From
www.atu2.com
April 25, 1997 "..the band is forced to stop and restart "Staring At The Sun" after beginning it off-key...."
May 14, 1997 "...During a concert in Memphis, U2 continue to have trouble playing their current single, "Staring at the Sun" -- Bono begins singing off-key and immediately stops the song, grabs an acoustic guitar, and after he finds the right key, the band begins the song again. .."
From the boots I have listened to, Bono may have had trouble keeping the rhythm of the acoustic guitar part and singing at the same time...I don't think they used a sequence or click-track for this song and they probably should have tried this as it would have filled in the sound and kept the timing right. I wouldn't recommend this for every song but the studio version of SATS is fairly electronic in nature so they should have tried this.
...and Gragravar is right - they were underrehearsed and this may have been an easy way out.
Gone and Mofo didn't sound great on the 1st leg but they worked on them and by the end of the 2nd leg and for the entire 3rd leg they absolutely rocked!!
"Do you Feel Loved" is another song U2 eventually abandoned in the popmart shows which is unfortunate as it had alot of potential...
..by the way - Gragravar is also wrong - his band doesn't play SATS very well - hopefully they will get the hang of it soon though...
Cheers,
Brady