show stating “Bad weather is approaching please remain calm.”

The T-Shirt for Sydney tonight is the red T-shirt with the band walking across the desert on the front. rCup who haven’t been at the shows on this show to date are there in Sydney tonight with a special Joshua Tree Tour 2019 cup. The band take the stage just after 8:30pm.

Introducing “Bad” Bono exlaims “The rain is going to pull us together for an epic night of rock and roll.” The song is done for Michael Hutchence, “Twenty-three years ago today, one of your countries brightest lights went dark. He was a light to me. He was a light to a lot of us.” Bono then asks Willie to turn off the lights so people can share their lights for Hutchence, before launching into a lengthy snippet of INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart.” [His death actually occured 22 years ago.]

Bono takes a moment before “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” to sing a line from “Singin’ in the Rain” before switching gears and launching into an extended version of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”. At the start of “Bullet the Blue Sky” Bono gives out a shout to Midnight Oil, and the lead singer of that band, Peter Garrett is at the show. “Running to Stand Still” contains a snippet of “Hallelujah” bringing back memories of the Zoo TV performance in Sydney. “Red Hill Mining Town” ends with Bono flipping sides, “So welcome to side 2 of The Joshua Tree. If this was vinyl, you would be flipping us over.” Introducing “In God’s Country” Bono speaks about the Australian spirit, “There is such thing as Australian spirit. It really is. And it’s here” and he talks about meeting 100 firefighters in Melbourne a few days ago. He cautions the crowd to look after their country because it can change in the blink of an eye. The discussion on stage between the band is about Larry and Edge’s time in a country band called The Drifting Cowboys, and Larry has a new confession tonight, “for years and years I thought I was playing the Foxtrot…turns out its the waltz…as a musician that’s deeply painful.”

Although “Desire” has been rehearsed a few times along the way, including sound check today, it is “Angel of Harlem” that follows “The Joshua Tree” segment of the show tonight before the encore.

The encore starts out with “Elevation”. At the end of the song a fan from Canada, dressed as MacPhisto ends up on stage, and when local security tries to remove him, Bono grabs the devil for a short dance. As the show moves into “Vertigo” where Bono includes a snippet of “Devil Inside” by INXS. Introducing the band, Bono says “He is no longer junior, but his name remains Larry Mullen Junior,” references Adam’s missing the 1993 Sydney show by saying “He started his second act in this city all those years ago” and introduces the Edge as “Last but not least…he may be a scientist, and we’re all pleased to be in his experiments. He blew up his garden shed. Now he blows up stadiums every night of the week.”

Bono takes a moment to introduce Micheal Hutchence, “A man who loved women, and who women loved.” before playing “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.” This is the tour debut of the song, played tonight on the anniversary of Hutchence’s death. The video screen throughout the performance includes photos of Hutchence.

The show runs for two and a half hours and is one of the longer shows of the tour so far. “Stuck in a Moment” replaces “Love is Bigger” in the set list tonight. It is the first time that “Love is Bigger Than Anything in its Way” has not been played during the shows.

Officially Released Tracks