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Yes, they played 7 songs on 360(2009). That was the largest representation from any one album on their setlist. I'm not comparing previous tours. I'm only referring to what has been previously discussed.

I'm comparing previous tours.....You don't have to. I'll do it for ya! When in the past U2 centered a tour around a specific album, that album had a lot more attention, focus, and more songs played from it than 7. (And that number 7 sure dropped quickly...)

Over the course of the tour, Achtung had Zoo Station, Even Better Than The Real Thing, One, Until the End of the World, The Fly, Mysterious Ways, and Ultraviolet. That's 7 right there. So no, NLOTH wasn't even the largest representation on the setlist. Did you just mean that first night? Um, okay. They played a whole (whoo-hoo!) seven songs on opening night, a laughably small number compared to what they have done on previous tours.

IMO a measly 7 out of 24 songs (plus snippets) doesn't make a NLOTH themed show.

Anyway, I'm not going to spend my time debating over whether 7 of 24 is a majority or even a significant proportion or "mostly" themed. It's clearly not.
 
When the concert tee features "No Line on the Horizon" and "Let me in the sound" on it, guess what, whether you like it or not, it was a NLOTH themed tour. Yes, they only played 7 songs for 360(2009), but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Maybe you should write Mr. Hewson a letter and ask him why he cut back on the songs for the 360(2011) tour.
 
I think U2 is "relevant" to all of the folks who caught their last tour and enjoyed it. I couldn't care less if they had a hit.

This is pretty much how I feel. I find it strange that when U2 talks about wanting to stay relevant and have hits and all that, people complain and say they shouldn't obsess over that so much, and yet we have fans here talking about how they worry whether or not U2 can stay relevant and be successful.

Certainly I wish success for my favorite artists, it's nice when they do well and have a wide fanbase and all that good stuff. But ultimately, just make good music that I enjoy listening to and that's all I truly care about.
 
I think that this graph that I made last year is interesting, so I'm going to post it again.

screenshotujn.png
 
right. we get it. they didn't end the tour playing a lot off of No Line. I thought that was established pages ago?

they spent the first two legs playing a plurality of the show from No Line material. What do you want them to do, play Cedars of Lebanon nightly? I would have liked to see White as Snow get played, and maybe Being Born, but other than that, they covered pretty much anything off of the album. No Line, Magnificent, Moment, Unknown Caller, Crazy Tonight, Boots, Breathe. Those were the songs that were going to get played, quite obviously.

And yes, it might be a smaller portion compared to Zoo TV or PopMart or whatever because U2 have a much, much larger back catalog now than they had in 1992. They have more material to cover and choose from. I'd much rather hear One for the 42nd time live than hear Stand Up Comedy, and I suspect most in attendance would agree.
 
right. we get it. they didn't end the tour playing a lot off of No Line. I thought that was established pages ago?

they spent the first two legs playing a plurality of the show from No Line material. What do you want them to do, play Cedars of Lebanon nightly? I would have liked to see White as Snow get played, and maybe Being Born, but other than that, they covered pretty much anything off of the album. No Line, Magnificent, Moment, Unknown Caller, Crazy Tonight, Boots, Breathe. Those were the songs that were going to get played, quite obviously.

And yes, it might be a smaller portion compared to Zoo TV or PopMart or whatever because U2 have a much, much larger back catalog now than they had in 1992. They have more material to cover and choose from. I'd much rather hear One for the 42nd time live than hear Stand Up Comedy, and I suspect most in attendance would agree.

Great post!

My sentiments exactly.

They definitely could've given White As Snow a couple shots(and they were considering it according to Willie Williams- White As Snow ->October->NYD), and probably Being Born too.

But that doesn't make No Line, Magnificent, Moment, Unknown Caller, I'll Go Crazy, Boots and Breathe meaningless.

Plus, 21% was the highest number on Digitize's chart and that was NLOTH.

I saw 2 great shows in Boston in 2009, but Montreal 1 2011 and Philadelphia 2011 were far superior to those.

I think it's pretty irrelevant how many songs they play from the current release, so long as they're not out there playing 1 or 2 tokens to back a half assed greatest hits tour.

To my eyes and ears, U2 performed a hell of a lot better in 2011 than 2009 and that's what made the difference. Not necessarily the year the songs played were released.

Regarding the back catalog, spot on! I loved hearing Pride, One, Streets, I Will Follow, NYD, etc on 360 because they all sounded phenomenal. They were actually trying on these songs for the 1st time in a long time. I don't think anyone who had Bad on their setlist would have been happy with a swap for Stand Up Comedy.

Good points about the catalog being bigger now- it definitely gets harder as the years go on. There were plenty of complaints going back as far as JT tour about live staples like Electric Co, Out of Control, 11 Tick Tock and Gloria going on the back burner to make way for newer tracks. It hasn't gotten easier for them.
 
I seem to remember that The Unforgettable Fire shows I saw (in my defence I was 10!) weren't as focused on that album as other tours I've seen.

Though of course that album had quite a few extremely short songs(MLK, 4th of July, maybe Promenade)and a few that were awkard to play live, EPAA and maybe ISS. Which meant that they had to play a lot of songs from other albums to make up the numbers.

360 did start out promoting NLOTH quite strongly but definitely wasn't at the end. Though in their defence a few of the songs didn't really lend themselves to the live setting, such as White as Snow, Unknown Caller(IMO), Winter, Cedars of Lebabnon or even Stand Up Comedy(though that's because I think it's shit!).

It's a big shame that they didn't start the shows with FEZ-being born, that would have been my preferred option, could have had some amazing opening graphics on those big screens, extremely evocative of the images that album initially was trying to conjure up. Or failing that NLOTH would have been a good choice, throw Breathe in later on and play MOS elsewhere as I don't think it worked as a closer.
 
Fez was one of my favorite tracks from NLOTH. I agree that would have been a great opener. MOS is one of my favorite U2 songs of all time, but I didn't like the version they performed on tour as much as the original. Stand Up, while not my favorite track, could have been aided perhaps by being performed acoustically.
 
My exact thoughts when I saw that image. :lol: Poor Pop gets neglected completely!

:grumpy: And atyclub gets played FAR too much.

Yup, playing Stuck & In A Little While, and nothing from Pop....sacrilege!

Infact forget Pop even...when you have such a rich back catalogue to draw from, WHY would you play these two songs on a tour which isn't promoting the album they're off?!
 
I will never tire of expressing my unalterable affection for In a Little While, as played anywhere, anytime.

Never.

Suuurely you'll be mine.
 
Yup, playing Stuck & In A Little While, and nothing from Pop....sacrilege!

Infact forget Pop even...when you have such a rich back catalogue to draw from, WHY would you play these two songs on a tour which isn't promoting the album they're off?!

Yes...let's NOT play songs off one of the biggest albums of our career.
 
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