Party Boy
Refugee
I've been listening to a lot of bootlegs of U2, especially from Unforgettable Fire/Joshua Tree tours era (which in my humble opinion are their best concerts). There is a freshness and great enthusiasm in the songs which I find is missing from the later tours. I'm not knocking any of the subsequent tours I guess from after the lovetour era onwards but it just seems to me that there was a shift in what made a U2 concert tick. Up to the Joshua Tree, U2 were a band still learning their trade and still on the rise to being the best band in the world. Subsequently, while they have remained pretty much the best band in the world, its like their concerts have become more of a showcase built around doing something different (such as Zooropa and Popmart, and to a certain extent the Elevation tour). Listening to bootlegs from the later era, for me, there is something missing - its passion but its not passion.. I guess its a rawness of playing new songs whereas in the later concerts, the rawness has obviously diminished somewhat after playing the same songs in some cases for 5,10 or 15 years. What would people like to see played? Playing new stuff or songs that haven't been played for years such as 11 O'clock tick tock, out of control etc. that made appearances in the last tour which will sound more relevant to the band, thus, more fresh to the audience, or alternatively, playing the old stuff such as WOWY, WTSHNO, Pride, etc that to me, have been played to death and this can be heard in some of the later performances...
Just an observation!
Oh, and Unforgettable Fire and Springfield Mining Disaster, live are amazing!
