I have been active on twitter, commenting with the U2start and U2gigs accounts each night and I commented during the excellent U2Start periscope broadcasts after the Amsterdam gigs. (they are soooo good, even with the smaller groups this week!)
I now have too many opinions on the tour to keep away from the forum any longer, I just wanted to take the time to introduce myself properly as I love reading other people’s U2 stories…
Read on if you wish, if not, nice to meet you anyway!
Me and U2
2001, age 14, school trip to Germany, Dad gives me a cassette to take due to a lack of interest in music up to that point, U2 Greatest Hits 80-90 on one side of the tape, All That You Can’t Leave Behind on the other. Life changed.
I will never forget hearing The Unforgettable Fire (the song) as I sat on the coach. I don’t know why it was that song that hit me first but wow, I discovered not only U2, but music in that moment. The intensity of the music, raw emotion, lyrics, just everything…..
That is to me where U2 are so different to other bands. You don’t just like their songs, they possess you, they become a huge part of your life, they create memories and so many emotions. The songs never get old, I can hear Streets a million times and it still makes me want to sing along and my head is nodding, foot tapping with the bass. Years on you can still discover a new song that once passed you by, you can suddenly love a song you used to hate and so on.
From 2001 onwards U2 has been everything to me musically. You can go through phases of not listening to them as much but they are always the Number 1 band. No other band comes close. I returning from that school trip and raided my Dad’s music collection for all the other albums, now I own all the albums, all the live DVD’s, re-mastered albums, B-sides etc. They became my band, not his. For Christmas that year it was the Boston Live video I couldn’t wait to get my hands on, falling asleep watching it that night. Atomic Bomb was of course the first album that was ‘mine’ rushing the shop to buy it on the Monday morning (anybody else already nostalgic about doing that?). I met the girl who would become my wife that same week, so that album is the soundtrack to us meeting and meant that instantly I had partner who also loved U2 and they had the same impact on her as me!
My first show followed, 10 years ago now I attended the Vertigo Tour, night 1 in Manchester. Despite only turning up around 5pm (dictated by the group I was travelling with) they had an odd policy of random security type men just handing out the wrist bands for the inner area, I luckily got one, so I was next to The Edge’s ‘pod’ and of course had an amazing night but honestly cannot remember much of it. I was happy to just see them at the time but looking back it annoys me that they played Vertigo twice when they have so many songs to choose from! Imagine if on this tour they suddenly also finished a show with The Miracle!
On 360 in 2009 I was at the Sheffield Don Valley gig. No chances with getting close were taken this time and being older it was in my own hands so we queued all day and were dead centre in the middle of the inner circle. Sensational. Getting to see some of my very favourite songs in The Unforgettable Fire, Ultraviolet and MLK/Walk On just made it one of the best days of my life. The broadcast on radio also means we have a perfect recording of that amazing night to always re-live it too.
So only 2 shows to date, but that is all my age and finances up to 2009 would allow.
To add at this point some of my other favourite songs aside from those mentioned include Kite, Bad and actually I love Ground Beneath Her Feet and When I Look At World probably because ATYCLB was the first album that hit me.
i&e Tour
I will be attending both Glasgow dates and even typing that is getting me excited! 1 month to go!
My view on the current tour is that the stage and screen set-up is fantastic of course and the band seem on great form.
Being critical (and it doesn’t make me love the band any less) but when you have paid nigh on £800 for seated tickets for 2 people for both nights in a city you expect more than 4 changes in the set per night, especially when you bought the tickets on the assumption they would be almost 2 different concerts after the comments from Bono prior to the tour. Don’t get me wrong, I would follow U2 around the world to every gig if I won the lottery and still enjoy it, I just feel this tour has so much scope for change and it would still be mind-blowing every night.
This post of a possible setlist from LikeASong caught my eye in the past week and really illustrates, as others posted, how easy it is to mix it up and still give people the gig of their lives....
01 - The Miracle
02 - [ Out Of Control / Electric Co / 11 O'Clock ]
03 - [ Vertigo / Elevation ]
04 - [ Gloria / I Will Follow / Two Hearts ]
05 - Iris
06 - Song For Someone
07 - Cedarwood Road
08 - [ Sunday Bloody Sunday / Please ]
09 - Raised By Wolves
10 - [ Until The End Of The World / New Year's Day ]
(intermission: The Fly / The Wanderer / Numb / God Part II)
11 - Invisible
12 - [ Even Better Than The Real Thing / Mysterious Ways ]
13 - [ Zoo Station / The Fly ]
14 - The Crystal Ballroom / Volcano / California
15 - [ Desire / All I Want Is You / Angel Of Harlem / Staring At The Sun / Sweetest Thing / Stay / etc ]
16 - Every Breaking Wave
17 - [ October / Running To Stand Still ]
18 - [ Bullet The Blue Sky / Love And Peace Or Else ]
19 - [ Zooropa / Ultraviolet ]
20 - Where The Streets Have No Name
21 - [ Pride / Walk On ]
--------
22 - [ City Of Blinding Lights / Beautiful Day ]
23 - [ With Or Without You / Kite ]
24 - The Troubles
25 - [ Bad / One / 40 ]
From my own ‘favourite song’ off SOI perspective I don’t understand how California isn’t getting played more. It sounds like a ‘single’, they obviously saw it as one of the better songs as it was played on Jools Holland and other promo shows and they chose to do it acoustic on the Deluxe album and now it hasn’t been played for 3 months – not once in Europe.
I would also prefer Every Breaking Wave to be acoustic one night, full band the next.
Desire and Angel of Harlem are definitely too frequent, once in 4 shows is more than enough never mind every night 2.
City of Blinding Lights and Beautiful Day definitely need to rotate and I would love Miracle Drug to be given another shot, mainly as it is my wife’s favourite song!
I feel like I can already predict the current 4 rotations for Glasgow with some confidence and that disappoints me slightly:
Glasgow 1
Song 2: Out of control
e-stage: Elevation & Volcano/Sweetest Thing
Closer: One
Glasgow 2
Song 2: Electric Co
e-stage: Desire & Angel of Harlem
Closer: Still Haven’t Found
I hope to be wrong and my main wish if I could dictate one thing is to get the Bad/40 ending for one of the nights. I just fear with it not being a 4+ night concert stay in Glasgow it won’t happen!
Anyway, I would like to finish my saying thanks to Remy and anybody else who helps to run this website, the content, photos and audio are second to none and the forum is great to read other people’s views and ideas. I look forward to posting in the future.
So if you have bothered to read this far, thanks for reading and hello again!
and I love the song. 
