thatotherplace
Babyface
Although I've been lucky to catch some excellent U2 shows even through the last decade, my favorite U2 show still remains April 22nd, 1987, last show of a 5 night stand at the LA Sports Arena during the 1st leg of the Joshua Tree tour.
I saw two shows at the Sports Arena during this week. The 1st show on April 18th was basically a standard if somewhat short set highlighted by the inclusion of Maggie's Farm and the band, especially Bono seemed tired by the last 3rd of the show. Still, it was great enough that I decided to see another night on that stand and scored a great single on the floor through a ticket agency just a day before the last show.
As people were filing to their seats with the house lights still on, Bono came onstage and started singing along to the Lennon version of "Stand By Me" which was playing on the PA with the band coming on and eventually taking over the song themselves while Bono ad-libbed some funny lyrics about how cool it was playing in LA for a week. This turned out to be the first time they pulled this trick, something they would do occasionally throughout the rest of the tour.
After that, Bono says "Let the show begin" and they turned off all the lights and Bono sang "MLK" in complete darkness and crashed into "Pride" with the house lights back on again. The crowd was one of the loudest U2 audiences I've ever heard - complete hysteria most of the show.
They wound up playing a completely rearranged setlist from the standard set that tour and included a great version of Electric Co and ended the main set with Bad. The encore was the first three Joshua Tree songs in order and ended with "40."
That remains as the most memorable U2 show of the 30+ of their shows I've seen since their first show I caught back in '81.
I was at this show. My first U2 concert. What a cool thing to read from someone that was there, too!
