We can basically all agree that Bad and Streets are Thing 1 and Thing 2.
I’ll go out on a limb and throw out Beautiful Day (gets the casuals screaming) but, moreso, City of Blinding Lights. COBL gets an insane reaction night in and night out and never really gets old. If you had to go to a U2 show for a week in a row, I think you’d be less sick of that than if they played Bad or Streets every night. It’s immediate, it’s a rush, it soars.
If there were an inverse, then One is their shittiest live song. It has plodded along and sucked completely this entire century (was great live in the 90s). Passionless and dull. Maybe the casual audience is less bored by it or something but I’ve been more moved by all the garbage new songs live than I ever have been by One. So it’s their biggest net negative for live shows and I don’t get why they mostly can’t seem to move beyond it (half the SOI nights aside).
And if there’s a song that’s been played way, way, way disproportionately to its recognition by most of the audience, it’s Miss Sarajevo which has practically been a staple since the Vertigo Tour. Bono can do some nice operatics and I particularly like it but I always get the sense the general crowd wants to look at their watch.
The Top 10 In Chronological Order:
I Will Follow
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Pride (most plays and gets casuals on their feet)
Bad
Streets
With or Without You
Until The End of the World
Beautiful Day
Vertigo (again, casuals, but it’s never NOT exciting)
City of Blinding Lights
I’d rank Bullet at #11. Think the crowd tends to dig it but it usually doesn’t arouse a strong reaction right away and I think a lot of casuals don’t necessarily recognize it. Probably would have helped had it been on The Best Of.
New Year’s Day would probably be in the running if played more often, same for All I Want Is You, etc.