Remember When Bullet f#%king Rocked?

[cobl04]

we drowned Bono out during Pride's oh oh ohs in 06

 

[corianderstem]

Dude, even I couldn't keep up with the oh-oh-ohs. I think it was mostly because I'm just so tired of Pride, I couldn't get into that part.

It was a little like "Oh Oh Oh Oh! Oh Oh .... oh, god, whatever. Can we just hurry it up and get to Streets?"

 

[digitize]

I've never really liked the song, though I don't mind listening to the ZooTV version in sequence with the rest of the show.

 

[dazzledbylight]

oh, I'm still on-line......... i thought my wifi was gonna burn up...that Rotterdam BTBS was scorching!!!

but listening and wartching the time counrter again......from 2:43 - 2:50 and 3:04 - ? 3:10 - 12ish is either the same or very close to later solo vesrions in Vertgo. I loved the Vertigo, version too. I was suprised at the more bluesy accent of The Edge's solo in that but i liked it alot!
Esp since i only (very glad i got to go at all) saw ZOO TV Live once- it was such an intense, huge experience... .it was kind of blurry in memory!

and with until very reccently limited Net acess i've not listened to that many verions of my fav U2 songs live via YT yet!

so *thanks* for embeding this vid!

elevation's version i don't remember so well........ we were stuck behind the stage in yet another bacch of crummy to so-so seats for U2 again.. andwhile i sucessfully snuck in a SLR camera with lenses and managed (not knowing at the time) to not have the film uptake onto the spool..so this was not the most memorable .....

Then tho I saw the very first Post 9-11 show at MSG. That wasa bit "blurry" at times but in a totally different way.....it was an incredible concert . But (as a native NYCer, and onewho worked decades earlier on the 73rd flr of the south tower-- i also was singing and crying through most of it. Very Cathartic!

I really hope they mightbring it back as an intermittent song next year. even it might not be played at the show i'm going to,,,,,,at least there's YT!

 

[gvox]

Bullet in NJ in Oct 2001 was positively spine chilling.

 

[Yahweh_OMG]

ZooTv performances of bullet were amazing. I'm really glad they dropped it this tour because they'll never recreate this. Every performance since ZooTv just totally underwhelmed me.

Elevation Boston! To me it's the best performance ever since 1993!

 

[monsieur fly]

Elevation Boston was special yes. The Mark Chapman-themed climax was terrifyingly powerful.

 

[Swan269]

the live version on the bside of the stay single was epic.

 

[bono_man2002]

Bullet was probably the lowlight of the Vertigo setlists. made even worse by tacking on two snippets, one average and the other horrendously boring, which pushed it beyond seven minutes.

johnny comes marching home again
hurah hurah!
[insert bono's own lyrics here for the next three minutes]

 

[corianderstem]

The little When Johnny Comes Marching Home snippet was actually my favorite thing about the Vertigo version of Bullet. I thought it worked well.

 

[dazzledbylight]

Bullet in NJ in Oct 2001 was positively spine chilling.

then BrendenByrne now Izod Arena right?

i'll have to check for it on YT!

 

[Mountain Dew Ma]

it was the Continental Airlines Arena in 2001.

 

[gvox]

 

[paulrg]

I miss these angry/desperate songs and hope they come back, or even better, form part of one of the new albums. Always something special about the tension in Bullet, Electric Co, No Line On The Horizon and to some extent Last Night On Earth (live) and Gone - very energy infused songs.

 

[djerdap]

If you think Bullet lost steam after ZooTV (admittedly the finest version of the song ever), check out the Popmart Leeds version. Now that's heavy. And while we're at it, some Elevation Tour versions matched the intensity of the ZooTV ones easily (Boston 2001-06-09 or Slane 2001-08-25), largely due to the infamous Mark Chapman rant.

It was somewhere in the middle of the Vertigo Tour when the song lost its edginess, if you'll pardon the pun. Some early 1st leg versions featured some solid guitar improvs.

 

[gvox]

At one of the Toronto Vertigo shows, Edge either deliberately or mistakenly left on what sounded like the overdrive or distortion from say the ZOO tour, but played the solo he did on the Vertigo tour. The result, while a bit muddy (that's why I figured he didn't realize it was on) made me wonder why he didn't just do that all tour, and polish it up a bit. It was pretty awesome, there's a boot of it floating around somewhere.

 

[TheEdge25]

Bullet has always been just sort of...there.

Loved it on the album. Loved it live during ZooTV and even during PopMart. Totally got shit on during Elevation. Vertigo sort of brought the rawness of it back, but I could not stand it's set position.

Love and Peace or Else > Sunday Bloody Sunday > Bullet the Blue Sky
that just did not work for me.
Personally, I would have just not play LAPOE at all. Just did Sunday > Bullet. That whole section of the Vertigo shows just seemed really forced and unnecessary.

And I don't think Bullet The Blue Sky would work at all on 360 tour. Like at all. Leave it out of the set, U2!! Let Bullet sleep for a few more years. Then when it comes back, play it like you did on ZooTV and everyone will love you!

 

[cobl04]

If you think Bullet lost steam after ZooTV (admittedly the finest version of the song ever), check out the Popmart Leeds version. Now that's heavy. And while we're at it, some Elevation Tour versions matched the intensity of the ZooTV ones easily (Boston 2001-06-09 or Slane 2001-08-25), largely due to the infamous Mark Chapman rant.

It was somewhere in the middle of the Vertigo Tour when the song lost its edginess, if you'll pardon the pun. Some early 1st leg versions featured some solid guitar improvs.

the performance on the Slane DVD is fucking awesome.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I have immense respect for the Popmart DVD version, with Bono messing around with the umbrella and all. Badass.

 

[ascender_RS]

I think the Zoo TV version is the ultimate for me, but I loved the swagger they introduced to the Popmart version.

Looking at that shot from the indoor Zoo TV show, can anyone recommend a good bootleg video from the indoor leg either in US or Europe please?

 

[Galeongirl]

ZooTv Stockholm is amazing. Great quality too.

 

[schnumi]

Popmart version is just badass, everything works great combined with the visuals on screen etc and the huge lighting job.

 

[Edge_Orchestra]

Odd topic at they are not playing "Bullet..."on this tour.

Part might be they played it most nights of every tour since it came out. Part might be that they agree with fans that it's been a bit "played out" for now.

Seems they try to find a new approach each tour. "Vertigo" tour wasn't my favorite version. I thought that Popmart was an interesting arrangement. Joshua Tree and ZOO TV were the two better versions -- for me.

 

[djerdap]

Bullet is far from "played out", at least when speaking about it in relative terms to other U2 "warhorses". At least it was reinvented each tour, unlike stuff like I Still Haven't Found, Pride, One, Beautiful Day or I Will Follow. Sure, you can claim it lost its way the last time around during the Vertigo tour, but a new, fresh version would inject some rock and roll that this tour needs so much. Along with stuff like The Fly and Mofo.

 

[Unknown Caller]

The little When Johnny Comes Marching Home snippet was actually my favorite thing about the Vertigo version of Bullet. I thought it worked well.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who loves that part. In fact, I've always been very impressed with the Vertigo Tour versions of the song. Totally different take than past tours but it had a great vibe. Since the 90's, it was always fun to see what they would do with that song each tour because they always changed it up. When I first heard the Vertigo version, I just remember thinking, "They did it again...they found another way to reinvent this song". It was slow, bluesy, and to me, quite beautiful. Personally, I'd be more disappointed if they kept trying to churn out the ZooTV version tour after tour. It may have rocked at the time, but it would have gotten stale.

Anyone else out there love the 2005 version? I can't be alone.

 

[TheEdge25]

Odd topic at they are not playing "Bullet..."on this tour.

Part might be they played it most nights of every tour since it came out. Part might be that they agree with fans that it's been a bit "played out" for now.

Seems they try to find a new approach each tour. "Vertigo" tour wasn't my favorite version. I thought that Popmart was an interesting arrangement. Joshua Tree and ZOO TV were the two better versions -- for me.

Seems like they find new approaches for each song on every tour.

Streets is not the same on 360 as it was on Popmart or even Elevation. (And my favorite version of Streets are the PopMart versions, because I really like the harder and faster rock guitar from that tour).

Vertigo and COBL are different than they were on the previous tour.

With U2 being such a fantastic live band, they need to switch the approaches of songs up with every tour to keep things "fresh". Maybe Vertigo's version of BTBS was not met with much approval so they decided to scrap it for 360. Wouldn't it just be amazingly interesting to see early 'roughdrafts' of the set list the band members wanted to have on 360?

 

[djerdap]

Vertigo and COBL are different than they were on the previous tour.

Hmmm... I would find the changes made here relatively minimal when you look at the reinventions songs like Bullet, Running To Stand Still or With or Without You had at ZooTV, Streets or Bullet on Popmart or The Fly and Mysterious Ways (with the added intro and its general feel being more loose) on Elevation. This is one of my main gripes about the new tour is that the songs stick too close to the album versions and that reinvention angle is sorely missed.

 

[powerhour24]

The little When Johnny Comes Marching Home snippet was actually my favorite thing about the Vertigo version of Bullet. I thought it worked well.

This

Elevation Boston was special yes. The Mark Chapman-themed climax was terrifyingly powerful.

and this.


Not hating on the immensity of the 80's / ZooTV performances, but there have been other special moments with this song. I still lament the lack of energy on Vertigo, but I agree with cori, the snippet was special.

 

[God Part III]

I think each version has gotten better with time. I actually rank them JT<Lovetown<ZooTV<Popmart<Elevation<Vertigo.

Although I've only seen it live on the Vertigo tour, so I may be biased...

 

[SpaceBoy]

The Popmart version has always been my favorite, mainly because of the different approach Adam took with the bass part.