2019-12-11

Philippine Arena, Manila, The Philippines

Set List of Show:

Main Set:

"Sunday Bloody Sunday"
"Gloria"
"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"
"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:

West Side Story

Show Details:

The second to last stop of U2’s #TheJoshuaTreeTour2019 sees the band playing the Philippine Arena in Manila. As the show is due to start, the largest indoor Arena is still 2/3 empty, as there are traffic issues getting to the venue and many are stuck in traffic. In the end there are many reports that many just parked on the side of the road and started walking to the venue. The show gets underway late because of these issues, and “The Whole of the Moon” isn’t heard until 9:10. Like Tokyo and Seoul, there is no opening act for this show in Manila.

The second song tonight is “Gloria” which made it’s tour debut only a few nights ago in Japan. It is only the second time this tour that the song is played on stage. “Desire” is played after “The Joshua Tree,” rarely played in the first part of the tour, but now a regular fixture since the second night in Tokyo. “Every Breaking Wave” is played in the encore tonight.

Bono addresses the struggle to get the crowds into the venue, introducing “Bad” by saying “I know it’s taken a while to get everyone into the arena tonight. It took us four decades! But we feel very welcome, and this will be, for sure, the best show we have ever played in Manila.” Bono dedicates the song to the Red Cross, who he met with upon arriving in Manila, and also to the journalists in the country, or as he calls them, the “truth tellers.” During “Pride” Bono says “For non-violence, we sing. For human rights, we sing. For those who protect those rights, we sing. For Amnesty International, we sing.” Introducing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” Bono one again speaks about how long it took the band to get to Manila, “It has been a long, long road that has brought us to you in Manila. But it doesn’t matter how long it takes to get wehere you want to go, as long as you get there in the end.”

Introducing the band Bono tells the crowd that “we’re coming to the end of our tour soon. I was told today that this is our 2050th show that we’ve played in our lifetime. Doesn’t feel like it!” He talks about the fact that Larry and The Edge played a few more shows than the rest, as they were part of the Drifting Cowboys at a younger age. Asking Adam if he has any regrets about now playing with the band, Adam replies, “I have many regrets Bono, but that’s not one of them.”

“Vertigo” includes a snippet of the Beatles “She Loves You” and is followed up by a little Joan Jett, as Bono sings a few lines from “I Love Rock N’ Roll.” Introducing the band ahead of “Even Better than the Real Thing” Bono introduces Larry as the man who puts the fox into fox rock. Adam is introduced as “our former international ladies man, our former wild boy, now a wise man, the former first manager of the group U2. Falls in love at age 50 and is now bossed around by a two and a half year old girl.” And the Edge is introduced as “the chemistry student who blew up our first rehearsal room, and is now blowing up stadiums all over the world.”

In the transition between “Beautiful Day” and “Ultra Violet” Bono mentions “when human rights drown out human wrongs, that’s a beautiful day” and “when journalists don’t have to worry about what they write, that’s a beautiful day,” before dedicating the song to Maria Ressa, who was included in Time’s “Person of the Year” for 2018 as part of a group of journalists combating fake news. Ressa is an outspoken critic of President Duterte, and her recent arrests for tax evasion and cyber libel is widely seen as a politically motivated arrest. Ressa also appears on screen as part of the HerStory segment.

Introducing “One” Bono thanks the crew, the best crew on the planet, and tells the story of how they sent out Jake Berry to scout venues for this tour, and how Jake came back telling them about the venue in Manila, “this great room” as Bono calls it. Bono is clearly blown away from the crowd response tonight and says the band have “no good excuse. We should have been here every year.”

The T-shirt for tonight’s concert is the red T-shirt with the band image on the front. “Bad” is played tonight, this time with a snippet of Bowie’s “Heroes”. The final show of the tour is on Sunday, in Mumbai.

Officially Released Tracks