U2 new album "Songs of Experience" coming December 1st, plus 2018 tour.*

American Soul is one of those songs where I feel like simple changes could have made it into a better song, at least on the album. The song severely lacks drive and I blame it on The Edge's modern day usage of filter distortion effects. Plugging a tele into the Vox on full would have given a nice overdriven sound that the song sorely lacks. Wipe out the cheesy opening monologue and cut out the reprise ending and that would have made some significant improvements. (I have not heard U2's live interpretation of the track yet but it sounds like they did not change the layout of the song much).

 

Yep! All of that would be a good start. Would certainly improve it.

 

I keep coming back to the producers. I just, for the most part, can’t stand the production on these later albums. Also, I feel like the songs they are choosing to put on the record are not the strongest songs they are making at that time. For example, the Crystal Ballroom and Book of Your Heart are songs that didn’t make the main album cut but should have, in my opinion… And they are including some real stinkers. To me, every record since all that you can’t leave behind has been a mess in this regard.

 

Tonight yet another song made its tour debut (after the world debut of Landlady in the previous show). They played The Fly to close the first set. It didn't replace Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, but was added to the set instead.

(Maybe not the best video, but it seems to be the only one available right now)

That's now 6 songs from Achtung Baby that are appearing in the set (next to Zoo Station, EBTTRT, One, WGRYWH and Acrobat). As it is my favourite U2 album I'm OK with that.
And oh, Landlady was not played tonight.

 

Since I cant access any videos, was The Fly performed like the 2001 Boston version since Bono was not playing guitar? Or did they use a backstage guitarist? One of the few songs for me where Bono's strumming such as it is makes the song work live.

 

Now if they just added TUF back in that would be the best set yet in my opinion. Not as a rotation song but add it. I mean they are down to 22 songs now. 1 more can't hurt.

 

Awesome avatar, man. Brainstorm on the UDS!

 

It was played close to the 2011 360 tour version although it appears Edge is using some sort of Gibson hollow body guitar kind of like the hollow body he used on the song in 2005. There’s a couple more better quality clips showing up on YouTube - it sounds like Larry completely fell out of the rhythm near the end of the song.

Regarding Bono’s playing on the song, it wasn’t overly distracting during the ZooTV tour, but it was supremely annoying mostly because he was so high in the mix when they played it on the Vertigo tour. Conversely, when they played it at the end of the 2011 tour, Bono’s playing sounded pretty solid.

It’s really odd but in a good way how this tour is quickly morphing completely away from what it was even a few weeks ago, much less the US leg. It’s almost not out of the realm of possibility they will play Achtung Baby front to back by the last date in Berlin.

 

Such a better set list than when I saw them in LA on this tour!

 

Some were wondering if that was considered for Glastonbury 2011. I think they don't want to spoil the opportunity to do an Achtung 2021 tour.

 

LOL, Larry really does lose the plot in the last 3rd of The Fly. Also interesting to note he's playing stand-up drumming with no bass drum which in earlier tour versions gave the back beat a lot of needed muscle.

 

The original 2010 plan was to do 3 acts: a mini Joshua Tree set, a mini ZooTV set (a very faithful recreation of the first 30 minutes including video), and a mini 360 set. They kept the plan for 2011 with some cutting and pasting. ZooTV moved to the 1st act in a different song order, some new video, and no Zoo Station. The other 2 sets got mixed together for the rest of the show. The 80s songs were pretty much straight out of 360 setlists, but it was still the songs they were going to play in 2010.

 

I agree, I even play the riff with my ES-335 and a Marshall and the riff has the potential to sound massive. If they beefed up the rock on it, and went all out, it would have been great. But all in all it just sounds like a nice idea that could go so many places but doesn't

 

So they are rehearsing Dirty Day more often according to reports. I hope it makes an appearance!

 

Really want to hear this one live...

 

Same here. It's puzzling that they left those off of the main album.

 

Agreed. The only thing I can think of is that both songs seem reminiscent of other songs. Lucifer's hands riff is very T. Rex "20th Century Boy" and Crystal Ballroom guitar sounds like "Love Is The Drug".

Who knows the reason though. Maybe to add value to the non-free deluxe edition? Which those songs did for me.

 

Dirty Day... a great deep track. Interesting

 

Welp, after hearing an IEM recording of Dirty Day being rehearsed, I have to say my enthusiasm has waned in them playing this in a show. It is a reworking of the song and while interesting it just isn't what I was hoping to hear.

Sometimes U2's need to put on a "show" gets in the way. Just play the songs the way you wrote them.

 

Ha! Yeah, it's funny -- by the end of each tour, they seem to get bored with the "production" aspect of the tour, and that's when all the great unexpected chestnuts come out. Looks like we're at that point now. The German and UK set lists have been insane.

 

The re-working probably has a lot to do with Bono losing his falsetto abilities. I don’t mind the Edge and Bono back and forth singing, but could do without the talking between verses. But this is just a rehearsal. Who knows?

 

Thanks for posting the spoken word bits are pretty cool. I like The Edge taking some of the vocals duties as well. the song has some good crunch in the middle.

 

Doing a new arrangement of a song is always a crapshoot. The original studio version of Running to Stand Still is still one of my favorite U2 songs, but the version they did on the ZOO TV tour (captured on the Sydney DVD) is tremendous as well.

 

I know that Bono has been unable to do the falsetto in years but it's still a harsh reality to hear this and know that his voice is not the same. Extremely odd that it was his falsetto in the first place that really started to go when he began having the vocal/allergy problems.