2019-11-23

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"
  • "Red Hill Mining Town"
  • "In God's Country"
  • "Trip Through Your Wires"
  • "One Tree Hill"
  • "Exit"
  • "Mothers of the Disappeared"
  • "Desire"
Encore:

  • "Elevation"
  • "Vertigo"
  • "Even Better Than the Real Thing"
  • "You're The Best Thing About Me"
  • "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:

    "The Magnificent Seven" (The Clash) / "Waltzing Matilda" (Banjo Paterson) / "Many Rivers to Cross" (Jimmy Cliff) / "The Star-Spangled Banner" (John Stafford Smith / Francis Scott Key) / "America" (Stephen Sondheim from West Side Story) / "Eeny Meeny Miny Moe" (Children's Rhyme) / "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (U2) / "It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)" (Rolling Stones) / "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" (Arrows) /

Show Details:

U2 return to the Sydney Cricket Ground for the second of two shows being held there. It is the second time on the tour that they’ve played two shows in the same city, with the other being the opening shows in Auckland.

The show starts with “The Whole of the Moon” over the PA, at 8:10, twenty minutes earlier than the night before in Sydney. “I Will Follow” is played tonight, it’s now been played at more shows on this tour than it hasn’t. “Bad” features an extended snippet of “Waltzing Matilda” during the song. Bono dedicates the song to the firefighters in Australia, and asks that the lights be turned off during “Bad” so he can see the “stars in the sky”.

Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross” is snippeted at the end of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” with Bono singing “Many rivers to cross but I can’t seem to find my way over
wandering I am lost as I travel along the white cliffs of Dover.” “Bullet the Blue Sky” is dedicated to Rob Hirst, the drummer of Midnight Oil. “Red Hill Mining Town” is dedicated to “anyone who earned a living under the ground in this country.” In the introduction to “In God’s Country” Bono quotes MLK’s “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Bono says he doesn’t believe that now, and he feels we must bend it towards justice. Bono doesn’t tell the story about Greg Carroll meeting the band tonight. The introduction to the song consists of a quick “For Greg Carroll.”

The introduction to “Trip Through Your Wires” is about the Irish and inventions tonight. Bono introduces the segment by saying “You should know, we Irish can get ahead of ourselves. Once in a while we think like, act like, we might have invented civilisation.” He and The Edge then discuss a book called “The Irish Saved Civilization” by Thomas Cahill. Adam and Bono speak about the Sydney Opera House, and Adam points out although the architect was Danish, an Irish Engineer worked on the roof design, causing Bono to exclaim “Even the Sydney Opera House couldn’t have been built without the Irish!” Larry talks about potato crips again tonight, “This trumps everything. This is about food. The Irish invented flavoured potato chips. The Tayto.” He also mentions the factory was located not far from Rosemount Avenue, where he grew up.

A new song debuts tonight, as U2 break out “Desire” after “The Joshua Tree” segment. It’s done full band.

During “Vertigo” Bono includes a snippet of “It’s Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)” but when the song is finished, Bono is not, starting to sing “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” by Joan Jett before starting his band introductions. Ahead of “Even Better Than the Real Thing” Bono calls Larry Mullen their first concert promoter, and speaks about the first gathering of the band in Larry’s kitchen, where he admits there was “more band than audience” but also claims “there was some screaming from the backyard.” Adam Clayton is introduced as “Teenage streaker, now wisdom seeker” as Bono references the time Adam Clayton streaked through the highschool. Bono also speaks about how he has matured, and mentions that Clayton is “A man who lost one of his lives in this city.” The Edge is introduced as the song kicks in, “He is the definite article and a noun. he comes from the future and he says its better. I believe him, do you?”

Tonight “You’re the Best Thing About Me” returns to the set list. It is played with just Bono and The Edge on stage initially. But The Edge is having trouble with the tuning of his guitar, and leaves the stage to get the problems fixed, leaving Bono on the stage by himself to tell stories about his father Bob. He talks about how Bob thought they were foolish to spend weeks on a 3 minute song, and how Ali was the daughter that Bob never had, and how Bob was the opera in Bono. Bono also mentions how he wished he told Bob that he loved him more while he was still alive.

The band once again does “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out.” Bono says that the band hadn’t planned on doing the song tonight but talks about how the band heard from a number of people about how much the song had meant to them the night before. Bono also speaks to Richard Lowenstein (presumably in the audience), director of “Mystify” and calls the film not only a gift to Micheal Hutchence’s friends, but also to those who do not know him. The song once again replaces “Love is Bigger Than Anything in its Way” in the set. It is accompanied by pictures of Hutchence throughout his life on the screen behind the band.

“One” ends with a lengthy spoken introduction by Bono where he thanks Arthur (Fogel), Michael Copp and the team at Maverick. He mentions that “We don’t know when we will next all be together and I just want to say thank you for being so supportive of our band, and listening to me bang on and on. We don’t take this relationship for granted.” He then asks that Willie shut off the lights, in case the song gets too personal saying that the song is “a love song to you.”

The show ends with INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart” over the PA, with the audience singing as they leave the venue.

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Officially Released Tracks

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