Joshua tree set list speculation

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

U2387

Refugee
Joined
Jan 22, 2008
Messages
2,374
Location
Boston
Well, I guess it's time to start the set list speculation! We know we're getting some JT shows this year, so let me start:

The Joshua Tree

1) Streets
2) Still Haven't Found
3) With or without you
4) Bullet the blue sky
5)Running to standstill (Bono speech on JT, its background and how its relevant to America today- Trump, the opiate epidemic, etc-)
6) Red hill mining town
7) In God's Country
8) Trip Through Your Wires
9) One Tree Hill
10) Exit
11) Mothers of the disappeared
Break- video that somehow incorporates JT to AB transition, leading to updated Zoo Tv like effects

12)The Fly
13)Real Thing
14)Mysterious Ways
15)Until the end of the world
16)Who's gonna ride your wild horses
17)Raised by wolves
18)Sunday bloody sunday
19)Bad
20)Pride
Encore 1
21)City of Blinding Lights
22)Vertigo
23)Beautiful Day
24)I will follow
Encore 2
25)One
26)Kite

11 JT, 15 drawn from the rest of the catalogue.

This is a good start.

I'm going to assume this will be a back catalogue tour, which would be great in my mind. As time goes on, they could and maybe should replace COBL with whatever SOE song they would like to showcase first. No more than 1 or 2, though. That album/tour sounds like it's coming later in the year.

So for 1 show anyways, I've chosen to lean on AB for the rest of the catalog representation. Another idea to toy with is maybe another night lean on the early 1980s material. Another night still, lean on the parts of the catalog closest in time to JT- TUF & R+H. Maybe throw an extra 2 or 3 2000's songs in there a different night. You get the idea.

The way I put it together was to start, obviously with the full JT album then I wrote down 15 songs from the rest of the catalogue that could realistically get played. Wrote them down in no particular order. Then I put them in the best order based on past experience with U2 shows.

So maybe the best way to think of this is to expand our list of 15 songs from the non JT catalog to 25 or 30 and rotate in from there.
 
Last edited:
If I were U2, I would use this as a big opportunity to promote SOE. How? Make the JT Tour essentially a promo tour. "Remember this awesome album you love? Our new album is about that experience." In other words, release the first SOE single, play big JT shows in the most important markets over the next month, and then put out SOE.

Now if they go the full album treatment, you could do it like this:

1-11. The Joshua Tree
---intermission---
12. Vertigo
13. I Will Follow
14. SOE lead single
15. Elevation OR Angel of Harlem
16. Mysterious Ways
17. New about-to-be-released SOE ballad
18. Every Breaking Wave
19. Luminous Times OR Sweetest Thing
20. Beautiful Day
21. Pride

22. City of Blinding Lights
23. Spanish Eyes
24. One OR Bad

But if they don't go the full album treatment, how about this:

1. Where the Streets Have No Name
2. I Will Follow
3. Vertigo
4. In God's Country
5. SOE lead single
6. Elevation
7. Mysterious Ways
8. Desire
9. SOE ballad
10. One Tree Hill
11. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
12. One
13. Luminous Times OR Walk to the Water
14. Every Breaking Wave
15. Bullet the Blue Sky
16. Running to Stand Still
17. With or Without You
18. Beautiful Day
19. Pride

20. City of Blinding Lights
21. Spanish Eyes
22. Angel of Harlem OR Sweetest Thing
23. New Year's Day OR Bad
24. Mothers of the Disappeared

The only songs missing there are the two that have not been done since the JT Tour - Exit (that one Lovetown performance notwithstanding) and Trip - and the one the band never could do, RHMT. The remaining eight are sprinkled throughout the set along with some likely b-sides - Spanish Eyes and Sweetest Thing have been played live on the IE Tour already, Luminous Times is a song Edge mentioned considering, and I threw in Walk to the Water for the hell of it since it's probably the most popular JT b-side outside of those three. And it ends with the conclusion the JT Tour was always meant to have: Mothers of the Disappeared as a replacement for 40.
 
Special Joshua Tree show standard set list:

1. The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)
2. Vertigo
3. Elevation
4. Until the End of the World
5. Every Breaking Wave (Piano version while Larry and Adam take a much deserved break)
6. Angel of Harlem (acoustic, Bongo and The Egg only)
7. Ordinary Love (acoustic, Bongo and The Egg only)

(Larry and Adam return to rock out)

8. Song For Someone
9. Iris
10. Mysterious Ways
11. Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of
12. Sunday Bloody Sunday
13. I Will Follow

Bongo addresses audience "We're here to honor the 30th anniversary of a very special album in U2's history, The Joshua Tree (crowd roars), we'd now like to play some of that for you"

14. Where the Streets Have No Name
15. Bullet The Blue Sky
16. With or Without You (no tag)
17. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Encore Break

18. Beautiful Day
19. Pride (in the Name of Love)
20. City of Blinding Lights
21. One (Karaoke version)

Band exits stage, house lights come on to Prince's "Purple Rain"
 
Special Joshua Tree show standard set list:

1. The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)
2. Vertigo
3. Elevation
4. Until the End of the World
5. Every Breaking Wave (Piano version while Larry and Adam take a much deserved break)
6. Angel of Harlem (acoustic, Bongo and The Egg only)
7. Ordinary Love (acoustic, Bongo and The Egg only)

(Larry and Adam return to rock out)

8. Song For Someone
9. Iris
10. Mysterious Ways
11. Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of
12. Sunday Bloody Sunday
13. I Will Follow

Bongo addresses audience "We're here to honor the 30th anniversary of a very special album in U2's history, The Joshua Tree (crowd roars), we'd now like to play some of that for you"

14. Where the Streets Have No Name
15. Bullet The Blue Sky
16. With or Without You (no tag)
17. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Encore Break

18. Beautiful Day
19. Pride (in the Name of Love)
20. City of Blinding Lights
21. One (Karaoke version)

Band exits stage, house lights come on to Prince's "Purple Rain"

I think we can bank on this. Every once in a while they'll change it up with Vertigo x2
 
They attempt In God's Country once, but it goes horribly awry; Bono forgets every lyric except "in God's country" and it inadvertently transforms into In a Little While by the end.
 
1. Streets
2. In God's Country
3. Trip Through Your Wires
4. Bullet
5. Running to Stand Still
6. One Tree Hill
7. Still Haven't Found
8. Luminous Times
9. Until the End of the World
10. New Year's Day
11. Beautiful Day

12. Electric Co.
13. Vertigo
14. I Will Follow
15. Desire
16. Stay
17. Every Breaking Wave
18. One
19. Staring at the Sun
20. Spanish Eyes
21. All I Want is You
22. Pride

23. The Fly
24. Discotheque
25. With or Without You
26. Mothers of the Disappeared
27. Bad
 
Last edited:
I think you could bank on them revisiting some of their old JT tour set lists and just tweaking them to include Beautiful Day, One, Vertigo etc. Although I highly doubt Red Hill Mining Town and Exit will be played. Call it a hunch.

I just can't wait to hear Bono guessing how long some JT songs haven't been played for..."Here's a song we haven't played in 30 years"...(Streets intro begins)
 
Last edited:
If they go the full album treatment:

Sunday Bloody Sunday
Gloria
Vertigo
I Will Follow
Elevation
Mysterious Ways
Until the End of the World
New Year's Day
Pride
All I Want is You
Where the Streets Have No Name
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
With or Without You
Bullet the Blue Sky
Running to Stand Still
Red Hill Mining Town
In God's Country
Trip Through Your Wires
One Tree Hill
Exit
Mothers of the Disappeared
---------- BREAK ----------
City of Blinding Lights
Beautiful Day
One
Bad
"40"
 
Last edited:
I don't think they'll wait until the 11th song to play something from JT. (Yes, I am wildly optimistic in having 2 Pop songs in mine...)
 
If I were U2, I would use this as a big opportunity to promote SOE. How? Make the JT Tour essentially a promo tour. "Remember this awesome album you love? Our new album is about that experience." In other words, release the first SOE single, play big JT shows in the most important markets over the next month, and then put out SOE.

Yeah, if SoE is really finished, and it's meant to thematically/lyrically revolve around the band's lives when they released the Joshua Tree, your proposed set list and promo tour idea makes a lot of sense. It's a clever way of tying in these two events (SoE release and JT tour) without having to cancel/delay either. Plus, they can avoid any accusations of becoming a heritage act (I'm sure that's something they want to avoid considering their aim for relevancy).

It seems crazy to me to hold off on releasing new material until the end of next year in order to prioritise anniversary shows.

Though if U2 are backed into a corner by Live Nation and have to do this tour, I could understand them wanting to hold off on releasing SoE until afterwards, so they can do so without any sort of baggage.

After the dud of NLOTH, and the botched release of SoI/lack of promo tour due to Bono's injury, I could imagine they wouldn't want to juggle the release and promotion of SoE with a tour centred on a completely different album from 30 years ago. But if they're clever enough about it, JT shows could be a help rather than a hindrance in pushing SoE.

Anyway, I hope it goes the way you suggest.
 
Last edited:
Can't wait til LiveNation gets those 4 guys in a room and tells them they have to play Passengers front to back or "We'll see you in court!"
 
I'd pay serious money to see that. Fire Larry and replace him with a jazz fusion drummer, give Adam vocals on Your Blue Room. That'd be a fucking amazing concert.
 
OK folks, so the band will play the album in full. Edge in Rolling Stone says it will be in sequence, but show won't start with Streets. He also places a premium on the band's interest in addressing contemporary politics. Adam on radio says they'll play some old stuff leading to JT, then some newer stuff looking forward. Of course shit can change - we saw what happened with the two rotating nights shit on IE. But rolling with that:

1. Sunday Bloody Sunday
2. I Will Follow
3. Gloria
4. New Year's Day
5. Pride
6. Bad
7-17. The Joshua Tree
18. One
19. Beautiful Day

20. Desire
21. Vertigo
22. A song from SOE
23. Every Breaking Wave
24. 40

Though there'll probably be one or two more Achtung songs... ten bucks the 20th anniversary of Pop goes unmentioned though.
 
Ax, what do you think the odds are of seeing some R&H tracks show up in the set list in North America specifically, I could easily see Heartland thrown in there as it feels like a JT track ?

:shifty:
 
This setlist would make me happy though I know it's a pipe dream. Yeah I know there's nothing post Joshua Tree but I think doing it this way would not only be fitting it would kick ass. Obviously there's some other songs I'd like to hear from those old albums but for the sake of pleasing the general crowd I stuck to the hits mostly. Then because they just did a tour focusing solely on these songs they could ditch a lot of them for the SOE tour and throw us a handful of Pop and Zooropa songs and Acrobat. One can dream(out loud).

1. I Will Follow
2. Out of Control
3. Electric Co
4. Gloria
5. October
6. Sunday Bloody Sunday
7. New Year's Day
8. Pride
9. Unforgettable Fire
10. Bad / 40

**** Break with some sort of video/music montage of Joshua Tree and the era****


11. Where the Streets Have No Name
12. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
13. With or Without You
14. Bullet the Blue Sky
15. Running to Stand Still
16. Red Hill Mining Town
17. In God's Country
18. Trip Through Your Wire
19. One Tree Hill
20. Exit
21. Mother's of the Disappeared

*** ENCORE (but I could live without it as I think it's nice to close with the Joshua Tree album)***

Vertigo
Beautiful Day
One
 
Last edited:
Vertigo
Where the Streets Have No Name
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
With or Without You
Bullet the Blue Sky
Running to Stand Still
Red Hill Mining Town
In God's Country
Trip Through Your Wires
One Tree Hill
Exit
Mothers of the Disappeared

Encore break

Vertigo
 
Ax, what do you think the odds are of seeing some R&H tracks show up in the set list in North America specifically, I could easily see Heartland thrown in there as it feels like a JT track ?

:shifty:

glad this post was before mine, as I'm going to take a guess that the band will take this on. I actually really like that they won't be opening with Streets, I feel like a lot of the shows will start while the sun is still out

01 Gloria
02 I Will Follow
03 Sunday Bloody Sunday
04 Pride (in the Name of Love)
05 Drowning Man OR Surrender OR other rare pre-JT 80s song
06 The Electric Co
07 October / New Year's Day
08 Bad / 40
----
(as the crowd sings 40, all lights go out in the stadium and Streets JT tour style begins)
----
09 Where the Streets Have No Name
10 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
11 With or Without You
12 Bullet the Blue Sky
13 Running to Stand Still
14 Red Hill Mining Town
15 In God's Country
16 Trip Through Your Wires
17 One Tree Hill
18 Exit
19 Mothers of the Disappeared
---
20 Desire (w/ political shit)
21 Please (w/ more political shit)
22 Heartland (w/ the last of the political shit)
23 Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
---
24 City of Blinding Lights
25 Beautiful Day
26 Kite (but knowing U2, they'll do Walk On instead)

okay maybe that first encore is a pipe dream, but I went with Heartland because it sounds like a JT era song AND because Adam has called it his favorite U2 song, so I'm sorta hopeful he'll advocate for it this goaround. Wild Horses has pretty much no chance of being played over One or something but again, being the most JT sounding song I included it instead. plus I mean, Ultraviolet and Even Better have both been revived in recent times? idk I also hope they do a Achtung Baby 30th anniversary tour so I left off a good bit here.

Australia/NZ deserves one special thing the rest of the world didn't get since they never get U2, but I really want to see them try Kite out more as a closer cause it was fucking brilliant when they did.
 
Last edited:
The more I think about this the more I feel like I don't want anything post 1987. I feel like if the Joshua Tree is the reason behind the tour then it has to be the main event and they should end with it. Play whatever songs of the 80s leading up to the Joshua Tree, give us the full experience of growing into that album and then hit us with it full on. I feel like the show should end with the final Joshua Tree track. I'm seeing some weird set lists posted that just look like any other random show. If these are special Joshua Tree shows then the album should be the final set and played in full and the show should end there. ................ It won't though haha!
 
Probably a crazy idea, but could the band perform Joshua Tree in order....but backwards? Like, start with MOTD and then build up to the big hits at the front of the album (but the end of the setlist)
 
Probably a crazy idea, but could the band perform Joshua Tree in order....but backwards? Like, start with MOTD and then build up to the big hits at the front of the album (but the end of the setlist)

I like it!
 
Ax, what do you think the odds are of seeing some R&H tracks show up in the set list in North America specifically, I could easily see Heartland thrown in there as it feels like a JT track ?

:shifty:

My instinct is the opposite - that they'll feel eleven songs is quite enough JT and that we'll be lucky to get more than the obvious two (Desire, Angel of Harlem) from RAH. Apart from those, and Spanish Eyes in Barcelona, I'll be pleasantly surprised if they dig further into that era. I'm already worried they're going to dud us somehow, given in Edge's RS interview and Adam's radio chat they both equivocate a little. But that's residual caution from what was promised on IE relative to what was delivered.
 
Probably a crazy idea, but could the band perform Joshua Tree in order....but backwards? Like, start with MOTD and then build up to the big hits at the front of the album (but the end of the setlist)

Expanding on my idea, the setlist would have 4-5 non-JT songs to kick things off, and then something that serves as a good segue into Mothers Of The Disappeared. Then it's right into Exit, then right into One Tree Hill as a nice way to bring everyone back from Exit's darkness. Trip Thru Your Wires and In God's Country go back-to-back as upbeat rockers, then it's onto an acoustic stage for Red Hill Mining Town (in the rumoured new key so Bono can sing it) and then Running To Stand Still. Going from solemn piano song right into Bullet is basically what they were already doing on the I&E tour anyway with EBW, so that's a good fit. WOWY, Still Haven't Found, Streets, and there's your Joshua Tree tribute set.
 
One thing for certain... It'll be the same set list every night. Anything else and it might exceed expectations which is too much for them.

My tip... They will find a way to dud us.
 
1) Out of control (rotate Gloria)
2) I will follow
3) Two hearts beat as one (rotate NYD)
4) Sunday bloody sunday
5) Pride
6)Bad/40

Red screen segue to JT tour opening.

7) Where the streets have no name
8) Still haven't found
9) With or without you
10) Bullet the blue sky
11) Running to standstill
12) Red hill mining town
13) In God's country
14) Trip through your wires
15) One Tree Hill
16) Exit
17) Mothers of the disappeared

Brief intermission video

18) Desire (political/Trump)
19) Vertigo
20) Beautiful Day
21) Until the end of the world
22) Mysterious ways
23) Even better than the real thing
24) The best thing (or other new upbeat song)

Encore break

25) City of blinding lights
26) One
27) Kite
 
Expanding on my idea, the setlist would have 4-5 non-JT songs to kick things off, and then something that serves as a good segue into Mothers Of The Disappeared. Then it's right into Exit, then right into One Tree Hill as a nice way to bring everyone back from Exit's darkness. Trip Thru Your Wires and In God's Country go back-to-back as upbeat rockers, then it's onto an acoustic stage for Red Hill Mining Town (in the rumoured new key so Bono can sing it) and then Running To Stand Still. Going from solemn piano song right into Bullet is basically what they were already doing on the I&E tour anyway with EBW, so that's a good fit. WOWY, Still Haven't Found, Streets, and there's your Joshua Tree tribute set.

This works really, really well. Hence, they won't do it.
 
1. Out of Control
2. I Will Follow
3. Desire
4. New Year's Day
5. Sunday Bloody Sunday
6. Bad

7. Where the Streets Have No Name
8. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
9. With Or Without You
10. Bullet the Blue Sky
11. Running to Stand Still
12. Red Hill Mining Town
13. In God's Country
14. Trip Through Your Wires
15. One Tree Hill
16. Exit
17. Mothers of the Disappeared
18. Pride
19. One

20. Beautiful Day
21. Vertigo
22. Elevation
23. Every Breaking Wave
24. 40
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom