2018-05-08 - San Jose, California - SAP Center at San Jose


setlist

  1. Love Is All We Have Left
  2. The Blackout
  3. Lights of Home
  4. Beautiful Day
  5. I Will Follow / Mother (snippet)
  6. Gloria / Van Morrison's Gloria (snippet)
  7. Red Flag Day
  8. The Ocean
  9. Iris (Hold Me Close)
  10. Cedarwood Road
  11. Sunday Bloody Sunday / When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet)
  12. Raised by Wolves / Psalm 23 (snippet)
  13. Until The End Of The World / Sympathy For The Devil (snippet) / America (Allen Ginsberg poem) (snippet)
  14. Elevation
  15. Vertigo / The Jean Genie (snippet)
  16. Desire
  17. Sympathy For The Devil (snippet) / Acrobat
  18. Landlady (snippet) / You're The Best Thing About Me
  19. Staring At The Sun
  20. This Is Not America (snippet) / Pride (In The Name Of Love)
  21. Get Out Of Your Own Way
  22. American Soul
  23. City Of Blinding Lights

  24. encore(s):
  25. One / Invisible (snippet)
  26. Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way
  27. 13 (There Is A Light)
Performance notes: First performance of Red Flag Day. Bono references Sympathy for the Devil in his speech as MacPhisto before Acrobat.
Setlist and comment provided by U2gigs.com.

songs per album

  1. Songs Of Experience (9)
  2. Songs Of Innocence (3)
  3. Achtung Baby (3)
  4. All That You Can't Leave Behind (2)
  5. Boy (2)
  6. How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (2)
  7. October (1)
  8. War (1)
  9. Rattle and Hum (1)
  10. Pop (1)
  11. The Unforgettable Fire (1)

best song performances

  1. Acrobat (4 votes)

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show attendees: 38

Remy
Netherlands
Sotie
Netherlands
hoserama
California
17 users from California:
KenL, MattressMan, Tesh, alison_u2, andreestes99, arsenal65, fieryern, hoserama, john2u, mars, mauriceh01, patchman71, rebs1964, sebovwdude, u2peace85, ultravioletPOPstar, vuk2015

5 from Washington: DJSoulless, Jerknife, chienjas, meandbono510, u2mofo
2 from Nevada: Memphisbelle, musichead42
2 from United Kingdom: Brizee, Turkued
2 from Netherlands: Remy, Sotie
1 from Australia: runningtostandstill
1 from Ohio: LostSailor
1 from Maryland: mdmomof7
1 from South Carolina: coastalchants
1 from Texas: erincada
1 from Hawaii: llamaboy
1 from Michigan: jpoe
1 from New York: rossman
1 from Idaho: BradF
1 from Arizona: Bowiegrrl

review by SJKamal

3 years ago

Performance


"Overall, this was the 4th show in the tour and the band were putting a lot of faith in their new material. They played 9 songs from the studio album they were touring, whilst also performing 3 songs from its sister album which only came out a few years before."

After being very familiar with the late European shows on this tour it was very refreshing to come back and listen to an early show. Love is All We Have Left starts the show with The Blackout following. Lights of Home then segues into a 2017 style version of Beautiful Day. I don't think this worked as well as it could have, and probably neither did the band seeing how they changed the order of the songs in a few shows time.

At this point of listening to the bootleg I'm still waiting for the show to really lift off. Then all of a sudden Bono yells "Now take the fucking roof off" and I Will Follow begins, which is followed by Gloria. Witnessing these two songs live back to back in the Europe shows was a highlight from 2018 for me, and they sounded good on this bootleg too.

The show then features the debut of Red Flag Day which is actually a surprisingly good performance. The general consensus from the fanbase is that they never really mastered this song live, and adding the singalong aspect in future shows didn't really help - but it sounded great here.

Bono then breaks into a speech about his Mother whilst the band play the instrumental for The Ocean. Maybe this could have done with some more practise as you can hear Bono tell The Edge to repeat certain chords and sequences. Nevertheless, the segue is great into Iris (Hold, Me Close), and Bono lets out an emotional yet compelling "Hold me close" at the start of the song.

Cedarwood Road then kicks in after a hint of a sketchy start as you can hear a few keys from the piano before The Edge plays his guitar. The Innocence section continues with an acoustic version of Sunday Bloody Sunday, and personally, I feel that the show has now taken a downturn. It's all a bit slow. However, we talk a lot about how songs sound better live than their studio counterparts and Raised By Wolves is definitely one of those songs, and to everyone's shock - Bono gets the registration number right!

"Comfort fucking me" Bono yells during the transition between Raised By Wolves and Until The End Of The World. We all like it when Bono swears (Ultraviolet, I'm looking at you). Until The End Of The World also features one of the two Sympathy for the Devil snippets for the night.

The intermission concludes and the band start the second act of the show with a very refreshing remix of Elevation - as seen in 2001. I think that this early into the tour the band were still performing this song in the screen instead of the b stage, which would have been nice to witness. Elevation and Vertigo get a lot of stick for being regulars in the setlists, but together they are a great combo, and it sounds good on the recording too. Vertigo includes its standard Jean Genie snippet.

Desire isn’t really a song that does much for me, but I found that I was really enjoying the remixed version they played this night. The introductions for the band were good and it kept the momentum of the show going, especially after Elevation and Vertigo. Bono then quickly manages to change from being a Showman to Mr Macphisto. This is where the second Sympathy for the Devil snippet appears, and it’s almost shocking how quickly the tone of the show changes from being very lighthearted (the 3 happy meal songs before), to talking about being the Devil and the KKK. The performance of Acrobat is fairly solid.

The tone of the show then takes another turn as an acoustic version of You’re The Best Thing About Me starts with a snippet of Landlady. A very nice moment in this song for me is when Bono speaks with Edge over the part of “I can see”. It’s very subtle, but adds a lot of meaning. I’m not sure whether Bono did this regularly throughout the tour, or if it's only noticeable because of the IEM recording.

Unlike the European shows there’s no speech before the next song and we go straight into an acoustic performance of Staring At The Sun, which sets up the climax of the main set, and a sequence of impressive segues. Staring at The Sun segues into Pride, which segues into Get Out Of Your Own Way, which segues into American Soul, which segues into City of Blinding Lights.

I spoke earlier about how studio versions of songs can take on a new lease of life when performed live - and American Soul, as well as Raised By Wolves, is one of those songs. The segue from Get Out Of Your Own Way includes the spoken word section from Kendrick Lamar, and despite the cheesiness of screaming into a megaphone “you are rock n roll” in front of a giant American flag, this song does pack a punch live.

The end of American Soul segues beautifully into City of Blinding lights which concludes the main set. The band start the encore with a fairly standard version of One, but include quite a short but nice speech about innocence and experience, and how there’s no them but only us. They then obviously include the Invisible snippet.

The encore then starts to pick up with Love is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way. Before this though, Bono asks the crowd if the sound is OK and if they can hear anything. The audience replied with yes, but this would suggest that there was a sound issue on the night, at least for the band. Finally, after the high of Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way, the band refused to send the crowd home happy. They bring everyone, including themselves, back down to Earth by finishing with 13 (There is a light).

Overall, this was the 4th show in the tour and the band were putting a lot of faith in their new material. They played 9 songs from the studio album they were touring, whilst also performing 3 songs from it’s sister album which only came out a few years before. As well as this, the band excluded all Joshua Tree material and performed only 3 Achtung Baby songs. 12 of the 26 songs in the setlist was newer material. Having said this, it was clear that the band were still working out the best way to approach this tour. This was very clear at the start of the show where I felt the flow was a bit off. Ultimately though, it was a fairly enjoyable listen, albeit not a special show by any means. A solid 3 stars out of 5, but in the future you would probably look to revisit this show because of its great recording, rather than the band's performance.


Sound

A very good recording that is well deserving of its 4.5 rating. As always I would recommend to listen with Headphones. I used Bose headphones, and converted the FLAC files to ALAC for consumption on Apple devices. However, it is important to note that if you are not a fan of typical IEM recordings with count ins (1,2,3,4s) this recording is not for you. Count ins are present throughout the whole show and at times could be quite distracting.
Recording: "San Jose 2nd Night (IEM matrix)" - 4.5 stars

Audience

Can't really judge the audience as this was an IEM recording with little to no audience noise. However, the times I could hear the audience they didn't sound particularly engaged. Especially during Pride where Bono asked the crowd to sign and said "We can't hear you".

Overall

Overall, this was the 4th show in the tour and the band were putting a lot of faith in their new material. They played 9 songs from the studio album they were touring, whilst also performing 3 songs from it’s sister album which only came out a few years before. As well as this, the band excluded all Joshua Tree material and performed only 3 Achtung Baby songs. 12 of the 26 songs in the setlist was newer material. Having said this, it was clear that the band were still working out the best way to approach this tour. This was very clear at the start of the show where I felt the flow was a bit off. Ultimately though, it was a fairly enjoyable listen, albeit not a special show by any means. A solid 3 stars out of 5, but in the future you would probably look to revisit this show because of its great recording, rather than the band's performance.

all reviews

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SJKamal Read more

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"San Jose 2nd Night (IEM matrix)"

  • Origins: IEM, CD Silver
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  • Lineage: XAVEL RECORDS (2018 X-AVEL) matrix: XAVEL-SMS-157
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