1. It's pretty obvious that's what it was. They had a chance to have a set of "we're a great live band, we will have songs from all albums" or "we're 50 and 30 years in our career but we still care about our latest album, here's 7 songs off NLOTH".
That's really not what this is about. This isn't their festival appearance capping this summer, or this tour, or this decade. This is, effectively, one and done, and so there's a far wider and larger expectancy attached. It's widely anticipated as, expected to be, and accepted by the band to be - a career retrospective gig. The whole thing.
Or at least pretend they care about the new songs by playing one or two songs off those 2010 Europe songs, next to the measly 4 or so NLOTH songs still in the set.
You mean Every Breaking Wave, North Star, Glastonbury, Mercy? Why on earth would they play those? They're not from anything, they're not necessarily going to end up on anything, they don't mean or say anything, they're not even very good. Glastonbury obviously has the winning link and might well get played, but I hope not.
Instead they went for the "we used to be great...and btw we're having a new remaster out this year" setlist.
The thing was always going to be stacked with JT/AB/ATYCLB. If you look beyond those, this isn't a "where we're at now" gig. Three or four songs from No Line at Glastonbury, I would think, is over-representation. Seriously. What else is likely? October? None. Pop? None. Boy? One. R&H? One. Zooropa? One. Atomic Bomb? Two. War? Two. Unforgettable Fire? Two. NO LINE?
FOUR? And three of those have already been comprehensively rejected by the public - one of them only well known in the UK for being
so bad - so why would you push what is universally regarded as utter shit as being evidence of where you're at now? If they have to do No Line material just because it's more recent, it should at least be something that is not only already not proven to be dud, but does actually show some continuing creative ability. Breathe, No Line, Fez-BB - would be fine with one of those as No Line's representative.
Boots? Magnificent? Crazy Tonight? Bullet the Blue Sky, Discotheque and Out of Control want your spots, and they should have them. And it looks like they've done Magnificent for The Fly? Come on. No brainer. How Magnificent outlasted Breathe/No Line, I'll never understand.
2. A good live set needn't be loaded with rockers. And U2 has plenty of good live material from "these days" to replace that block of 5 AB songs in the set.
No, a good live set doesn't have to be loaded with rockers. And a great U2 set should show a lot of diversity. But a good set, particularly a good festival set, should have loads of energy to it. Unfortunately, no, the 00s rockers don't stack up against rockers past. They have got a few mid-slow tempo songs from the past decade that are very good, but unfortunately, that's where a lot of their iconic monsters sit too. As good as, say, the Late '06 version of Kite is, it's not pushing a Bad or With or Without You out of
this gig. That just is what it is.
Weak for a band that prides itself on always looking forward.
Haha. U2 pride themselves on their size and reach. Kiss the future and fuck the past? Sometimes. But if it requires a bit of tickling the past too? They're more than happy to. And they have been for some time, it's not new to 360. If that's your complaint - they're leaning on the past! - then get in line.
Warning: the line began in 1998, it's getting pretty long now.
360 ? More like Zoo TV 2.0...
They went from the opening run of ZooTV into the opening double of the Joshua Tree tour, then reverted to 360. That might be effectively what they're going to do on Friday, or they might do more of those Classic Setlist Moments across the board.