Let me begin by saying I saw U2 at a recent 360 show and absolutely loved it. Despite the fact that I was able to predict almost the entire setlist and missed out on “Unknown Caller” (my favorite song off of NLOTH), I nevertheless had the time of my life seeing them. Frankly, they could play whatever they wish and chances are I’d still have the time of my life.
With that said, my opinion on the new tour as a whole is that it is not what it could be. My main frustration isn’t so much the lack of rarities as it is the lack of NEW material. Thus far, only 7 songs off of NLOTH have been played, and one of those seems to have bitten the dust for the moment.
Let’s look back to the POP era. While I personally love Pop, the mainsteam opinion regarding it is generally that it is “that album that they had to live down”. While NLOTH hasn’t exactly blown the mainstream away, it has fared better than Pop did in the public opinion. With that said, how about we take a look at the average Popmart setlist. Despite the fact that Popmart was supporting a generally disliked album, each setlist nevertheless usually featured up to 9 songs off of Pop. Not only that, but there’s also the fact that all but one song off of Pop was at least attempted within the first leg of the tour. Popmart, as it should have, supported Pop.
Now, let’s compare this with the U2360 tour which, like Popmart, is a stadium tour. So far, 7 songs from NLOTH have been attempted. One of these songs, “Unknown Caller”, seems to be gone for the moment. That leaves 4 NLOTH songs that have not even been attempted yet. Look, I don’t buy into the whole “entitlement” thing, but if honest fans pay to go see U2 on a tour supporting NLOTH, then they deserve better than this.
As I said earlier, I love U2, and they have my love almost no matter what. But this is the tour for NLOTH, so they need to play it. Even if they don’t keep songs, they should at least attempt them. This is the only chance for new material to shine. It’s really as simple as that in my opinion