*Spoilers* - Rehearsals in Vancouver

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I'm delighted both NLOTH and Moment of Surrender are being rehearsed, both are songs I did not appreciate after writing off the album early due to the clangers on there. When I saw them in 360 the title track wasn't played either.

Today I love both songs and think they are representative of the magic they still possess. I'd value hearing either live very highly.


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Releasing the best song from albums doesn't necessarily mean it's a good fit for radio. Also I don't find The Troubles at all to be the best song on SOI. As far as a radio single goes it's way too slow and the casual / non fans will just fall asleep or switch the station. Radio singles aren't for hardcore fans and only hardcore fans would want something like The Troubles as a lead single. MOS maybe could have worked but again it's too slow and too long for a lead radio single. Your lead single should grab hold of the listener instantly and keep them. Think Beautiful Day and Vertigo. There's a reason why those were massive hits. Granted those were released in a time when U2 still had a younger audience. Still even with that factored into it when you have songs that are great and also perfect for radio(EBW & California) you release those ones as your lead. Not long epic slow songs or dreamy slow songs.

What artists like Tom Waits and Nick Cave do in regards to their singles or lack of singles isn't relevant to this conversation. Critics and fans of U2 alike both enjoy U2's new album and the songs on it but U2 is ina different position than the arists you mentioned. They want to be on radio, they want to compete on the charts. The point is U2 are VERY concerend with it and it's odd for a band who is that concerend with having a hit radio single to conistently chose the worst possible choice while ignoring the obvious best choice. Doing what Tom Waits or Nick Cave or whoever does wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for fans like us but it's not what U2 is trying to achieve so.....

You missed my point completely!
 
Gone at least.

You just know this will be the tour they bring it back, sans Suit of Lights. This band, I swear.

I can't believe they missed that opportunity on 360. Sure it might've been cheesy, but, well, at this point it's not as if that's going to matter.

But seriously, Pop songs were made for the 360 stage, and on the whole translate very well live no matter what the tour concept. Yet they've been unable to get out of rehearsal post-Elevation for reasons I can't fathom. Please, Mofo, Discotheque, and Velvet Dress were all worked on during 2005, for the grand total of two Discotheque performances. Mystifying.
 
It boggles the mind. So many great songs from Pop that would be amazing live, and yet they end up playing In a Little While and Miracle Drug.

Cool that NLOTH is being rehearsed.
 
"No Line On The Horizon" would be great for arenas where there's a smaller crowd that can be a bit more focused. Since we already know of two separate (and very different) recordings of the track, it's clearly an easy one to change up a bit and serve in a different manner than they did last time. I particularly would like hearing it because it was one of my favorites from the record and was no longer in the setlist by the time I got to catch the tour.


Here's everything rehearsed thus far:

Boy - I Will Follow, Out of Control, Electric Co.
October -
War - Sunday Bloody Sunday
UF - Pride, Bad
JT - Streets, Still Haven't Found, With or Without You, Bullet The Blue Sky, Running To Stand Still
R&H - Desire, Angel of Harlem
AB - Even Better Than The Real Thing, One, Until The End of the World, Mysterious Ways
Zooropa -
Original Soundtracks I -
Pop - The Playboy Mansion
ATYCLB - Beautiful Day, Elevation
HTDAAB - Vertigo, Miracle Drug, City of Blinding Lights, One Step Closer
NLOTH - No Line On The Horizon, Magnificent, Moment of Surrender
SOI - Every Breaking Wave, The Miracle, California, Song for Someone, Iris, Volcano, Raised by Wolves, Cedarwood Road, The Troubles

Non-Album - Ordinary Love, Invisible

- 38 tracks

Rumored - Sleep Like A Baby Tonight, This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now, Johnny Cash Cover

Italics = Not Played on 360 Tour
Bold = Never Played At A Regular Gig


Songs Being Rehearsed That Have Never Been Performed Live: 4 ("The Playboy Mansion" and "Iris" and "Raised By Wolves" and "The Troubles" )
Additional Old Songs Being Rehearsed That Weren't Played On The Last Tour: 3 ("The Electric Co." and "Bullet The Blue Sky" and "Running To Stand Still")
 
You missed my point completely!

No I didn't. I think it's you who missed the overall point of what was actually being discussed. I'm sure most of us agree that if U2 were to just do their thing for themselves and not worry about having the catchy radio hit it would be better for the hardcore fan base for sure. That's not what we're discussing though. We were discussing radio singles and what wold work best and what wouldn't. The Troubles would not work. It's a great song and if U2 didn't care about radio hits and decided to go with a song like that great. Maybe they'd get more praise for not caring about that stuff from some critics but they DO care so that isn't an appraoch they want nor was it anything we were talking about.
 
It boggles the mind. So many great songs from Pop that would be amazing live, and yet they end up playing In a Little While and Miracle Drug.

Cool that NLOTH is being rehearsed.
Are they seriously rehearsng In a Little While? I missed that if they are. WHY!?!?! would they drag that song out yet again. My god. That songa nd SIAMYCGOO need to die a quick death. MIracle Drug too isn't necessary. I agree with that.

Pop has so many great songs that would seemingly be perfect for the visual display I'm sure we will see. Mofo, Discotheque, Last Night On Earth, Staring at the Sun(electric full band), Gone, Velvet Dress, PLEASE, If God will Send his angels....... C'mon Man!

I'm interested to hear Playboy Mansion though so hopefully they use it.
 
Discotheque should come back. I don't get why they don't. 360 tour seemed made for it.

That snippet was just a tease! We needed the full version!

And I agree with other posters here...the 360 stage would have been awesome to bring back Pop songs on. I would loooove to see Velvet Dress return this tour. Under low lights, dark and sultry, Bono's voice crooning seduction while Ad, Edge, and Larry weave an atmosphere of mind-blowing proportions? Yes please!

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Hate to be negative, but it's kind of discouraging that it doesn't seem that they've rehearsed very many songs, especially if they're out talking about setlist diversity.
I'm really disappointed that Reach and Crystal Ballroom haven't been rehearsed, looks like it's unlikely that they'll be played early on.

It's hard to believe that they won't play Reach.

Crystal Ballroom would be great, but not surprising to not hear it - since it's a deluxe version-only track
 
I can't believe they missed that opportunity on 360. Sure it might've been cheesy, but, well, at this point it's not as if that's going to matter.

But seriously, Pop songs were made for the 360 stage, and on the whole translate very well live no matter what the tour concept. Yet they've been unable to get out of rehearsal post-Elevation for reasons I can't fathom. Please, Mofo, Discotheque, and Velvet Dress were all worked on during 2005, for the grand total of two Discotheque performances. Mystifying.

They've actually written a couple decent rockers lately to blend Pop with. A section of Gone-LNOE-Cedarwood Road-NLOTH would be a real jolt.
 
Are they seriously rehearsng In a Little While? I missed that if they are.

Seems to me he was referring to 360, encompassing bizarre choices across both the previous tour and the current rehearsals.

I'm baffled by Miracle Drug and especially One Step Closer. I think it would be cool for the latter to get a run, but why pick those two over so many enduring fan favourites? Also it'll be a little weird that HTDAAB and Pop might join Boy as the only album to have every song played live. You'd expect the likes of JT or Achtung to enjoy that status.

They've actually written a couple decent rockers lately to blend Pop with. A section of Gone-LNOE-Cedarwood Road-NLOTH would be a real jolt.

That would be awesome.
 
Noel Gallagher on the upcoming U2 tour...



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Thanks for the link -- his answer and observations about Tidal were funny.

In response to your now closed thread, U2 is starting in Vancouver perhaps because they knew the Canucks would be out of the playoffs but the Canadians and Calgary Flames would still be alive?

Seems as random as any other thought I could provide.

In terms of set list stuff, for awhile I had ignored Disc 2 -- it didn't do much for me. Somewhere along the line I read a post out here and revisited it -- thus I am crossing fingers for the long-shot of Crystal Ballroom to make it for Los Angeles on 5/30. Other than that, I'll take my bio-break during Bullet if they play it.

And well, this -- one last Poster Type:

RarelyBlueCrackIssExceptForTournCDtimuss CuzKidsStuffTooMuchas

These are Interference members who are perhaps a bit long in the tooth and often vape the Blue Crack only during new album and tour time. Often they get annoyed clicking through page after page of posts to keep up whilst rarely contributing much worthwhile (see). They generally appreciate the open forum and bantering about of great posters and their busy kids schedule and lives prevents them from enjoying more Blue Crack.

Until next week.

:wink:
 
As far back as JT they were making odd choices for singles - perhaps it's in hindsight but Red Hill Mining Town for ANY single, let alone second? Ridiculous. And great as The Fly is, it's not a lead off single. I agree California would have been a far better choice of SoI.

The Fly was absolutely perfect as the lead off single from Achtung Baby, in pretty much every way, it did everything they wanted it to do.

California should be a single, hopefully coming out in the summer, as it is a summer song in the way that they wanted Staring At The Sun to be.

EBW and SFS are designed to be singles so they were always going to be released. The Miracle was the real mistake, it just sounds how the general public expect a band of U2s age to sound. Maybe if they'd held onto Invisible a bit longer and put it on the album that could have gone first or if they were feeling very daring they could have gone with The Troubles or Reach around.
 
And great as The Fly is, it's not a lead off single.

What? Are you completely and utterly unaware of U2's history?

No I didn't. I think it's you who missed the overall point of what was actually being discussed. I'm sure most of us agree that if U2 were to just do their thing for themselves and not worry about having the catchy radio hit it would be better for the hardcore fan base for sure. That's not what we're discussing though. We were discussing radio singles and what wold work best and what wouldn't. The Troubles would not work. It's a great song and if U2 didn't care about radio hits and decided to go with a song like that great. Maybe they'd get more praise for not caring about that stuff from some critics but they DO care so that isn't an appraoch they want nor was it anything we were talking about.

I wasn't discussing that. I brought up my point apropos of nothing. I know The Troubles would not be a great radio single. I'm saying they shouldn't give a fuck and they'd get more praise. But clearly we're on different pages so I'll drop it.
 
The song count is now raised to 41 from 38. I'm only expecting 30-32 unique songs at the 2 Vancouver shows, I only think the cities with 4-8 shows will go anywhere near 40+ unique songs.

-Trying to Throw Your Arms Around The World(Tuesday only known airing so far)
-Hand That Built America(mostly B&E acoustic, sounding like an early run through)
-Sweetest Thing(Edge acoustic chord strums, band in the middle, some piano accents that could only be from Bono near the end)
-NLOTH was acoustic and maybe B&E only(Tuesday only known airing so far)

Joey Ramone seems to be the concert opener and Invisible the set 2 opener. There are front end "clumps" of songs but some have swapped between Set 1/Set 2. Cedarwood is in the middle of the set despite the premature NYT quote. Still guessing on the giant light bulb.

After the recorded voice intro to Miracle Drug there is theStreets opening drone it features what appeared to be Edge singing a verse/chorus of Sting's Fields of Gold. I heard this same snippet/song grouping last week week but couldn't pick out the words/melody that were low in the mix. Similar to Bono doing the bible verse during the Streets intro a couple tours ago, but over a minute long.

E-Better is the recent mild remix heard in dance sets by Deadmaus/Skrillex(2X4 mixtape?). More a subtle flavor twist than full makeover.

Blinding Lights & Streets are both about 5 BPM faster than previous tours. I only noticed on the 3rd day I heard it.

The Sunday Bloody Sunday remake has now been heard at least once in 3 different weeks, which is a musically a strong commitment than the 2009 acoustic version.

Another transition that I heard tonight as well as last week was the acoustic Every Breaking Wave ending in a long note held by Bono going directly into Bullet. A very jarring transition that was similarly used early on ZooTv with Bad/AIWIY/Bullet.

There seems to be a 5 minute ZOOTV-esque intermission video(like flicking through the tv channels every few seconds). Could only heard political stuff(Obama/Condi Rice name checking) mixed in with some tiny Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK sound bites. I still don't know if the "intermission" is like the 5 minute Popmart Lemon video or they throw up the houselights for 20 minutes.

One/WOWY/Ordinary grouping seems to be a strong candidate to close out the evening.
 
Some of that is really exciting! I fucking love Trying to Throw, would love to hear that. But that is offset by Hands That Built America, which is boring as fuck as it is, an acoustic version?? I don't know if I could think of anything I would like to hear them play less than that. Jesus.
 
:( NLOTH acoustic? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo

TTTYAATW would be epic. :D I'd love to hear that!

Recorded voice intro to miracle drug? So no Bono speech ruining the atmosphere this time? D: Neat! Also, Edge singing? EPIC EPIC EPIC! :hyper:

Thanks so much for the updates Peter, getting really excited for the tour start!
 
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