1984-09-17 - Melbourne, Australia - Sports And Entertainment Centre

setlist

Performance notes: First performances of Wire and A Sort Of Homecoming. This is the only show to ever be opened by Wire, and one of only two shows on the entire Unforgettable Fire Tour to be opened by an Unforgettable Fire song (MLK opened 18 October 1984, Lyon).
Setlist and comment provided by U2gigs.com.

songs per album

  1. Boy (6)
  2. War (6)
  3. The Unforgettable Fire (4)
  4. October (3)

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show attendees: 2

u282
Australia
Robbieboy
Australia
2 users from Australia: Robbieboy, u282

review by DanielLikeAlbum

3 months ago

Performance

An interesting performance, all things considered, from the 1st leg of The Unforgettable Fire tour, with the band delivering a tight performance on the instrumental side for most of the night. However, with a few mistakes on the newer songs, the band is still trying to find their footing on the newer songs, which carries on until sometime on the second leg of the tour. As for Bono, let's just say... He isn't at 100% here and even mentions in-between A Day Without Me and An Cat Dubh that he has a sore throat at the show, which results in some quite unpleasant moments sometimes when he tries the higher notes present in the songs which I will do through with more detail below:

Wire's debut begins the show with a surprisingly tight band performance that Bono counters as he has to push through the song to reach the high notes in the first verse, which results in his voice cracking; however, his voice does seem to improve as the song goes on so it could have been worse.

Following this performance, the run from Gloria to Into the Heart is surprisingly uneventful, boasting music performances and a few unstable vocals here and there from Bono, which is expected in these earlier shows, so it doesn't bother me as much.

After these songs, we get a rough performance of The Unforgettable Fire, featuring Bono flubbing the choruses, not knowing how to sing them, sounding rough in places, and extending the song by trying to get the audience to sing along. This shows how primitive this song is on this leg, which thankfully improves by the time the tour reaches Europe.

Next up, we have four songs from the War album in a row, which, at first, are good performances minus a few rough attempts on some highs here and there until we hit Sunday Bloody Sunday, which features the guitar solo almost getting started way earlier that it should be, Bono struggling in places to the point where he hands some of the choruses to The Edge, Edge having a minor error on the guitar solo and Bono's voice giving badly out during the "NO MORE!" portion of the song.

Thankfully, the show seems to get back on track for a while as The Electric Co. is strong, minus a few minor rough patches in the vocals in spots and Edge messing up the solo again. Soon after this, the best Unforgettable Fire song performance of the night starts, which is the debut of A Sort Of Homecoming. It is sung quite well, and minus a chorus flub, it was a very nice start to the song's live career.

Unfortunately, from here on, Bono's vocal troubles become more prominent once more as he even has rough moments on the easy-to-sing October, which continues onto New Year's Day, which, to be fair, is somewhat rectified by Bono singing, "Maybe the time is right" in my eyes. Pride features rough choruses from Bono, with some very unpleasant singing being heard in places, though I found his improv lyrics quite intriguing near the end of the song.

After that, the show ends with decent renditions of Out of Control, Party Girl, I Will Follow and 40.


Sound

I would have probably given this recording a solid four stars had the quality not changed in places, but aside from these issues, it was a very enjoyable recording, allowing the performance to be heard from start to finish in decent quality.
Recording: "Sony WM R2 Stereo (1st gen)" - 3.5 stars

Audience

Honestly, these guys are just present, all things considered. They applaud when they have to and occasionally join in on some songs, but for the most part, they're kind of just there. I also have a preference for European audiences, so that may or may not have been a factor in this ranking.

Overall

Honestly, all things considered, this was quite an enjoyable and interesting listening experience. While it isn't the best performance on tour, and the band still have a long way to go before they're fully settled in on tour, finally being able to perfect the new songs and Bono's voice is not in the best shape it could be this show alone still had it's moments that kept me intrigued and were interesting to hear such as the debut of Wire which was only used once as an opener along with the later debut of A Sort Of Homecoming which in turn makes this the show on the leg with the most new songs in the set. It also probably helps that this is the highest quality recording on the leg, too, which means that it's more listenable when compared to other shows. And I would still recommend listening to this anyway, as it has its share of highlights and good and bad moments.

Highlights:
Wire
An Cat Dubh
Surrender
Two Hearts Beat as One
The Electric Co.
A Sort Of Homecoming
New Year's Day





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"Sony WM R2 Stereo (1st gen)"

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