ATYCLB on the Vertigo Tour.

[Axver]

As I've been working on designing setlists for the upcoming tour, I've been giving a good deal of analysis and thought to ATYCLB and its rather poor live record. I think that there are only three songs from the album that will appear on the Vertigo Tour, but first, let's look at ATYCLB's record on its own tour, Elevation.

(PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT AN ATYCLB BASHING THREAD! Whether or not you like the songs is totally irrelevant when it comes to their likelihood of being played live in the future or their statistical appearances in the past. THIS IS ALSO NOT A THREAD TO COMPARE ATYCLB'S QUALITY TO ANY OTHER ALBUM!)

On the opening night of ZooTV, U2 debuted ten new tracks from Achtung Baby. On the opening night of Popmart, despite a lack of rehearsals and a rushed schedule, U2 debuted eleven new songs, ten from Pop plus HMTMKMKM. That is the greatest number of songs U2 has ever debuted in one go, and is particularly interesting because of the lack of preparation. My point here is that they are 'live' songs.

However, on the opening night of Elevation, only eight new songs debuted - and ONLY SIX from ATYCLB! The other two were The Sweetest Thing and The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Even more startlingly, only ONE more ATYCLB song entered regular rotation - Kite was brought into the setlist almost a month later. At some nights on the tour, only FIVE ATYCLB songs were played. Not since the Unforgettable Fire Tour had such a low number of new songs been played a night.

The record for all of ATYCLB:
Beautiful Day - Elevation regular.
Stuck In A Moment - Elevation regular.
Elevation - Elevation opener.
Walk On - Elevation closer.
Kite - Elevation regular.
In A Little While - Was falling out of rotation even on the first leg of Elevation and was cut before the commencement of the third leg.
Wild Honey - Played acoustically a few times.
Peace On Earth - Pre-Walk On snippets on the third leg only.
When I Look At The World - Snippeted just the once, between Bad and Streets.
New York - Elevation regular, was slipping out of rotation on the European leg but was a permanent encore fixture after 11 September 2001.
Grace - Never played in any form.

As you can see, there were only six regulars - Beautiful Day, Stuck In A Moment, Elevation, Walk On, Kite, and New York. In A Little While was cut, Wild Honey barely appeared, and the remaining three either received paltry snippets or were not done at all! It's quite simple: ATYCLB is a studio album. Much of it did not translate successfully to the live forum.

The following is my assessment of how ATYCLB will fare on the Vertigo Tour:

Beautiful Day - Guaranteed regular.
Stuck In A Moment - Probable, especially acoustically.
Elevation - superceded and renderred unnecessary by Vertigo and All Because Of You.
Walk On - Similarities to Crumbs From Your Table mean it will be neglected in favour of the newer material.
Kite - Possible, particularly due to the Bob Hewson connection.
In A Little While - As a rule, a song cut during its own tour is gone for good. This one's not coming back.
Wild Honey - Won't be played.
Peace On Earth - Won't be played.
When I Look At The World - Won't be played.
New York - Unlikely to be regular, but possible in New York. People say Miami isn't played in Miami, but note the vast differences between the songs. Plus, note occurrences of Spanish Eyes in Spain and One Tree Hill in New Zealand.
Grace - Won't be played.

From that, we are left with only three ATYCLB songs that can be seriously considered for Vertigo: Beautiful Day, Stuck In A Moment, and Kite. Add New York only if you're in that city. I don't imagine more than two of those will be played a night. It's not a live album and it won't live on in the live arena long - besides Beautiful Day, a live staple.

Opinions, thoughts?

 

[paultjr]

I think next to the HTDAAB material, a lot of the ATYCLB songs sound inferior in the live setting. As much as I'd like to hear Kite, don't you think that Sometimes You Can't Make It... may cancel it out, much like your assesment that Vertigo and ABOY cancels out Elevation?

Great analysis by the way...

 

[bathiu]

On Elevation they played 5 songs from POP, was it regular like Discotheque/Gone (one song/show) and Wake Up Dead Man... or only sometimes present in the setlists: Please (accoustic) and Staring At The Sun (very often replaced by Stay).
On the other hand on PopMart there was not a single song played live from Zooropa.
So it not easy to predict how the band will treat their "previous" album on tour.

What is very realistic (living all the bashing behind ) is:

Beautiful Day played right after accoustic part of the show to bring back the energy.

I don't believe Kite will make a comeback, at least not by full band, I gues (and it's my wish also) the song will be used as some kind of "intro" to SYCMIOYO.

Walk On was a great Elevation closer and I don't see any place for that song in future setlists.

Stuck In A Moment is not a "stadium song"... may be played in U.S. arenas.
The song isn't "emotional", is not giving any energy at all... IMO being in any place of the stelist it would ruin the mood of the show.

Elevation has no chance with Vertigo, ABOY and many other songs that will make you "jump" at the show... so no.

Since the rest of the songs isn't worh mentioning (or, for that matter, were not released on singles), and not worth ever again being played live...
It leaves us with BD and maybe, sometimes Kite.

 

[zoopop]

I think they will only play Beautiful Day and Stuck (Acoustic). Maybe Kite once in a while. The new stuff is so much harder and ATYCLB doesn't really fit with HTDAAB.

 

[achtung y'all]

Beautiful Day will be played definately, Stuck possibly in an acoustic set and Kite might accompany SYCMIOYO as the emotional high point. The others we may see sporadically but not regularly.

 

[Axver]

I think next to the HTDAAB material, a lot of the ATYCLB songs sound inferior in the live setting. As much as I'd like to hear Kite, don't you think that Sometimes You Can't Make It... may cancel it out, much like your assesment that Vertigo and ABOY cancels out Elevation?

I'm torn on that issue. On the one hand, I think SYCMIOYO could easily be seen as superceding Kite. On the other, I imagine Bono might want to do a tribute to his father. You never know, they could even revive Dirty Day if that's the case!

Great analysis by the way...

Thank you!

 

[Axver]

On Elevation they played 5 songs from POP, was it regular like Discotheque/Gone (one song/show) and Wake Up Dead Man... or only sometimes present in the setlists: Please (accoustic) and Staring At The Sun (very often replaced by Stay).
On the other hand on PopMart there was not a single song played live from Zooropa.
So it not easy to predict how the band will treat their "previous" album on tour.

If we exclude Zooropa on the basis it was a mid-tour album and had a hard time translating to the live setting and ignore the third leg of Elevation (as its setlist was influenced by 11 September 2001), we see the following pattern:

Rattle And Hum to ZooTV: Desire, Angel Of Harlem, When Love Comes To Town, snippets of All I Want Is You = 3.5 songs
Achtung Baby to Popmart = Even Better Than The Real Thing, One, Until The End Of The World, Mysterious Ways = 4 songs
Pop to Elevation = Discotheque, Staring At The Sun, Gone, abbreviated Wake Up Dead Man = 3.5 songs

That's a very clear pattern. Note that 8 out of 9 RAH songs were played live, 11 out of 12 Achtung songs, and 10.5 out of 12 Pop songs. So you have albums that were played live significantly passing on 3.5-4 songs to the next tour. Meanwhile, ATYCLB was played significantly less live, really only 7 out of 11, so you would expect it to pass on a lower volume of songs.

On Elevation, Gone was very regular at first and second leg show, and sometimes Discotheque was played as well. Performances of Discotheque, however, were sparing - 17 performances at 83 shows! Gone, on the other hand, was played 53 times. Discotheque, occasionally, segued into Staring At The Sun, but it was usually acoustic. Please was played full band once and then acoustically, and only on the third leg.

I don't believe Kite will make a comeback, at least not by full band, I gues (and it's my wish also) the song will be used as some kind of "intro" to SYCMIOYO.

I explained my feelings towards Kite in the last post. I will be very interested to see whether it survives.

Stuck In A Moment is not a "stadium song"... may be played in U.S. arenas.
The song isn't "emotional", is not giving any energy at all... IMO being in any place of the stelist it would ruin the mood of the show.

I think it would work quite nicely in the acoustic set. I'd definitely find it to be more exciting than Stay or Staring At The Sun, both of which I find to be a bit of a snooze acoustically but brilliant with the full band.

 

[U2girl]

I think that more ATYCLB's songs would be played on the 3rd leg had it not been for the 9/11 events, and the setlists would IMO look more like the first two legs.

That said, the only ATYCLB song that didn't do anything for me live was Kite. I know, I know, lots of fans loved it - but it was exactly like the album version and I thought it had a problem with the fact it's such a slow song.
Beautiful day, Elevation, Walk on and New York did great live IMO. Stuck was ok, as was In a little while - and I wish Wild honey was played full band.

I don't know how many songs will make it - I think 3 or 4 is most likely. Beautiful day, Stuck, Kite and New York IMO.

 

[Axver]

I think that more ATYCLB's songs would be played on the 3rd leg had it not been for the 9/11 events, and the setlists would IMO look more like the first two legs.

Actually, ATYCLB was played more on the third leg than any other. Here's the comparison, song by song.

Beautiful Day, Stuck In A Moment, Elevation, Walk On, Kite
First two legs: Permanent.
Third leg: Permanent.

In A Little While
First two legs: Originally regular, but was being eased out of rotation even halfway through the first leg.
Third leg: Not played.

Wild Honey
First two legs: Played twice, once each leg.
Third leg: Majority of performances.

Peace On Earth
First two legs: Not touched.
Third leg: Snippeted before Walk On.

When I Look At The World
First two legs: Not touched.
Third leg: Snippeted once.

New York
First two legs: Was a solid regular, but as the second leg wore on, it was slowly being removed from the setlist (for example, it wasn't played at either Slane show).
Third leg: Cemented as a permanent encore song.

Grace
First two legs: Not played.
Third leg: Not played.

So as you can see, In A Little While was the only song that suffered on the third leg - the rest of ATYCLB either wasn't changed or received a boost. New York was the major beneficiary of this - it is likely that it would have been played less and less on the third leg had 11 September 2001 not happened.

 

[Aardvark747]

Jeez...Axver, you must've taken ages researching this! And for OUR benefit too! I'm touched!

 

[U2girl]

Well, if snippets count then sure, ATYCLB was played more on the third leg
While Wild honey was played most on the last leg, overall it still got much less "play" than In a little while.

 

[Axver]

Jeez...Axver, you must've taken ages researching this! And for OUR benefit too! I'm touched!

Is it scary that I actually knew all of this stuff off the top of my head and the only couple of times I looked anything up, I was just confirming that I was right?

 

[popmart86]

Grace
First two legs: Not played.
Third leg: Not played.

wait, do the seakers at the end of the show count? i wasnt at the elevation tour, but i heard that 'grace' was playing on the speakers when the show was over. does that count?

 

[Numb1075]

Why do folks think Stuck will be played accoustically? Has that been done b4? I've never heard of Stuck accoustic.

ATYCLB songs to be played on vertigo Tour - Beautiful Day and perhaps Kite on occasion.

I don't think Stuck or Walk On will be played as they will now be substituted for newer/emotional/slower tunes such as SYCMIOYO, One Step Closer, and OoTS.

 

[zoopop]

Why do folks think Stuck will be played accoustically? Has that been done b4? I've never heard of Stuck accoustic.

Yeah, its on a ATYCLB single. I think the European "Walk On"? Anyway, it sounds really nice. Stripped down and not so poppy.

 

[RA-D]

Is it scary that I actually knew all of this stuff off the top of my head and the only couple of times I looked anything up, I was just confirming that I was right?

yes

 

[Axver]

wait, do the seakers at the end of the show count? i wasnt at the elevation tour, but i heard that 'grace' was playing on the speakers when the show was over. does that count?

Yeah, I've heard Grace was played as the outro music too, but no, it doesn't count. I'm talking about songs that U2 will actually perform.

 

[Axver]

Why do folks think Stuck will be played accoustically? Has that been done b4? I've never heard of Stuck accoustic.

Yeah, there's a live acoustic version that's even been released officially, I think in the US it was on that Target 7 EP but I'm not sure. There's also rumours the band have been rehearsing it acoustically. I think, if they retain the acoustic set, that's the only place we'll see it. The band will want to play more than just Beautiful Day from their previous (publicly highly successful and popular) album, and if Kite has been superceded, all that's left is Stuck and I absolutely cannot see it played in the main set as there are already enough songs competing for the band's attention. It could work nicely on rotation acoustically, though.

 

[Numb1075]

Thanks for the Stuck accoustic info.

Usually they perform like 3 accoustics (roughly), so if Stuck is one, I wonder what they are leaving off the Accoustic jam part....Desire, Stay, Angel of Harlem, SATS?

 

[paultjr]

Stuck acoustic is better than the original in my opinion, I'd like to see that. Getting back to Kite, that would be a great acoustic number, possibly going into the full band version of SYCMIOYO.

As for the other acoustic numbers, I hope they move away from the usual predictable ones like Desire, Angel, SATS. Bring back Party Girl!

 

[Axver]

Thanks for the Stuck accoustic info.

Usually they perform like 3 accoustics (roughly), so if Stuck is one, I wonder what they are leaving off the Accoustic jam part....Desire, Stay, Angel of Harlem, SATS?

Well, they usually will only play two, actually. A bit variable. Some nights on Elevation, they played only one.

On Elevation, the main acoustic surprise was Stay, which didn't feature at all on Popmart, and Party Girl a few nights. Angel Of Harlem received surprisingly less treatment than people like to think - indeed, we can see the full band version on Slane! I'm hoping it will be very rotational - it is the one part of the setlist when U2 are not tied down at all and can pull out just about anything. Bring on Seconds, I say!

 

[BWU2Buffs]

Awesome analysis, I won't even try to keep up.

Having seen the snippet versions of both POE & WILATW, which were awesome, and considering some themes on the album, I think POE has some minor potential.

It's just a hunch, but given the state of world affairs, the album title, and how great even 2 minutes of this song sounded in KC, POE could show up occasionally.

I'm probably wrong, but I could see the same snippet of POE leading into something more powerful to transition the show.

Axver --- I'm still waiting on the setlist for the goofy contest posted last Sunday. And, BTW, if you send it to me, you automatically win -- no entries recieved so far. So much for fear of being overwhelmed and not having enough time to parse through the voluminous entries

 

[MorAz5973]

You think they'll really drop Walk On? I mean, all signs point to it being dropped because its a great closer and they obviously won't close this tour with it. But I think its too much of a big live song to totally drop. What about as a main set closer (if they dared to move streets) or a first encore closer. I really think that Electrical Storm is more likely to suffer from Crumbs being played (eve though Crumbs and Walk On have the same chord progression), that song has been cannibalized for sounds on this album.