your favorite live recording from each tour

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jeevey

jeevey

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I've just started to explore the wonderful archives over at U2start and there is so much material it's hard to know which to pick. I've been enjoying ZOO Stockholm and Elevation NY... now name your favorite bootlegged dates from each tour, so I can be sure to hit the best ones.

No arguing over whose "best" is best, though. Behave.
 
Starting with War Tour:

War - The Complete Boston Tapes

TUF - Chicago 1985

JT - Chicago (Rock's Hottest Ticket)

Lovetown - New Year's Night In Dublin

ZooTV - Dublin 1993 (Stockholm is a close 2nd)

Popmart - Leeds......by a mile!

Elevation - New Jersey (last night of 1st leg)

Vertigo - Chicago 9/21/05

360 - my mix of U22 and Edge's picks + Bonus tracks
 
As far as quality of the recording off hand

-Boston 81 FM Broadcast *there are many excellent soundboard and broadcasts from the Boy tour, take you pick on this tour.
-Red Rocks complete FM broadcast 1983
-US Festival 83 (Good quality, shorter setlist, open with Gloria instead of OOC)
-Nantes 1984 (only complete soundboard of this tour, a little rough but good quality)
-Dortmund 1984 (Best quality for this tour, TV Broadcast, but missing 3 songs from the show)
-Denver 1987 pro shot audio/soundboard full show. This is the best JT tour recording official or bootleg that is in "circulation". Best versions are 35 mm Black and White or Back In Denver bootlegs.
-Dublin December 26th 1989 Soundboard. *one of the best versions of One Tree Hill ever, I think it is a better overall show and sound quality vs the New Years show of Dublin.
- Zoo TV, the official version that the fansite issued of the Sydney 93 show is probably the best overall show. The Dublin Broadcast is probably right there also.
-Popmart, a lot to pick from here. I personally like the Santiago 1998 broadcast, but the Sao Paolo 1998 broadcast is also good and the Leeds broadcast is as well. The San Antonio 97 is a good raw soundboard also, typical Popmart show though.
-Both 2001 Atlanta soundboards are excellent raw recordings. The NY 01 mentioned is a good one as well. I like the 5-15-01 Chicago ALD (assisted Listening device) recording as well (I'm biased on that one though as I was there, best show I saw of 11 on Elevation.) For a different Elevation experience there is the Notre Dame Satellite feed, mixed up setlist for Elevation (biased here as well).
- Vertigo, one of my favorite tours, unfortunately the quality bootlegs are not as prevelant. The "almost" complete London 05 broadcast (missing 3 songs) one of the better ones and then probably the Miami 05 stereo IEM (in ear monitor) recording is one of the best.
-360 take your pick here. Sheffield 09 broadcast, Capetown 11 broadcast, Sao Paolo 11 broadcast and the Montreal 11 webcast all are pretty good. Also numerous stereo IEM's. Most of the good IEM's "in circulation" are by username sharebear/hoserama and from the 2011 N. American leg (IE Denver and Seattle 2011).

Just a few offhand.
 
Boy - Conspiracy of Hope: Meh
Joshua Tree: Tempe (whichever night has a pro-shot recording; I forget which it is)
Lovetown: I like the first, third, and fourth Dublin nights equally. And some of the Sydney stuff (namely Hawkmoon and God Part II) is fantastic. Really tough to say.
ZooTV: Sydney, because I love the Zooropa material. That Lemon performance may be my favorite U2 thing ever. Dublin and Stockholm are both utterly fantastic as well.
PopMart: Sarajevo
Elevation: South Bend and Slane Castle
Vertigo: if only pro-recordings count, then bleh. If not, then Honolulu.
360: Montréal, followed by Toronto night one.
 
As far as ZooTV goes, I love the Outside Broadcast soundtrack bootleg, Dublin, Washington, or Stockholm.
 
Here's an interesting question: what is the best ZooTV bootleg that is not Sydney, Dublin, Stockholm, or Washington?

I like Basel for its WOWY performance alone, but the sound quality is rough. I think there's a good inside broadcast Rotterdam show as well. I also happen to enjoy the Austin recording from the first leg, but maybe I'm biased (I wasn't attendance, though... in fact, I didn't exist when that concert happened).
 
digitize said:
Here's an interesting question: what is the best ZooTV bootleg that is not Sydney, Dublin, Stockholm, or Washington?

I like Basel for its WOWY performance alone, but the sound quality is rough. I think there's a good inside broadcast Rotterdam show as well. I also happen to enjoy the Austin recording from the first leg, but maybe I'm biased (I wasn't attendance, though... in fact, I didn't exist when that concert happened).
Click to expand...
I'd have to say the Outside Broadcast bootleg that I mentioned in my earlier post. I'm not sure where the recordings are from (pretty sure it's Dallas and New York City). It's worth it for the Streets and The Fly alone, in my opinion.

Washington is worth it just for With or Without You.
 
Its been awhile since I listened to the Dublin Zoo TV show, but I do listen to Ultraviolet from Stockholm and WOWY from Washington fairly regularly. Those would definitely be the big three shows from that tour bootleg-wise, along with the official Sydney show of course.

I wouldn't mind listening to another one of these shows if another one stands out. Same goes for any of the other tours too (particularly Elevation).
 
brooklynmike said:
That's it! Doesn't seem as intimate on the video as it was in person, but it was incredible. Especially since we felt miles away on POPMART.

Anyone who says Elevation wasn't an incredible tour simply didn't attend a show.
Click to expand...

It was a good tour and I enjoyed it, I do not know about incredible. To me it was not head and shoulders over anything else they have done. I think the setlists were evolving, then 911 happened and changed the vibe. I don't think the third leg setlists are all that great as a result to be honest. :shrug: I understand why they changed the feel, but the first and second legs were much better to me. I saw 11 Elevation shows, so I was in attendance. I'm in the minority but I like the Vertigo tour better. I like their setlists overall from Vertigo more than Elevation. Staging was basically the same. I may be biased because Electric Co was done on Vertigo and that was one of my dream songs for them to do.
 
Blue Room said:
It was a good tour and I enjoyed it, I do not know about incredible. To me it was not head and shoulders over anything else they have done. I think the setlists were evolving, then 911 happened and changed the vibe. I don't think the third leg setlists are all that great as a result to be honest. :shrug: I understand why they changed the feel, but the first and second legs were much better to me. I saw 11 Elevation shows, so I was in attendance. I'm in the minority but I like the Vertigo tour better. I like their setlists overall from Vertigo more than Elevation. Staging was basically the same. I may be biased because Electric Co was done on Vertigo and that was one of my dream songs for them to do.
Click to expand...

It was incredible to be so close to the guys after only seeing them from a mile away on stage even though you got the best seats in the house for previous tours.

Literally you could call out to them and they'd hear you, you could gesture and they'd see it, when they were down on the ramp.

The energy in the joint was off the charts pre 9/11 for those shows because of the intimacy. The post- 9/11 shows in NYC were the best (for the context) of any shows, ever.

Sure, there's been cooler stuff over the course of time, but nothing eats that emotional charge of the post- 9/11 shows. (Perhaps it's a personal thing because we were in the thick of the actual event)

Setlist- I've of course been to shows with better setlists, but even the warhorses were off the charts at that time.

For Vertigo, I was actually in the same spot a few times, inside and outside the rail and they were outstanding, but the emotional aspect wasn't as great.

(The Jersey 2011 360 was fuckin powerful too)
 
brooklynmike said:
It was incredible to be so close to the guys after only seeing them from a mile away on stage even though you got the best seats in the house for previous tours.

Literally you could call out to them and they'd hear you, you could gesture and they'd see it, when they were down on the ramp.

The energy in the joint was off the charts pre 9/11 for those shows because of the intimacy. The post- 9/11 shows in NYC were the best (for the context) of any shows, ever.

Sure, there's been cooler stuff over the course of time, but nothing eats that emotional charge of the post- 9/11 shows. (Perhaps it's a personal thing because we were in the thick of the actual event)

Setlist- I've of course been to shows with better setlists, but even the warhorses were off the charts at that time.

For Vertigo, I was actually in the same spot a few times, inside and outside the rail and they were outstanding, but the emotional aspect wasn't as great.

(The Jersey 2011 360 was fuckin powerful too)
Click to expand...

I understand why they changed the setlist after 911, they almost had to. It was almost like seeing a different tour to me. Same stage, different tour. I just did not think the setlist flowed very well in the post 911 shows. Does not mean they did not play some great shows. I thought the 360 setlists were mediocre until the last leg. But they still played some great shows on the first and second and a few on the third legs of that tour despite the poor pacing.

Like I said, I know I'm in the minority on Vertigo. But I thought it had a more raw rock feel to it (more grit to it if that makes sense) and the setlist pacing (outside of Pride into Streets, awful transition) flowed very well for the most part. It is a personal taste thing I guess.

I liked Elevation a lot, but again, I do not think it was WAY better than any other tour they have done. I'm not trying to cut down Elevation at all. I was just responding to the post those that do not say it was incredible did not see it in person. You could argue every U2 tour is incredible in some way really. :shrug:
 
Here are some of my faves that I have on my Ipod. Not a complete list from all the tours...Haven't gone through all of them yet!

October--11/22/81--The Ritz, NYC
War--8/14/83--Dublin, Ireland
The Unforgettable Fire--3/21/85--Chicago, Illinois
Love Town--12/11/89--Paris
Vertigo--7/16/2005--Amsterdam

NOW...may fave tour is ZooTV specifically the European 2nd Leg. There are so many great shows. Stockholm is awesome. Also, check out Paris 5/7/92, Frankfurt 5/29/92, Kiel 6/13/92 and Rotterdam 6/15/92. For me the best is Dortmund 6/4/92. I just love the show.

Here are just a few video examples. You can find the entire concert of many of the shows I listed above for the Zoo tour on Youtube.
Mysterious Ways:
U2 Mysterious Ways 1992 Dortmund - YouTube

and I Still Haven't Found/Stand By Me. I love the beginning of this song. The whole band were very much in the moment for this show.
U2 I Still Haven't Found/Stand By Me 1992 Dortmund - YouTube

Enjoy!

Have to go listen to the other tours.
 
Rhiannon64 said:
Really! What do you remember about the show? What were some of the highlights?
Click to expand...

The Electric Co was brilliant...great energy and the Smashin' Pumpkins snippet was perfect. I really loved Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, sure the 1992 versions were (a lot) better, but I was thrilled they played it anyway. Miss Sarajevo was a huge surprise and the opera part was beautiful.
The setlist was very good although I'm not a fan of Bomb (I dislike the album).
 
Some good shows if you are getting into live U2 music and want something from different eras :

1979-10-05 - Cork, Ireland
1980-02-26 - Dublin, Ireland
1981-02-12 - Den Haag, Netherlands
1981-11-14 - Boston, Massachusetts
1982-12-06 - London, England
1983-05-06 - Boston, Massachusetts
1984-10-23 - Nantes, France
1985-02-05 - Bologna, Italy
1986-06-15 - East Rutherford, New Jersey
1987-04-29 - Chicago, Illinois
1987-06-12 - London, England
1988-10-16 - London, England
1989-10-27 - Adelaide, Australia
1989-12-31 - Dublin, Ireland
1992-08-13 - East Rutherford, New Jersey
1993-08-28 - Dublin, Ireland
1997-09-23 - Sarajevo, Bosnia
1998-02-11 - Santiago, Chile
2000-12-05 - New York, New York
2001-03-30 - Atlanta, Georgia
2001-11-30 - Atlanta, Georgia
2004-11-20 - Brooklyn, New York
2005-09-20 - Chicago, Illinois
2006-12-04 - Tokyo, Japan
2009-08-20 - Sheffield, England
2010-08-06 - Turin, Italy
2011-07-09 - Montreal, Canada
 
Maybe some of you guys know what I couldn't find- a recording of the ZOO performance of SHFWILF with Daniel Lanois sitting in. There was a little clip of it in the Making of the Joshua Tree dvd. I heard a rumor that it was in Montreal but U2start had no audio or video of those shows. It was so beautiful, I'd love to hear the whole thing. And thanks for the tips- downloading 26/12/1989 right now.
 
Vlaco said:
26/12/1989 might be my favourite bootleg of all time.
Click to expand...
I don't really listen to U2 bootlegs anymore (actually, I almost never listen to U2), but this one is also probably my favorite. I adore the 1989 setlists, and that was the best tour for vocals and also a bit of a sense of fun and spontaneity.

That Dec. 26, 1989 show is also, I think, the first U2 bootleg I ever had! Bought it on CD many years ago, and it's been all downhill since...
 
Those of you who said Elevation East Rutherford, what was special about it? I'm with Rhi64 in being most attracted to the European shows so far.
 
Elevation East Rutherford has an amazing version of Bullet the Blue Sky. The most intense Mark Chapman version out there. It also has Bono singing the "Shine Like Stars" verse in With or Without You twice, which I never heard before or since. The Fly is also fantastic. Tons of great stuff.
 
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