Good lord, we're not asking them to invent a new method for splitting atoms or a cure for cancer. We're asking them to play some different songs that THEY wrote and THEY recorded, so I'm guessing they know how to do that. Also, we're not asking them to do anything that any number of OTHER artists can and have done. You say this like we're asking them to be exceptional, we're not.
What I'm looking for: just one experience where I go to a show and am blown away but what they pull out of their bag of tricks. I stood next to my sister the last time REM played Boston and she lost her mind when they played something (forget what, I'm not a fan) that they hadn't played in 15+ years, it completely rocked her world, not just once but a few times that night. They hadn't performed those on that tour before and they didn't again. There was significant variation from night to night, so she was reading the internet leading up to it and still didn't know what she was going to see that night. She had an idea but it was never the same. And there's no arguing their catalog is as extensive as U2's. They wrote and recorded their own stuff. So what's the difference? Lack of accommodations for the stage show?
I don't buy the "they play to casual fans" argument, for the number of times Bono bitches about seeing the same faces over and over again. Unless he's trying to drive them away with tedium and boredom.
Maybe it won't matter to me this time since I'm only going to two shows, but they better be two DIFFERENT shows, or I could've had an end table to go with my sectional.