It’s 61 days until the start of the U2360 Tour, and as any uber-fan, it’s really hard to not be excited for the spectacle that’s to come. This will be the fifth consecutive tour that I will have seen and the first one since ZooTV that I have not been at opening night for.
I remember the anticipation in 1992 as I hung out at a friend’s house to wait for the phone call from another friend who attended opening night on February 29. Our friend Chuck told us the setlist and the stage design and all the details we had been eagerly waiting to hear. Then a few days later, we were glued to MTV to see the tour coverage and the mad rush of fans as they went up the outside stairs at Miami Arena to enter the show. Nine years later, I found myself stood on those very stairs listening outside as the band rehearsed for the start of the Elevation tour. Now, Miami Arena is no more, so my how times have changed. And, MTV really doesn’t cover music news the way it used to either…so thank goodness for the Internet.
I have decided to conduct a U2 fan experiment using myself as the experiment subject. I want to see if it’s possible for me to experience the U2360 tour with a completely clean canvas. Sure, being a long-suffering fan, I can’t go into the tour completely unbiased for obvious reasons. However, I want to see if it’s possible for me to not know *ANYTHING* about the tour starting today through September 20, which is when I will see them at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Which is 45 minutes outside of Boston…why they call it Boston is beyond me…but I digress.)
After chatting with M2 about it, he doesn’t think it’s possible for me to be completely disengaged about the tour. After all, I won’t be able to visit my favorite sites – heck I won’t even be able to view the site I write for until September 21 as there’s bound to be tour-related news popping up in Bits & Bytes. But, it’s small change for the opportunity to do something that I haven’t done for a U2 tour yet – go into it completely unaware of the show, the visuals, the themes, the theater, etc.
After doing 25+ shows on the Vertigo Tour, I found myself getting a little jaded about the show. What I enjoyed the most was watching the expressions of those who were only seeing the band for the first time and being completely blown away by their experience. After talking with many along the way, the fact that they didn’t know what songs were going to be performed, what the band would be wearing, how long the concert was, etc., gave me a fresher perspective. There’s nothing better than to look around the audience and see them gobsmacked.
Truth be told, I think it’ll be easier than I am anticipating. I have a 2-year old son and a 2-month old daughter who are quite a handful. I am finding that tending to them has put me into lurker-mode with most of my U2 online related activities anyway. But, to have accountability, I will be tweeting at regular intervals during this 5 month period about my experiences leading up to the September 20 show.
There are only a handful of things I’ve yet to do as a U2 fan, and this is one experiment I’m looking forward to partaking in. Please feel free to follow my journey. See y’all back on this site after I see the band in September!
Last 4 posts by U2isABLE
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I’m with you on this Sherry! I’m not sure why I want to enter with a clean slate. Maybe because it’s my first U2 show or maybe because I want to be surprised by the setlist. I don’t know.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone in this. Plus, I have to wait til Oct. 9th! This will be so hard!
Good luck to you,
Luke
I think, for me (i’ll be at foxborough too!) that my goal is, see what happens on the first night, see the set list, watch a couple of fan videos, and then that’s it. I get stuck in this nasty cycle where u2tours.com becomes my home page, and I see every set list variation and all the snippets, and all of that – I gotta stop it with that. I should come to the show, excited to see whatever the band is going to play, not excited to see if the band is going to play Bad in the second encore – that takes out all the fun.
it’s odd, because I think this year is going to be easier than ever for me to do that. Especially for some reason with Vertigo, I got just so wrapped up in set lists and order changes, and what happens on the first night vs. the second night, that I still remember concert running orders cold. I don’t think it was because I particularly loved the tour or the album (they were both okay), but because of the extreme challenge getting tickets ended up being. That was just hell. And this year, SO easy. maybe that takes the pressure off.
That would be like being completely oblivious to the first 100 days of a Presidency. Oh wait, maybe it can be done :>
I can completely relate. When it was approaching album release time, I avoided reading the album reviews and speculation that was appearing prior to the album being release because I wanted to have my own experience and draw my own concusion. I’m really glad I did. The album blew me away.
I’ve been a U2 fan for many years. But, this tour will be my first time seeing them in concert so I am planning to do the same for the tour, avoid tour speculation and try and enter in with a clean slate. I have my own reasons for avoiding U2 speculation. It’s acually easier to do than it sounds once you get the hang of it. Best of luck to you and anyone else who will be doing the same. It will be so worth it! =)
Sherry, didn’t you technically go into the last tour without knowing anything up front? Oh sure, you might have to push the opening night up to L.A., but did you know anything prior the Rehearsal?
I know I knew nothing…and I believe there were a few changes between L.A. and SD.
For Elevation, I got to Miami the night before the show…and surely you didn’t know they’d walk out on stage with the lights up.
With that said, I distinctly recall myself and the people I was staying with thinking the set in Miami was lacking in new material.
With that said, for me what the last tour lacked was crowd energy. If you go all the way back to the L.A. Rehearsal, the energy was all on one side….the side with the fans — the people who didn’t win a contest. On the other side (stage left), the people sat unless it was a huge hit. Our side everyone stood, as I recall, for almost the entire set.
That’s what the Lottery brought to all but the front of the hear…er ellipse.
11 shows…and the only exceptions were Houston, Chicago 4 (and to a lesser extent 3…but I’ll aways remember people talking about working during OOS) and the Miami shows which had the best audience I’ve seen since the spring MSG Elevation shows. Oh who am I kidding, they were probably better than anything I’ve seen since Zoo.
With that said, i’m not sure that I’ll go for a U2 blackout. I knew what was going on for Popmart, and it’s still one of my favorite tours and Seattle is definitely among my favorite shows.
KC – There fans buzzing on the ‘net about what was going on at various rehearsals prior to LA as they were practicing in Mexico prior to the start of the tour in 2005, so I had some clues as to what was going on.
For 2001, watching the little bit that we could from outside of Miami Arena, we knew that the lights were on in the beginning while the band played Elevation. For opening night, I missed the first song as I was being coralled in the media area and allowed to go out starting with the 2nd song to take pictures for @U2. So, I missed that part of the show for the first night.
I agree with you about the rehearsals in LA. I found it to be interesting in that they had a good mix of people based on what, on average, a U2 crowd consists of and I considered us to be part of a “focus group” if you will. You might recall that there were production staffers with their clipboards watching the two sides and taking note of things. Besides the management and security folks watching for recording devices or cameras, I believe they were also taking a measuring of how people reacted to parts of the show. We didn’t get the full production that night, and from reports afterward, they went through the show in full after we all left as well. (Side note – I still have my cadbury egg wrapper from that night…that was awfully nice of the band’s staff to give those out on our way home).
As the tour is stadium-based, I remember in 1997 the reports from Las Vegas were coming about a week or so before opening night as the band had set up shop to rehearse. I’m anticipating the same happening this year.
I am with you 100% on this and it’s all because of The Fly on the Elevation Tour.
My first Elevation show was in San Jose and when The Fly started I was so confused “what song is this? I have every U2 song, why don’t I recognize these lyrics? how is this possible?”
and then (after ~45 seconds) Bono sang the familiar lyric “Love, we shine like a burning star…” and then The Edge came in with the riff I know and love.
That version of The Fly blew me away, and the fact that I hadn’t heard any bootleg versions of it (and knew nothing about the awesome new intro) made me literally drop my jaw in awe.
I always think of that moment when a new U2 tour starts and it’s why I always stay spoiler-free until my first show of the tour (and then I go crazy and dig up all the setlist changes and everything
PS your post made me dig up that 4-19-2001 version of The Fly… it still rocks, thanks for reminding me about it!
Was the intro to the fly the same in FL? My touch point for Elevation is generally the Spring MSG shows…..I liked the second one best, but the Recording for of night one is better
Sherry, i guess for me L.A. was mostly all surprises, because there were lots of rumors from Mexico, including Lemon (which I found incredibly hard to believe, because I really don’t think Bono could sing it unless the key was dropped a to).
The other thing is I find it incredibly easy to ignore most of the pretour stuff. However, I don’t know if I can skip out on setlists for 2 or 3 months.
Truth is, it won’t matter much to me if I know. I have an incredible knack of forgetting song orders….and what bugs me more than anything is the recycling of the same older songs tour after tour….even worse when they play songs in the same order (e.g. UtEotW->NYD, which they did on Zoo, Popmart and Elevation).
On this tour, if they play Mercy every night, they can play Pride 20 times and I’ll be ok with it, so long as Mercy is first (2 hours of pride is more than I could bear)…..but despite what they said in Boston or Chicago, I doubt they’ll play it.