U2 are one of those bands, maybe the only one, that everyone should see -- I’ve said it before, even on here. They cross a lot of genres, with splendor enough even for non-fans, and they have the rare production deserving of a stadium, even greater if it were available. Though by now I’ve seen them more than once so I should be good, unless somehow they could pull off something extraordinary, which is within their scope but they could only do so much with songs we all know already. Then they come out of nowhere with not only playing an album in its entirety -- a trend you might have thought they were beyond -- but it’s an album as classic as it is beloved, and one that deserved a run-through if any did, based solely on how stellar each song is and how it holds together, even now. The Joshua Tree would be my by-far favorite by them if not for Achtung Baby, which seems like any entirely different thing by an entirely different band anyway, but most bands, even ones I love, generally only get one really great album, at most. Playing that could have been enough. I would have even considered putting down going to a stadium show, though going alone, since Carla had already been and was good for it, but I could have gone alone. Then Carla and her friend started to make plans to go, which left me free for the night, possibly to go to the same show. So the plan went to us going together, along with her friend's spouse, making it an even four. Somehow I got the job to get the tickets, which were pricey but at least I only had to pay for two (up from the one I was going to get originally, if I had even committed, which would be iffy considering how much they cost). The seats weren’t great, but if you were going to a stadium show and not wanting to spend through the nose, you would take what you could get and hope that the screens were big and the sound holds up. Carla’s friend balked at the price of the tickets and decided not to go, leaving me with the cost of theirs. I figured it was a big enough show and I could sell the extras, maybe even make a profit on it (though that didn't pay off for the Rolling Stones tickets, which was its own debacle). I took my time listing the tickets, not sure about the price, and even more unsure when they didn’t sell, until a few days before the show, when I dropped the price to about half of face. That wasn’t the biggest deal -- I was still getting money for them and I would be wiser about getting tickets for others in the future. And we had our own tickets so at least we were in for the show. I got the money for the extra tickets and had ours printed out, then they scanned when we got to the Bowl, assuming that if I gave them the tickets I sold they wouldn’t have worked. They checked out so we got in, no problem. In our seats, we even talked to the girls next to us who bought the tickets and they didn’t say anything about any difficulties getting in. At the time it seemed like everything worked out and we could enjoy the show. As it turned out, the tickets didn’t work for the girls who bought them from me. They bought some scalped tickets so they could get in, explaining why they were still there, but not from my tickets. Apparently I scanned the wrong tickets for us getting in, since the change in ownership didn’t register in their system, so I could have given them either, and I happened to give them the ones that we had sold. Maybe if we had gotten there after them our tickets wouldn’t have worked so we would have used the others ones and it would have worked out. Instead, we lost on 50/50 odds and they demanded their money back since I was a fraud. Luckily, they got a refund and I worked something out with StubHub. I didn’t quite have to pay for all four tickets, but it was a lot more than just one. The show wasn’t quite worth that -- no show with just one or two bands playing is -- but they made a great effort. U2 usually get great openers but they don’t always bring them to southern California. We didn’t need to have anything to do with the Lumineers, though owing Joshua Tree for their sound if not their existence, they were one with the theme of the night, a rock band rooted in American folk music, so they were an opening band in the purest essence, being a warm-up in the same vein for the main attraction. And even if U2 were playing a gimmick, this show was as grandiose as anything they’ve done. They had the age of the album behind them, and all these fans had been living with it possibly their entire lives, so they were sold on more than one level. The band even treated it as more than a run-through of the album as the entirety of the show, playing a mini-set of pre-album hits as a warm-up or a defiance of relying on just one work before getting into the album itself. U2 probably couldn't get away with anything but most of the hits, even if there were obscurities from that era. The songs from Joshua Tree still hold up but the context is different, with a political landscape that changed then changed again then changed again, and had currently gone to shit, as well as a sound that had been ripped off so deeply and so widely since that it was just engrained in what was rock music (including the better opening bands they got elsewhere in the tour, including Beck). They played the songs, half of which are usually a chunk of their set-list for any tour, but the fans got the deep cuts on this turn (including “Exit,” which had recently risen from obscurity among louder highlights into contention as my favorite track on the album, for its foreboding, subtle beat and rise to a contained fury, which Bono does well when he bothers to). In a place that size they couldn’t rely on just playing the songs so they dressed up the performance with visuals spread across screens as wide as the stadium space, movies just for that but probably literally the same as bigger versions, for as much as they could do with them and as much as they needed to match the intensity and majesty of the performance. The visuals were fine but just a backdrop when it was about the greatness of the songs, which were played as well as they have even been, not needing to risk changing up anything to disrupt the comfort of the experience. The album isn’t long enough to fill an expensive, out-sized performance, so they followed it up with more tunes, playing hits they were obligated to do no matter the theme of the show, and throwing in a few deep-ish and new cuts. Getting another recital of “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)”, there are no complaints from me. U2 didn’t turn down the grandness of their show, despite playing the lower-key album that vaulted them into being the grandest band for the next few decades, but made it work for filling the biggest-possible space. They didn’t bother with trying to make it intimate but they turned the opposite into its own monumental spectacle, and no one could expect less or want more (except for a fair price for a ticket).
“Sunday Bloody Sunday“
“New Year's Day“
“Pride (In the Name of Love)“
“Where the Streets Have No Name“ (with "California (There Is No End to Love)" snippet)
“I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For“
“With or Without You“ (with "Shine Like Stars" snippet)
“Bullet the Blue Sky“
“Running to Stand Still“
“Red Hill Mining Town“
“In God's Country“
“Trip Through Your Wires“
“One Tree Hill“ (dedicated to Chris Cornell)
“Exit“ (with "Wise Blood" and "Eeny Meeny Miny Moe" snippets)
“Mothers of the Disappeared“
“Miss Sarajevo“ (Passengers; with "The New Colossus" snippet)
“Bad“ (with "America" snippet)
“Beautiful Day“ (with "City of Stars" snippet)
“Elevation“
“Ultraviolet (Light My Way)“
“One“ (with "Hear Us Coming" snippet)
“The Little Things That Give You Away“
