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  1. Originally posted by blueeyedboy:[..]
    Unfortunately, we're all in the GA cheap seats. They have to keep the high dollar there-to-be-seen crowd in the corporate boxes entertained, too. It's the nature of the beast...
    Very true unfortunately, I guess there's some folk that would be happy to hear u2 18 live with one or two new songs.
  2. Originally posted by pleasegone:I miss the days when U2 would play whatever they wanted without worrying about visual cues and such. Prince suffered this disease, and then would get over it and be spontaneous again, and go back and forth from over rehearsed carbon copy shows to brilliant improv. I had not put in a Prince reference in a few weeks, so just wanted to let you all know I'm like Phil Collins, not dead yet lol.
    We had missed you
  4. I like how discussions of NLOTH inevitably bring up discussions of Pop as these two albums represent the second-most and most forgotten albums respectively.

    Personally, I would love to see certain songs from NLOTH come back. MoS is easily one of their greatest show-closers. Magnificent and NLOTH are both solid picks and Stand Up Comedy has a nice flair to it.

    It would be great to see some songs from Pop come back, but as I said before it's probably much more likely we'll see Bono's MacPhisto persona on tour than Pop.
  5. Originally posted by ahn1991:I like how discussions of NLOTH inevitably bring up discussions of Pop as these two albums represent the second-most and most forgotten albums respectively.

    Personally, I would love to see certain songs from NLOTH come back. MoS is easily one of their greatest show-closers. Magnificent and NLOTH are both solid picks and Stand Up Comedy has a nice flair to it.

    It would be great to see some songs from Pop come back, but as I said before it's probably much more likely we'll see Bono's MacPhisto persona on tour than Pop.
  6. Originally posted by pleasegone:I miss the days when U2 would play whatever they wanted without worrying about visual cues and such. Prince suffered this disease, and then would get over it and be spontaneous again, and go back and forth from over rehearsed carbon copy shows to brilliant improv. I had not put in a Prince reference in a few weeks, so just wanted to let you all know I'm like Phil Collins, not dead yet lol.


    They have always had a fairly structured sets with a few interchangeables. Definitely at the loosest during JT (IMO, and as my aging memory serves me) but when they got into the elaborate stage spectacles it reduced the opportunity to improvise.
  7. Originally posted by blueeyedboy:[..]


    They have always had a fairly structured sets with a few interchangeables. Definitely at the loosest during JT (IMO, and as my aging memory serves me) but when they got into the elaborate stage spectacles it reduced the opportunity to improvise.
    Their sets were at their loosest during Lovetown I think.
  8. Ok... You're right. I tend to overlook Lovetown since it never hit the States!
  10. One thing to keep in mind... It's actually really hard to be "spontaneous" when you have 14 albums worth of material plus B-sides and other releases. Yes, you have more material to choose from, but the amount of material the band can have rehearsed to a degree of performance that they are happy with is limited and probably doesn't increase much.

    IE actually serves as a perfect example of this scenario, mainly because they had a core set of regulars, a smaller set of songs on rotation, and an even smaller set of songs that were one-offs. Most of the one-offs, such as Zoo Station and Spanish Eyes, didn't have very strong performances. Miracle Drug didn't have any great performances and it was clear to see they were trying to slot it in as a rotation for COBL.

    I would argue that setlist structure vs. spontaneity is not really dictated by on-screen visuals. During 360 there were interviews with some of the show directors saying they had tons of visuals sitting in the bank that they could easily call up if necessary. With IE, the catwalk probably required more coordination for obvious reasons, but still that set up had a lot of bells and whistles that could be implemented at a moment's notice. To me, U2 goes into their show saying "hey we want to tell a particular story with our set, so let's play these songs." If they wanted to be more spontaneous, they could say "we're going to walk on stage and play whatever the heck we want in whatever order we want" and the directors would still make them look amazing.
  11. Originally posted by ahn1991:One thing to keep in mind... It's actually really hard to be "spontaneous" when you have 14 albums worth of material plus B-sides and other releases. Yes, you have more material to choose from, but the amount of material the band can have rehearsed to a degree of performance that they are happy with is limited and probably doesn't increase much.


    I guess you're not a fan of the bands that are usually mentioned when this issue comes up (that means every few weeks) haha.

    I love U2 and they're the band of my life but I can't deny they are LAZY when it comes to setlist variation. And that is a fact.
  12. Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]


    I guess you're not a fan of the bands that are usually mentioned when this issue comes up (that means every few weeks) haha.

    I love U2 and they're the band of my life but I can't deny they are LAZY when it comes to setlist variation. And that is a fact.
    Statistically, it's hard to say that U2 goes into a tour with a limited repertoire given the total number of unique songs performed, but I will agree that the number of rotating slots is limited.