Hey everyone, list your favorites! The reason I do bootlegs is because you never know on a random night you might find an extraordinary version of a specific song, or when Bono will say something awesome. The things that make a particular night stand out, BESIDES setlist itself / bootleg quality.
I'll start us off!
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2001-06-17 New York, New York - Madison Square Garden
Beginning of "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)"
"This song was started in Hansa Studios in Berlin, by the Wall, at a period at the start of the 90s when, um, I know a lot of Americans started getting all arty on you. [Laughs] Well you know, if you come from the north side of Dublin, you could do with getting a bit arty sometimes, ya know? [Cheers] But when you're floatin' out there, you might find some... interesting shit! [Laughs] Like this song, perhaps the most beautiful song that we have written."
1997-06-03 - East Rutherford, New Jersey - Giants Stadium
Beginning of "New York, New York" (Edge Karaoke)
"Tonight is a very special night, for tonight, and for tonight only... New York City, I'm gonna kiss your ass!"
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1997-06-03 - East Rutherford, New Jersey - Giants Stadium
Beginning of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
"I love this. We love America. America's been good to us over the last years... and turned us into a great big rock band, thank you. And then we got... we got kind of scared, of being a... great big rock band. We saw this big monster that we thought was gonna eat us up, this big, corporate monster that was gonna eat us up, swallow us up. So then we decided... that we were gonna eat the monster. [Cheers] That's what PopMart is. You're welcome! [Cheers] And then we just picked up bits and pieces of America, stuff we'd find on the edges of the towns and cities. We built this into a neon... thing. Some people go out to the country or wherever it is they find peace, but... I find peace in the neon. Anyway thanks for all those years. I have climbed..."
Beginning of "Where The Streets Have No Name" (after "Auld Lang Syne")
"Here she comes... the future. Happy Christmas [Cheers] and Happy New Year to y'all [Cheers]. It's 1990 [Cheers]. Forget about the past. We gotta celebrate the future [Cheers] where the streets have no name"
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1989-12-31 - Dublin, Ireland - Point Depot
Beginning of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
"Seein' it's New Year's, you probably expect me to get all sentimental, yeah? [Cheers] Well you're exactly right. [Cheers] This is the future. [Cheers] The only limits are the limits of our imagination. Dream up the kinda world you wanna live in. Dream out loud... at high volume. That's what we do for a living... lucky bastards!"
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1989-12-31 - Dublin, Ireland - Point Depot
Beginning of "Running To Stand Still"
"We got a lotta of people comin' from a lotta other places to come and see us tonight. [Cheers] A lotta people sitting outside in their cars tuning in tonight. [Cheers] Sittin' in their cars in Belfast and Glasgow... [Cheers] Liverpool and Manchester... [Cheers] Bristol and London... [Cheers] Well tonight we're making ya all Irish. [Big Cheers] This is a Dublin story."
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1989-12-31 - Dublin, Ireland - Point Depot
Beginning of "Pride (In The Name Of Love)"
"Dublin people got pride... in the name of... LOVE! It's just as well, 'cause we can't dance."
Before guitar solo, "Out Of Control"
"On the bass, from Malahide, Adam Clayton! [Cheers] On the drums, from the Artaine Boys Band, Larry Mullen Junior! [Cheers] And this is Edge! I dunno where we got him!"
Middle of "Out Of Control"
"Father... I need a lend of 500 pounds... cause, we're gonna go over to London, we're gonna score ourselves a record deal. And when we get our record deal, we're not gonna go to London, we're not gonna go to New York City, we're gonna stay and base our crew in Dublin. [Cheers] Cause these people... this is our tribe! [Cheers] But I still need a lend of 500 pounds. Whaddya say? My old man... I wanna thank my old man for that 500 pounds. I wanna thank Larry Mullen's father for 500 pounds. The Edge's mother and father for 500 pounds. Adam Clayton's family for 500 pounds. And by now, you've all probably given us about 500 pounds each, too, so thank you. I'm outta control! I'm outta control! I'm outta control! I'm outta controoooooool!"
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2001-09-01 - Slane, Ireland - Slane Castle
Beginning of "Kite" (one week after Bob Hewson's death)
"Edges old man Garvin was also a tenor, and my father was a tenor, in the Culloch Musical Society he used to sing. And when Edge's father and uh, my old man used to get together, they would kind of, uh... things would go off, ya know what I'm saying? And, I am remembering this second, my father, em, going down Madison Avenue, in New York, late at night, one o'clock, with The Edge's old man, both of them pissed as farts, singing the duet from the Silverfish. [Cheers] This is Kite, this is for Bob Hewson."
Beginning of "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
"Well here we are, the Irish in America.
The Irish have been coming to America for years... going back to the Great Famine when the Irish where on the run from starvation... and a British government that couldn't care less. Right up to today, you know, there are more Irish immigrants here in America today that ever... some illegal... some legal. A lot of them are running from high unemployment... some run from the troubles in Northern Ireland... from the hatred of the H-blocks... and torture... others from wild acts of terrorism like we had today in a town called Enniskillen, where eleven people lay dead, and many more injured... on a Sunday Bloody Sunday."
Middle of "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
"Yeah! And let me tell you something... I've had enough of Irish-Americans who haven't been back to their country in 20 or 30 years, come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home. And the glory of the revolution. And the glory of dying for the revolution.
Fuck the revolution!
They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution...
What's the glory... in taking a man from his bed, and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory in bombing a remembrance day parade of old-age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying.... or crippled for life... or dead... under the rubble... of a revolution... that the majority of the people in my country don't want. No more!"
1987-11-08 - Denver, Colorado - McNichols Sports Arena (Rattle And Hum Film & Album)
"Yep, silver and gold... This song was written in a hotel room in New York city 'round about the time a friend or ours, little Steven, was puting together a record of artists against apartheid.
This is a song written about a man in a shanty town outside of Johannesburg. A man who's sick of looking down the barrel of white South Africa. A man who is at the point where he is ready to take up arms against his oppressor. A man who has lost faith in the peacemakers of the west while they argue and while they fail to support a man like bishop Tutu and his request for economic sanctions against South Africa.
Beginning of "Desire"
"We've been in a band longer than we haven't, and... people think it's like being in a street gang or something, well, it's much more like the priesthood, or like the mob. It's an organization that em, you won't get out of it while you're alive. Being in a band is a wonderful thing, but, it's hard. You ask Zach de la Rocha, he's here somewhere. You ask him about Rage Against The Machine. Ask Billy Corgan, he's around here somewhere. Ask him about Smashing Pumpkins. Two great bands soon not to be with us, and I feel very very bad in my soul about that. And I hope you do, too.
I'd like to introduce U2 to you. I hope we have the lights. On the bass guitar there is a, uh, an instrument that holds mysterious powers over women. A sage, and the musical conscience of U2. A jazzman, and a great best mate, Adam Clayton. [Cheers]
Behind him, a man whose vibrations have altered the shape of my spine... and a man who gave us our first and only job and has never tired of reminding us of that. Another great mate, and a man so handsome he will never be let sing in this group, Larry Mullen, Jnr. [Cheers]
I don't think we've ever done this, have we? Uh, I don't know what to say about, uh... I don't know what to say about this man. A card-carrying genius, he's in constant contact with NASA over there. [Crowd chants "Edge!"] A zen, a zen presbyterian who would, who finds Catholicism too much glam rock for him. Extraordinary man who, eh... [Crowd member yells, "Yankee baseball!" followed by laughs and cheers] ...The Edge! Can you believe his mother still calls him The Edge?"
2004-11-22 - New York, New York - Empire Fulton Ferry State Park
Beginning of "Original Of The Species"
"This is a, this is called Original of the Species. [Cheers] Wow! How do you know this shit? [Laughs] Edge, I think I just figured out who, who got the CD." [Laughs]
"Is there a light on The Edge? There's a light IN The Edge, but is there a light ON The Edge?" [Laughs]
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2004-11-22 - New York, New York - Empire Fulton Ferry State Park
Beginning of "City Of Blinding Lights"
"Look at this. This is wlid. What a sight. [Points to Brooklyn Bridge & Manhattan skyline in NYC] Sometimes you forget why it was that you wanted to be in a band and so, going into this we reminded ourselves of why we wanted to be in a band. We listened to the albums that excited us when we wanted to be in a band. The music, and what it felt like to arrive here in the United States, come over the bridge, into Manhattan, snow was on the ground, and... amazing magical time in our life when we didn't know how powerful it was not to know. This is a song about innocence, naivete, and it's called City Of Blinding Lights. And the chorus is set in New York City looking at Brooklyn."
2001-06-06 - Boston, Massachusetts - Fleet Center (Elevation Live From Boston DVD)
Beginning of "In A Little While"
"When we first started out we were I guess 15, 16... Larry was 14, still is. Uh, the Ramones were the band, and uh... without the Ramones it's hard to imagine that we would have felt like we felt about, ya know, joining a band and all.
So this is a song that Joey Ramone loved. They played it to him while he was lying in his hospital bed a couple of months back. It was the last song that Joey Ramone heard in his life here, and... that's an amazing thing for somebody who grew up as a fan of Joey Ramone, I can tell you that. [Guitar riff starts]
Anyway Joey turned this song about a hangover into a gospel song, I think. Cause that's the way I'll always hear it now, through Joey Ramone's ears."
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2001-06-06 - Boston, Massachusetts - Fleet Center (Elevation Live From Boston DVD)
"This is a family business
I'd like to uh... to introduce you to the uh...
The scientist in the family
A man who, who takes sexual pleasure in the collection of data
Wearing the number seven shirt this evening
Even his mother calls him "The Edge"
On security, the bodyguard of the band
The man who gave us our first job
And... keeps us in our first job
On the drums, Larry, Mullen, Junior...
(Come on)
Come on down
The jazz man, the musical conscience of the... of the family
The man whose instrument holds
Mysterious powers over womanfolk
The poshest member of U2
Adam Clayton ya'll
Lemme, I'm the blind ambition of the band, that's my job
You need to be blind sometimes
Ya know what I'm saying"