Performance notes: U2 botch Staring At The Sun the first time around and perform it again. At the end of Please, Larry plays a snippet of Sunday Bloody Sunday's distinctive drumming. This show features the live debuts of Mofo, Do You Feel Loved, Last Night On Earth, Gone, If God Will Send His Angels (only time a full band version is played), Staring At The Sun, Miami, Please, Discotheque, If You Wear That Velvet Dress, and Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me. Setlist and comment provided by U2gigs.com.
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Nervy, under-rehearsed, and in places amateurish. It starts badly, gets worse, but it does pick up towards the end. The new songs from Pop are the runaway letdowns on opening night. A lack of time for rehearsals is evident and despite spending the best part of a week in Las Vegas preparing, it’s just not enough. Mofo kicks the show off abruptly interrupting Pop Musik. The band muddle through debut performances of Do You Feel Loved, Last Night On Earth and Gone. None of which sound all that coherent. If God Will Send His Angels doesn’t quite get going and Bono acknowledges this singing “I’ll do better next time” and querying the crowd “we’re getting there aren’t we?”. Unfortunately though they move on to Staring At The Sun which requires a restart as the band play it woefully off pace.
Between all of this the band move through some of their hits from recent albums and it’s a mixed bag. The Achtung Baby tracks are played reasonably well, Pride on the other hand is a car crash with Bono completely omitting the first verse completely and then struggling to hit the big notes of the chorus. A theme carried over from the end of Even Better Than The Real Thing where he makes a complete hash of the falsetto.
Things do generally get better after the karaoke song though. Bullet segues nicely from Miami and despite Edge coming through quite harshly, it’s a step in the right direction. Please highlights that the band can indeed get the new songs right and they have clearly rehearsed this section of the show more than the others as it closes the set strongly partnered with the new arrangement Streets, featuring new synths and a reprise that serves as a backdrop for a Playboy Mansion snippet. Larry even drops in a little Sunday Bloody Sunday snippet in at the end of Please.
Discotheque adds to a growing list of songs that haven’t been done justice and Bono goes absolutely all in for his snippet from the Howie B mix. But the night does almost end on a high with Mysterious Ways and One returning as a pair from Zoo TV.
It’s opening night of PopMart and it’s one that everyone will want to forget. Unfortunately the big hitters from The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby couldn’t save this one. There’s still a lot of work to do on the new songs and the set currently relies quite heavily on them. It’s a bold statement to make but tonight, it didn’t pay off.
Sound
Can’t really fault the sound quality, though it only helps to shine a light on the shortcomings of the performance. There’s a few crackles here and there, and I do have to mark it down for various fades and skips at unnecessary places. But the quality otherwise is more than acceptable. Recording: Soundboard - 5 stars
Audience
In fairness to the audience, they stick with it. It could have been so easy for them to lose interest, even turn on the band after quite a run of subpar performances. But, they remain encouraging and are happy when the band roll out some fan favourites.
Overall
Its opening night of the PopMart tour and it has come way too soon for the band. Their lack of preparation is evident throughout and even their hits struggle to keep them afloat. To their credit, they keep going and towards the end we do see some noticeable improvement, though by and large it’s the new songs that hold them back.
Aside from Please, the performances of the Pop tracks sound like the band are playing in four separate rooms and they can’t hear each other. It really is poor.
There was a long, frustrating week of rehearsals preceding opening night and even some nervy last minute rehearsals taking place on the day. It all shows.
Not even a patient audience and good quality soundboard is enough to rescue this one.
Highlights:
- Please
- Streets
Lowlights:
- The 10 other Pop songs
- Even Better Than The Real Thing falsetto
- Pride
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