Hawkfire
The Fly
OK, I apparently have way too much time on my hands lately, but I've been sifting through great sites like u2gigs.com and u2tours.com and following the setlist evolution the past couple weeks, which got me thinking about prior tours.
I wanted to see exactly how much U2 does - or does not - "change it up" over the course of a tour. Will we see the same 20 songs each night for an entire tour? Maybe, maybe not, but the data was revealing in confirming that U2 does have a very limited bag of tricks within their own catalogue.
I looked at each tour behind a studio album (counted Lovetown as the "Rattle" tour and Zoo encompassed 2 albums, where every other album had its own unique proper tour). I looked at how many ORIGINAL U2 songs were played in the entirety of the tour. I did not count snippets nor covers. Why not covers? Covers distorted the actual amount of change from show-to-show (ie in Popmart, the Edge kereoke slot had 20+ different songs), and with a couple notable exceptions (Satelite of Love, for example), covers were inherently rare and unlikely to have 2 or more slots in the same show represented by covers.
The results: during Vertigo U2 performed 52 different U2 songs (132 shows), Elevation: 42 songs, Popmart: 33 songs, ZooTV: 37 songs, Lovetown: 31 songs, Joshua: 30 songs, and the tours before that fewer than 30. Now, to some degree, the declining totals make sense, as with each album U2 adds to its library (approximately 120 studio tracks, and dozens more b-sides and oddities). But generally U2 have performed approximately 30-35% of their studio tracks in concert for the entirety of a tour. Currently on 360 U2 have done 32 different tracks, and are only at about 22% of their total studio releases. So to equal the historical 35% amount they'd need to add another 16 or so songs over the remainder of the tour, not an outlandish thought but probably on the high side.
Also of interest: U2 always has played minimum 7 tracks off the "current" release during the supporting tour. They've generally played a healthy representation of the immediate prior album as well, at least 4+ songs with the notable exception of PopMart (where prior album Zooropa got a goose egg). With only 2 tracks from Bomb thus far, (unfortunately) look for that album to be a likely candidate to add tracks going forward. The 2nd prior album has generally taken a big dive two tours later in terms of representation, although 360 is defying that convention as 2nd prior album All That already has 5 songs represented.
In terms of "bringing songs back", Vertigo was unprecendented in resurrecting songs that had not been heard the previous 3+ tours. Boy went from 2 songs on Elevation to a whopping 6, and even Joshua and Achtung went to 7 songs each from 5 each on Elevation (even if those totals are inflated by one-offs like Blindness and location-only songs like Mothers and One Tree Hill, 7 off each album is nonetheless impressive). Not surprisingly, October and Zooropa have been historically shunned albums, though POP is entering those unfortunate ranks. Interestingly, War/Fire/Rattle have held very steady at 2-3 songs each the last 5 tours, Fire getting a slight uptick to 4 songs on 360 already. Of course, no surprise that Josh/Baby get the most love from the older albums.
So in sum, U2 has generally had a working live catalogue of only 35-40 songs for an entire 100+ date tour. Vertigo expanded that to 52 over 132 dates, some improvement no doubt, but Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam fans will note that you could legitimately expect to hear 50 different Bruce and PJ songs in the span of about 4-5 shows, not 130. Of course, U2's production aspects, as well as their usage of sequencers and effects, probably limit their ability to bust out electric versions of more than 30 different original songs. While we can legitimately expect to hear acoustic versions of a few more songs, and the oddball cover every now and again, U2 are not going to change stripes at this point and for both better and worse, are what they are.
Hope some find these stats useful and look forward to any comments.
I wanted to see exactly how much U2 does - or does not - "change it up" over the course of a tour. Will we see the same 20 songs each night for an entire tour? Maybe, maybe not, but the data was revealing in confirming that U2 does have a very limited bag of tricks within their own catalogue.
I looked at each tour behind a studio album (counted Lovetown as the "Rattle" tour and Zoo encompassed 2 albums, where every other album had its own unique proper tour). I looked at how many ORIGINAL U2 songs were played in the entirety of the tour. I did not count snippets nor covers. Why not covers? Covers distorted the actual amount of change from show-to-show (ie in Popmart, the Edge kereoke slot had 20+ different songs), and with a couple notable exceptions (Satelite of Love, for example), covers were inherently rare and unlikely to have 2 or more slots in the same show represented by covers.
The results: during Vertigo U2 performed 52 different U2 songs (132 shows), Elevation: 42 songs, Popmart: 33 songs, ZooTV: 37 songs, Lovetown: 31 songs, Joshua: 30 songs, and the tours before that fewer than 30. Now, to some degree, the declining totals make sense, as with each album U2 adds to its library (approximately 120 studio tracks, and dozens more b-sides and oddities). But generally U2 have performed approximately 30-35% of their studio tracks in concert for the entirety of a tour. Currently on 360 U2 have done 32 different tracks, and are only at about 22% of their total studio releases. So to equal the historical 35% amount they'd need to add another 16 or so songs over the remainder of the tour, not an outlandish thought but probably on the high side.
Also of interest: U2 always has played minimum 7 tracks off the "current" release during the supporting tour. They've generally played a healthy representation of the immediate prior album as well, at least 4+ songs with the notable exception of PopMart (where prior album Zooropa got a goose egg). With only 2 tracks from Bomb thus far, (unfortunately) look for that album to be a likely candidate to add tracks going forward. The 2nd prior album has generally taken a big dive two tours later in terms of representation, although 360 is defying that convention as 2nd prior album All That already has 5 songs represented.
In terms of "bringing songs back", Vertigo was unprecendented in resurrecting songs that had not been heard the previous 3+ tours. Boy went from 2 songs on Elevation to a whopping 6, and even Joshua and Achtung went to 7 songs each from 5 each on Elevation (even if those totals are inflated by one-offs like Blindness and location-only songs like Mothers and One Tree Hill, 7 off each album is nonetheless impressive). Not surprisingly, October and Zooropa have been historically shunned albums, though POP is entering those unfortunate ranks. Interestingly, War/Fire/Rattle have held very steady at 2-3 songs each the last 5 tours, Fire getting a slight uptick to 4 songs on 360 already. Of course, no surprise that Josh/Baby get the most love from the older albums.
So in sum, U2 has generally had a working live catalogue of only 35-40 songs for an entire 100+ date tour. Vertigo expanded that to 52 over 132 dates, some improvement no doubt, but Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam fans will note that you could legitimately expect to hear 50 different Bruce and PJ songs in the span of about 4-5 shows, not 130. Of course, U2's production aspects, as well as their usage of sequencers and effects, probably limit their ability to bust out electric versions of more than 30 different original songs. While we can legitimately expect to hear acoustic versions of a few more songs, and the oddball cover every now and again, U2 are not going to change stripes at this point and for both better and worse, are what they are.
Hope some find these stats useful and look forward to any comments.
