Shuttlecock XXV: Cool Hats Club

[LuckyNumber7]

Don't check the Olympics thread, LN7, you're not going to like what I've posted.

I can only imagine

 

[djerdap]

Ever since the Sphere shows, I am inclined to confirm my suspicions in saying that the live versions of Love is Blindness are the greatest thing this band has ever done.

I was listening today to Lausanne 1992 show, and - if you can forgive and tolerate the (very) shitty sound quality - you will experience what could be the greatest version of this amazing song. There are other versions that are also fantastic, such as Birmingham and London shows on that same leg (2nd leg of ZooTV was truly incredible as far as pure musicianship goes) with Bono citing Yeats' poetry in the song's coda, but the intensity here is just off the scales. I can even hear a tiny Drowning Man snippet in there?

(Starts at 1:36:05)

 

[Hewson]

That's the band at the absolute height of its powers. Nothing will ever top that original ZooTV tour.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I would like to put a list together of the best U2 live songs. I would then like to submit it to the band and Msr. Jim Dolan, and have them play my setlist at Sphere next fall.

And so it shall be.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Alright i'm doing this first by album - and then we'll whittle it down into a setlist. There will be too many songs here. This is U2 we're talking about, after all - not Bruce.

• Boy
  • I Will Follow
  • Twilight
  • Out of Control
  • The Ocean
  • The Electric Co.
• October
  • Gloria
  • October
• War
  • Sunday Bloody Sunday
  • New Year's Day
  • Two Hearts Beat As One
  • 40
• The Unforgettable Fire
  • A Sort of Homecoming
  • Pride (fuck off, haters)
  • Wire
  • The Unforgettable Fire
  • Bad
• The Joshua Tree
  • Where The Streets Have No Name
  • I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
  • With or Without You
  • Bullet The Blue Sky
  • Running To Stand Still
  • One Tree Hill
  • Exit
• Rattle and Hum
  • Desire
  • All I Want Is You
• Achtung Baby (ok this album is absolutely killer live)
  • Zoo Station
  • Even Better Than The Real Thing
  • One
  • Until The End Of The World
  • The Fly
  • Mysterious Ways
  • Ultra Violet
  • Acrobat (what took you so damn long)
  • Love Is Blindness
• Zooropa
  • Zooropa
  • Dirty Day (ZooTV style, not e/i style)
• Pop
  • Discotheque
  • Last Night On Earth
  • Gone
  • Please
• All That You Can't Leave Behind
  • Beautiful Day
  • Elevation
  • Walk On
  • Kite
• How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
  • Vertigo
  • City of Blinding Lights
• No Line On The Horizon
  • Moment of Surrender
• Songs of Innocence
  • Cedarwood Road
  • Raised By Wolves
• Songs of Experience
  • The Little Things That Give You Away
  • The Blackout
• One Offs
  • 11 O'clock Tick Tock
  • Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me

That's 53 tracks. I'm sure there may be some disagreement on a few tracks on the margins here, but for the most part I feel this is fairly accurate.

So hey, guys (by guys i mean U2)... let's, ya know, scrap the new album ideas and focus on a two night experience at Sphere - one show pre 80s, one show from 90s on - playing nothing but your best fucking live songs. Make it happen, fuckers.

 

[Hewson]

Pop should include Mofo.
ATYCLB should definitely include New York, it was the highlight of that album live IMO (Sphere could have some good visuals for that, maybe a Sinatra theme).

 

[djerdap]

Mofo and Stay (full band) for sure should be there.

I don’t think Elevation and Walk On should ever be played again.

And I would love to hear The Ground Beneath Her Feet (full band of course) live at some point.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i think my practice is less about what we'd like to hear and more about consensus on songs that are great in a live setting - better than the studio recording, in many instances.

i hedged on Walk On. Elevation, nah, sorry - it's on the list. I'd be fine never hearing it again as well, but it's hard to deny that it goes off live.

 

[cobl04]

It’s incredible. It was in all honesty probably my favourite moment in the Sphere, because of the combination of the song and the visuals. Played so fucking well, and I genuinely felt this beautiful sense of despair and pain as the screen went that ultramarine blue and then the insects filled the screen. The Viva Las Vegas snippet too. I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it. Oh how I wish more of the casuals could have seen that moment for the achievement that it was.

 

[mikal]

I'd also add Electrical Storm. That was really good during 360.

 

[djerdap]

That's the band at the absolute height of its powers. Nothing will ever top that original ZooTV tour.

Early ZooTV legs were U2 at their musical peak. There was still the looseness and ferocity of Lovetown gigs combined with the sheer sonic assault of the Achtung Baby tracks and reinvented old songs such as Bullet the Blue Sky.

The Zooropa/Zoomerang legs had a bigger emphasis on spectacle and theatricality, such as the MacPhisto phone calls and the controversial Sarajevo link-ups. Every concert felt like a major cultural event.

The best rock tour ever in my mind. Nothing comes close, but I'm damn glad I witnessed the closest thing to it in the Sphere. And Sphere had Acrobat, unlike the original tour (its biggest flaw, if there was one).

 

[lazarus]

Early ZooTV legs were U2 at their musical peak. There was still the looseness and ferocity of Lovetown gigs combined with the sheer sonic assault of the Achtung Baby tracks and reinvented old songs such as Bullet the Blue Sky.

The Zooropa/Zoomerang legs had a bigger emphasis on spectacle and theatricality, such as the MacPhisto phone calls and the controversial Sarajevo link-ups. Every concert felt like a major cultural event.

The best rock tour ever in my mind. Nothing comes close, but I'm damn glad I witnessed the closest thing to it in the Sphere. And Sphere had Acrobat, unlike the original tour (its biggest flaw, if there was one).

The other flaw is that they couldn't figure out how to play Wild Horses, and wound up dropping it. They didn't get it right until Vertigo, and still rarely gave it the full band electric treatment; thankfully they nailed it with Sphere.

 

[djerdap]

I think that Wild Horses was fantastic on the first two legs of ZooTV and easily the best version they ever played. Edge's solos were excellent (which did show up again on the electric full band version in 2005). They did drop the song in 1992 on the Outside Broadcast leg after the 1st show, but they replaced it with New Year's Day, which was another wonderful addition, flowing perfectly from Until the End of the World.

Not the best sound quality (again) - for better quality feel free to check out Lakeland or Tacoma 1992 on YouTube - but this is my favourite version of Wild Horses (at 31:25 if the timestamp does not work out):

 

[phanan]

I saw the Outside Broadcast leg, so no Wild Horses, but New Year's Day was cool and provided a little bit more mix from an Achtung Baby heavy set.

Luckily, I was at the Vertigo show when Wild Horses returned (in full band arrangement) for the first time since then, so that worked out.

 

[u2popmofo]

I've got a giant wall of CD's collecting dust that I keep telling myself I need to get rid of, but the fanboy inside of me couldn't pass on preordering the Live in Dublin EP.

 

[djerdap]

Happy birthday to our dear guitar player.

Speaking of ZooTV, I was listening today to the Glasgow 1993 show which took place on Edge's birthday, exactly 31 years ago. You can see a slight difference in the performances of songs from the 1992 shows - tighter, but a bit more 'robotic', since they have been taking these songs on the road for almost a year and a half by this point.

The gig also featured the debut of Zooropa (only its second half though), and it was a bit sloppily performed, resulting in the song being unceremoniously dropped after the subsequent two Wembley shows. The Sarajevo link-up is in particular haunting, as it features a Bosnian woman talking to her son who was supposed to be there at the stadium. It is so surreal hearing your own language at a U2 show.

MacPhisto calls up John Major, and those Zoo TV confessionals in the encore - as Willie Williams has pointed out in a recent interview - truly are an uncanny predecessor of TikTok and other social media reel nonsense.

If there is another ZooTV flaw along with not playing Acrobat for me, it is that they have become impatient with the glorious 1992/early 1993 versions of With or Without You. By the time the Zooropa leg was coming to an end, they had played some abbreviated versions without the final coda (like in Dublin 1993), but here, they did not even bother to play it.

(better sound quality than the last two shows I have posted)

 

[BigMacPhisto]

A key thing missing from Headache's list is I Threw A Brick - A Day Without Me. Two amazing songs glued together.

 

[cobl04]

I like that the U2 film showing at the Sphere is called V-U2, clearly a reference to V-2 Schneider.

 

[djerdap]

The ZooTV Dublin EP is out... and despite being advertised as the famous August 28th 1993 show (2nd night), all songs apart from Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World are from the 27th (typical U2 management laziness when it comes to these releases). Which is a good thing, as we only have an average sounding audience recording from the first night.

Why oh why can't they just release a full show on streaming is beyond me, but it is at least something. Love is Blindness in particular is great.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I don't understand why they didn't just put out the full show

 

[lazarus]

They're dumb.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

They're dumb.

This tracks

 

[mikal]

I don't understand why they didn't just put out the full show

Well based on their editing of the falsetto during the Mysterious Ways Outro, they obviously want to hide that Bono was at his peak vocally in 92-93!