u2 songs of innocence tour

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Setlist Playlist: U2's Experience + Innocence Tour

• On Tour Now
• Last updated: 30 Oct 2018, 21:27:09
• Published: 30 Oct 2018, 21:27:09
• Written by: Hannah Cotter
• Photography by: Charles McQuillan
• Categories: Tour Guide On Tour Now Tagged: U2 eXPERIENCE + iNNOCENCE Tour

U2 is on the road in support of their latest project, 2017's Songs of Experience.

Like its sister record, 2014's Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience centers around a person's ability to grow up and adjust to whatever life throws their way. Both records take titles from William Blake's 1789 collection of poems, "Songs of Innocence and Experience," that juxtapose the relationship between one of the most complex human binaries: good vs. evil.

Comprising of two legs and 60 dates, the Experience + Innocence Tour kicked off on May 2nd in Tulsa, Oklahoma and hit major North American cities throughout July before heading overseas for a European leg. It is expected to wrap up on November 13th in Berlin, Germany. Most of the shows have been clocking in around 3 hours with a 22 to 24-song setlist each night.

The shows themselves are deeply nostalgic yet very plugged in and politically charged. They also feature an elevated cage that allows the band to walk over the audience as images are projected on its sides. Bono's son, Elijah Hewson, and The Edge's daughter, Sian Evans, are featured on the album's cover art and also appear in visuals throughout the show, alongside footage from the band's early days.

Since revisiting their wildly popular 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, last year with a reunion tour that grossed $317 million (making it the highest grossing tour that year), the band has been retracing its steps, recycling the genius from their older songs and incorporating it into the new in a modernized way.

Despite touring in support of their newest album, only seven Experience songs make the 22-song setlist. The band instead focuses on their older and more solid material.

Songs like "Beautiful Day," "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "New Year's Day" gave U2 legs. They're some of their most iconic and well-known sounds that everyone– even those who don't follow the band– know and love. But why did these specific songs from Experience make the cut for the live shows? What significance do tracks like "Lights of Home" have, where they can sit comfortably between some of the greatest songs ever written?

I wanted to dive into why I think the band chose these certain songs for the tour. (Before you continue reading, make sure to follow our setlist study guide on Spotify!)

"Summer of Love"

One of the album's most politically-charged songs, "Summer of Love" features Lady Gaga on backing vocals and lyrics inspired by the story of a gardener in Aleppo during the Syrian Civil War. The Edge explained the song's origin in an interview : "One of the jumping-off points was a CNN story about the gardener of Aleppo. It's about this guy who ran a garden in Aleppo that he kept going through the entire war," he said.

"It was a political statement to the entire world that he kept this garden going. He was this deeply philosophical character and to him it was an act of defiance to grow flowers in the middle of Aleppo. He actually wound up getting killed in an air raid, so it was a very sad ending, but Bono was really inspired by his defiance."

The chorus specifically outlines the story:

"I've been thinking about the West Coast/ Not the one that everyone knows/ In the rubble of Aleppo/ Flowers blooming in the shadows/ For a summer of love."

Despite its dark subject matter, the song became quite popular around the time of its release and U2 even put out a four-song EP with remixes of the songs the following June.

Take a listen to Robin Schulz's below:

"Lights of Home"

After being involved in a near-death bicycle accident in 2014, Bono feared he'd never be able to play the guitar again. A lot of the songs on the album were written following the incident. The song directly addresses the experience with lines like:

"I shouldn't be here 'cause I should be dead/ I can see lights in front of me."

Take a listen:

The guitar riff in "Lights of Home" is based off of the bass breakdown in Haim's "My Song 5." U2 actually recruited the Haim girls to lend their voices to the song's chorus.

"Sampling stuff is great freedom," Bono said .

"Freedom to have fun. To make it a playground again where you have access to a wider pallet of colors."

"You're the Best Thing About Me"

The lead single from Songs of Experience, "You're the Best Thing About Me" is a love song for Bono's wife, Ali, and came after he had a nightmare about destroying their relationship.

“I’ll be crying out, how bad can a good time be?/ Shooting off my mouth, that’s another great thing about me/ I have everything, but I feel like nothing at all."

It first debuted as a remix at Kygo's own Cloud 9 festival. Peep the video below.

Its official video has some heavy political undertones. Check it out:

"Get Out of Your Own Way"

This song has somewhat of a double meaning, both addressing Bono's daughter and the United States' political crisis following the 2016 election. To his daughter, who must've suffered a heartbreak of sorts, Bono sings:

“Love hurts/ Now you’re the girl who’s left with no words/ Your heart’s a balloon but then it bursts/ It doesn’t take a cannon, just a pin.”

But then, the song's lyrics also include lines about “the face of liberty” cracking after a “[smack] in the mouth,” and the music video (below) depicts an animated Donald Trump overlooking a marching Ku Klux Klan.

“Fight back,” Bono instructs.

Musically, the song sounds similar to "Beautiful Day."

"Love is Bigger Than Anything in its Way"

One of the album's promotional singles, this song features Andrew Taggart of the Chainsmokers on keys and is another nod to Bono's children about the power of love.

Check out the music video:

Remixes of this song helped it reach No. 1 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart.

Here's Beck's take on the song:

"The Blackout"

On the eve of the eclipse in August 2017, U2 fans received a strange piece of mail.

Four months before the album came out, fans received this cryptic message with lyrics to the song, leaving some blacked out by the image that was later revealed as the album cover.

The song alludes to the eclipse, but also appeals to the power of the people.

“When the lights go out, throw yourself about/ In the darkness where we learn to see/ When the lights go out, don’t you ever doubt/ The light that we can really be.”

"13 (There is a Light)"

The album's closing song, "13 (There is a Light)" is a piano-based lullaby addressing younger generations, urging them to "summon the strength to face uncertain times."

The song reprises the chorus from Songs of Innocence's "Song for Someone," and had originally been a consideration to close that album instead of this one.

"We were never gonna do more than 12 songs and the idea was to try to hide it at the end," Bono said.

"You could do that with a CD, but you can’t really do it with streaming. Apparently, hiding things is quite an old-fashioned idea…. Then we said... we’re gonna do our 13th track. And we’ll call it 13 because it’s kind of about a teenage boy. We had two ideas for it. The idea was to write for the teenage girl that you fell in love with, and then for her children." 

The band has a few hometown shows left before concluding the tour in Berlin. Make sure to visit their website for tour details, and check out the remaining dates below.

U2's Experience + Innocence Tour dates:

November 5 – Dublin – 3Arena

November 6 – Dublin – 3Arena                       

November 9 – Dublin – 3Arena

November 10 – Dublin – 3Arena

November 13 – Berlin – Mercedes-Benz Arena

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‘It’s us trying to figure out why we wanted to be in a band in the first place,’ said Bono.

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In 2014, the epic tale of U2 ’s recording odyssey through 13 studio albums and 35 years arrived at the Songs of Innocence  album, and, as ever, the only direction was forward.

Released on September 9, the record found the four lifetime friends in unfailingly dynamic form. The new songs, some of the most autobiographical of their lives, were brimming over with energy and inventiveness.

After the mists cleared from the endless attention over the album’s groundbreaking digital release to more than 500 million iTunes siubscribers, what emerged was the much more important element: the sheer vitality of its content. That was underlined by the unprecedented demand for the iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour 2015.

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Two and a half months of North American shows culminated in an awe-inspiring eight dates at Madison Square Garden in New York, in late July of that year. The tour relocated to Europe for a sold out itinerary of more than two months that included six nights at London’s 02 Arena.

While other bands trade entirely on former glories, the lifeblood running through U2’s veins is the need to stay new and relevant, to themselves as well as their audience. That was central to both the creation and execution of  Songs of Innocence,  as Edge explained when he spoke to Rolling Stone .

He described what the band had learned about the digital age, after the free release of their new album to half a billion people, in a month-long digital exclusive via iTunes. “We’re in the dawn of it,” he said. “The thing it’s easy to forget when you live in modern times is that they’re modern for about another 30 seconds, more so than ever.

“In a few years we’ll look back on this time like we look back on VCRs and rotary phones. When the radio arrived, everyone thought that was the end of sheet music. I think music has become devalued and disposable in the commercial world – but not to music lovers or the people who make it, and not all big tech either. Apple – and U2 – fight hard for artists to be paid.

“In the future, technology has to be a better servant of music, and not its slave master. We can take advantage of the benefits of technology, and we do, but it’s also beholden on those of us who have been so well rewarded by music to figure out a way to preserve the ability for artists to create and thrive.”

There may have been a five-year gap between 2009’s No Line On The Horizon and  Songs of Innocence, but the spectacular U2 360° Tour didn’t reach the last of its 110 shows until July 2011. The new record’s evolution took in a variety of studios, with production credits going to Danger Mouse, Paul Epworth, Ryan Tedder, Declan Gaffney, and Flood.

There were no fewer than seven settings for this new experience, with sessions at Electric Lady Studios, The Church, Shangri-La, Strathmore House, Pull Studios, Assault and Battery, and The Woodshed. When the album emerged, reviewers heard a rich synthesis of all of the band’s varied influences from different times in their career, made whole by the experiences gained across four decades of invention.

“ Songs of Innocence reconnects U2 with the strident, searching, wide awake band of their nascency,” wrote Mojo magazine’s Tom Doyle, “reminding not only us but themselves of their against-the-odds beginnings. The result is their best and most thematically complete album since Achtung Baby . By turning towards their past, U2 have found their way back to the future.”

Those themes of looking homeward, and of the 1970s Dublin that the group grew up in, were evident from the robust, uncompromising and infectious opener, “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone).” It was a tip of the hat to the lead singer of the Ramones, one of the very reasons U2 chose their career path in the first place. “I was young, not dumb, just wishing to be blinded by you,” sang Bono in tribute. “Brand new, and we were pilgrims on our way.”

Elsewhere, there was further acknowledgement of another guiding light for the young U2, The Clash , in “This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now,” dedicated to Joe Strummer. ‘Every Breaking Wave’ rolled to the shore with an assured restraint in the spirit of “With Or Without You”; “Volcano” bubbled like lava.

“Iris (Hold Me Close)” was yearningly anthemic, named for and inspired by Bono’s late mother, who died when was he was only 14. Swedish pacesetter Lykke Li contributed vocals to “The Troubles,” while “Cedarwood Road” typified that cohesion that occurs when every individual on a record is doing something great. Again, its reference points were real and personal, with a lyric about the cherry blossom tree in the garden of the Hewsons’ neighbours, when Bono was growing up.

“It’s us trying to figure out why we wanted to be in a band in the first place,” Bono told the Irish Times . “The relationships around the band and our first journeys – geographically, spiritually and sexually. It was tough and it took years. Put it this way: a lot of sh*t got dragged up.”

This series of album essays has travelled a million miles around the world and back, on a road that continues to stretch ahead enticingly. The  Songs of Innocence  track ‘Song For Someone’ contains the lyric: “There is a light, don’t let it go out.” U2 never have, and never will.

Listen to  Songs Of Innocence  on Apple Music and Spotify .

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U2 announce details of Innocence and Experience world tour 2015

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U2 have announced details of their Songs of Innocence tour. Perhaps a nod to their iTunes album ambush, the tour is entitled the “iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour” and will see the group play indoor arenas for the first time in a decade.

Including four dates at Madison Square Garden in New York and London’s O2, the tour features a pair of gigs in each of the 19 cities it pulls into. “We are going to try to have a completely different feeling from night one to night two” said Bono, “and have some fun playing with the idea of innocence and experience. More to be revealed!”

While there are no confirmed Irish dates yet, a spokesperson for the band has confirmed that Bono and company have planned some additional shows in Dublin at the end of next year as part of the “U2-initiated music generation project” – details of which have not yet been announced.

The tour will support the band’s most recent album, Songs of Innocence, which was given to U2.com subscribers and delivered to more than half a billion iTunes music store customers worldwide.

“The anticipation for a U2 tour is always extraordinary, as it should be,” said Arthur Fogel, president of Global Touring and chairman of Global Music. “Following the record-setting 360° tour, I’m amazed that they still want to be ground-breaking, this time on a more intimate scale.”

In an interview with the band back in November, the Edge suggested U2 may not be embarking on a monumental series of dates comparable with their 360° Tour, which spanned 110 concerts and grossed approximately £450m . “I think we will start small,” he told Rolling Stone . “We certainly can’t get any bigger than the last tour.”

Bono described the anticipated scale of U2’s forthcoming gigs in an interview with Absolute Radio: “[We want to] try and play the O2 [arena] and places like that, more indoors than outdoors this time, but we’ll see where it takes us,” he said . “You know what it’s like now, it’s like a whole city goes on the road with us.”

Tickets for all shows will go on general sale on Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 December.

iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE tour dates

14 May Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena 15 May Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena 18 May San Jose, CA SAP Center at San Jose 19 May San Jose, CA SAP Center at San Jose 22 May Phoenix, AZ US Airways Center 23 May Phoenix, AZ US Airways Center 26 May Los Angeles, CA Forum 27 May Los Angeles, CA Forum 30 May Los Angeles, CA Forum 31 May Los Angeles, CA Forum 12 June Montreal, QC Bell Centre 13 June Montreal, QC Bell Centre 24 June Chicago, IL United Center 25 June Chicago, IL United Center 6 July Toronto, ON Air Canada Center 7 July Toronto, ON Air Canada Center 10 July Boston, MA TD Garden 11 July Boston, MA TD Garden 18 July New York, NY Madison Square Garden 19 July New York, NY Madison Square Garden 22 July New York, NY Madison Square Garden 23 July New York, NY Madison Square Garden

Europe / UK 2015

4 Sept Turin, Italy Pala Alpitour 5 Sept Turin, Italy Pala Alpitour 8 Sept Amsterdam, The Netherlands Ziggo Dome 9 Sept Amsterdam, The Netherlands Ziggo Dome 16 Sept Stockholm, Sweden Globe 17 Sept Stockholm, Sweden Globe 24 Sept Berlin, Germany O2 World 25 Sept Berlin, Germany O2 World 5 Oct Barcelona, Spain Palau Sant Jordi 6 Oct Barcelona, Spain Palau Sant Jordi 13 Oct Antwerp, Belgium Sportpaleis 14 Oct Antwerp, Belgium Sportpaleis 17 Oct Koln, Germany Lanxess Arena 18 Oct Koln, Germany Lanxess Arena 25 Oct London, UK O2 26 Oct London, UK O2 29 Oct London, UK O2 30 Oct London, UK O2 6 Nov Glasgow, UK The SSE Hydro 7 Nov Glasgow, UK The SSE Hydro 10 Nov Paris, France Bercy 11 Nov Paris, France Bercy

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After ‘Innocence’: U2 Look Ahead to Tour, New LP ‘Songs of Experience’

By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

In late 2010, U2 began recording a new album with producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton during downtime from their 360° world tour. They had little idea they were kicking off a four-year process, far and away the longest they’d ever spent on a single album. “ The experiments and excursions we took with Danger Mouse at the start of the album recording were unashamedly unhinged and free of all critical judgement,” says the Edge . via e-mail. “We were happy to suspend disbelief just to see where we could get to. Those early sessions were some of the most productive and fun U2 studio sessions I can remember.”

According to Bono , who spoke to Rolling Stone over e-mail, the group ultimately recorded about 100 different songs. “ We had great fun getting lost in the creative process,” says the U2 frontman. “The thing that propelled us to reach deeper and aim higher was a new appreciation of the craft of songwriting.” But he wasn’t completely happy with the material produced in the early days. “We realized that some tunes are just better than others, some lyrics just more coherent, some soundscapes just more compelling,” he says.  “ We found ourselves bored with material that just felt good or unique.”

The Edge felt the same way. “ At a certain point, as the songs were coming into focus, we could see that certain qualities, hallmarks of our work where not represented,” he says.   “ This meant we needed to go off and write some new songs and rework a few that were almost finished.”

Former Interscope Records head Jimmy Iovine served as the group’s sounding board through much of the recording process. “When they first played me music I didn’t hear songs that were going to include people that weren’t U2 fans,” he says. “I heard lyrics and ideas that could, but not songs.”

He told them they had to dig deeper: “I was straight up with them. I said, ‘In order to make the record you want to make, you have to go to a place where you don’t live now. And it hurts. It’s dark and painful, but you have to go there. Can you put yourself back in the place you were at 25 or 35 and the world was coming at you 100 per hour and you don’t give a shit?'”

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In order to get there, Bono began writing songs about his difficult teenage years in Dublin and the music that changed his life, most notably the Clash and the Ramones. “I went back and started listening to all the music that made us start a rock band,” he says. “It gave us a reason to exist again. That’s how this album started.”

Bono also attempted to simplify his songwriting. “We wanted the album to have songs that would stand up when played on acoustic guitars or piano,” he says, “not relying on Edge, Adam and Larry’s atmospheres or dynamic playing. We’re putting out an acoustic session with the physical release to try to prove this point.”

At a certain point, Danger Mouse had to step away to focus on Broken Bells and his many other ongoing projects. “We took the opportunity to work with people like Ryan Tedder and Paul Epworth,” says Bono. “[They] were equally strung out on the old fashioned notion of ‘songwriting.'” Flood, whose tenure with U2 dates all the way back to The Joshua Tree , was also brought in to help. “It takes a village to make a U2 album,” says Bono, “whether its The Joshua Tree or All That You Can’t Leave Behind , we have always needed all hands on deck.”

Eventually, the group found themselves with a collection of songs they felt stood up to their best work. “We had achieved a lot in terms of establishing a fresh perspective but we also wanted the album to contain some elements of what you might call the Big Music,” says the Edge. “It’s a good sign that if you asked me what songs came together last I would really have to think about it. The album has a cohesion in spite of our strange process.”

With the end of recording in sight, the band turned to an issue almost as serious: how to make a big, U2-level cultural impact at a time when album sales are at a record low and rock radio is diminished. “We wanted to reach as many people as possible,” says U2 manager Guy Oseary. “We brainstormed and brainstormed. Apple has hundreds of millions of iTunes accounts – giving it away just made sense.”

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There have been reports that Apple agreed to pay $100 million or more in marketing, which a source close to the band believes is incorrect. “I have no idea where they are getting that number from,” says the source. “I think it’s wrong.” The amount the band was paid directly by Apple remains even more of a secret. “There’s no such thing as a free album,” says Bono. “It costs time and energy to make. It was free to people because Apple paid for it. It was their gift.” (“There was a payment made to the label by Apple,” is all that Oseary will say when pressed for more info.)

Perhaps predictably, considering that the album went out to half a billion people, reaction to Songs of Innocence has been all over the map: everything from elation to curiosity (“Never really been a big fan, but that Songs of Innocence [is] kinda dope,” said one tweeter) to bewilderment (“Either someone hacked my iTunes or I’m buying U2 albums in my sleep,” wrote another) and even to anger. After the release, Apple received so many complaints that it put out a software tool that allowed users to delete the album from their iCloud accounts. But the band’s camp points to the fact that 17 of U2’s albums appeared in the iTunes top 100 chart in the days following the release. “There’s not much rock in the zeitgeist,” says Iovine. “So what the band were trying to do is defy gravity. And whatever tools you can use to do that, you should use.”

There’s also another album in the works called Songs of Experience . “Early on it became obvious that we were working on two separate albums,” says the Edge. “The majority of the unfinished songs are worthy of becoming part of Songs of Experience and some are already as good or better than anything on Songs of Innocence . The Songs of Experience album will be released when it’s ready. I hope it won’t take nearly as long.” Bono is unwilling to predict when the album will be ready. “As is obvious, I’m not very reliable on predicting release dates,” he says. “Ask Edge.”

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For now, the group is beginning to turn their attention to getting on the road and playing their new music live. “The tour is still in the planning stage so it’s too early to describe what it will be like,” says the Edge.  “ I think we will start small. We certainly can’t get any bigger than the last tour.”

In the meantime, nobody with the band is apologizing for aiming high on the release of Songs of Innocence . “By this point, seven percent of the planet has gotten the album,” says Oseary. “It might be too big, but we like to think big.” Bono, when asked about the response to the record via e-mail, puts it even more simply: “If you don’t want it, delete it. Here’s the link .”

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U2 Experience and Innocence Tour Questions and Answers

Original story by u2songs.com staff (2017-11-21).

Last Updated: November 21, 2017 6:52EST

U2 announced the eXPERIENCE + iNNOCENCE TOUR on November 1, 2017. The only announced dates are those for North America at this time. While we here at U2Songs.Com will try to answer questions, your first source of information on the tour should always be U2.Com. Here are some useful links at that site which you should read fully before asking for further information:

• U2.Com Tour Announcement
• U2.Com Tour Page with Dates
• U2.Com Ticket Pre-sales, Verified Fans, U2.Com Subscribers

There is a dedicated thread in the Zootopia boards where moderators will attempt to help users with questions. Also please remember the moderators are there to help us, but may not have all the answers themselves right away! This is likely still fresh for them as well. We suggest you ask questions and post any issues you find there in that forum.

Second Shows

• November 24, 2017: If you wish to participate in the U2.Com pre-sale you must complete your account setup by 6am PT / 9am ET. If you have previously completed setup you will not have to do the setup again.
• November 28, 2017: eXPERIENCE Sale for U2.Com Members starts at 10am local time, ends Thursday at 5pm local time.
• November 28, 2017: If you wish to participate in the Citi pre-sale or the General Sale you must register before 10pm PT. They are now listing that if you have done this previously, you will not have to repeat the process. On the Citi site and on the TM site now list: “Fans who were previously selected and did not purchase tickets DO NOT need to register again.”
• November 29, 2017: iNNOCENCE Sale for U2.Com Members starts at a variety of times, check show listing.
• November 30, 2017: Citi Verified Fan Pre-sale starts. Start time is listed at 9am local time, ends Saturday at 5pm Local time.
• December 4, 2017: Verified on-sale for Washington DC, Chicago, Montreal, Philadelphia
• December 5, 2017: Verified on-sale for New York and Boston, and Las Vegas.

We suggest you take a few minutes and read http://www.u2.com/help fully as it has been updated today to reflect information about the second pre-sale in Montreal. There will be additional U2.Com pre-sales, and if you have not used your full pre-sale allotment you will be eligible for pre-sales for these second shows.

If you have already purchased two tickets in the pre-sales, buying a new subscription will NOT make you eligible for further pre-sales.

What Will the Show Be Like?

• The tour is a continuation of the Innocence and Experience tour in 2015, now rebranded the Experience and Innocence Tour.
• Seat maps at Ticketmaster to date have revealed very little information.
• The following seat map from Madison Square Garden in New York show a similar configuration to the 2015 tour, including the location of ( RED ) Zones

Date Information

• The tour will start in Tulsa, OK on May 2.
• The current final date listed is Newark, NJ on June 29
• When announced 15 shows were announced.
• Ticket prices will range from $41.00 – 331.00 in the USA , there is some variation from show to show in the listed prices (Uniondale: $45.50-$329.50, Washington: $45.00-$329.00, New York: $47.00-$331.00
• Ticket prices will range from $54.25 – $354.50 in Montreal. This is Canadian dollars.
• Seats should fall around $45, $110, $175, and $329 in most US cities. General admission floor tickets will fall around $80. Pricing and price levels have not yet been confirmed by individual venues.

Will More Dates Be Announced?

• The rumours suggest the tour will start in North America, then will move to Europe, and will finish 2018 in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.
• The only dates announced so far are for North America, however documentation at U2.Com mentions there will be European dates, and that you can enter into pre-sales for these dates by pre-ordering the album now. Pre-sales for the European dates are expected to happen after January 1, 2018.
• Dates for Europe, and other continents will be announced later.

What about Pre-sales?

• There are multiple pre-sale opportunities.
• To date we know about a pre-sale for U2.Com subscribers for the first leg of the tour, for Citi Bank cardholders for the first leg of the tour.
• There are also pre-sales for pre-ordering the album for the second leg of the tour.
• See our story about the first round of presales .

First Leg Citi Bank Pre-Sale

• There will be a pre-sale for Citi Cardmembers only. You must register for this before November 14 at 10pm. This pre-sale starts November 16. This is not tied to your U2.Com account and is run through Citi bank if you hold one of their cards.
• This pre-sale starts two days after the U2.Com pre-sale starts.
• The link for the Citi Cardmembers sale registration is here . This is not tied to your U2.Com account but be aware going over ticket limits in a combination of pre-sales, can result in tickets being cancelled.
• Verified Fans will receive a unique verification code to purchase tickets. Must use your Citi credit or debit card to purchase tickets.
• There will be a four ticket per code limitation on the Citi pre-sale.
• Registering does not guarantee you will receive a code or have the ability to purchase tickets.
• Unlike the U2.Com pre-sale, you have to register for each city individually that you wish to purchase tickets in.
• Once registered for the Citi Pre-Sale you will receive a confirmation email. Receiving a confirmation email only means your registration has been submitted. It does not mean you will receive an offer code.

First Leg U2.Com Pre-Sale

• There will be a pre-sale for U2.Com subscribers. You must register for this before November 12, at 7pm PST . This pre-sale starts November 14. It is the earliest pre-sale that will open.
• There is an article about the process for registering for the U2.Com member pre-sale here which should answer many of your questions.
• The article above clarifies that “you can only take part in Subscriber pre-sales and general on sales for North America if you have become a Verified Fan.” If you do not complete the process you will not be able to participate in the pre-sales.
• To register you will need a a North American Ticketmaster account and a mobile phone that can accept text messages
• You do not need to complete the “Facebook Connect” steps to be verified.
• As a U2.Com Verified Fan you enter the pre-sales ahead of all other verified fans in other pre-sales such as the Citibank one.

How will the First Leg U2.Com pre-sale work?

• Once you have become a verified fan, you will be placed in one of two priority groups.
• The eXPERIENCE group subscribed to the fan club prior to December 24, 2016, and have not let their subscription lapse.
• The iNNOCENCE group subscribed to the fan club on December 25, 2016 or later.
• You can now check what group you are in by logging into your U2.Com profile .
• Subscribers in the eXPERIENCE group will enter pre-sales prior to those in the iNNOCENCE group.
• Subscriber pre-sale codes will be sent via SMS on the mobile phone number provided during the registration process.
• U2.com says they will be in contact to let us know if we will have access to pre-sales in advance of the codes being sent. “You will be subject to Ticketmaster’s FanScore® verification system. If eligible, the eXPERIENCE group and the iNNOCENCE group registrants will receive an email with details and instructions on Code redemption on the evening of November 13, 2017” [ Link ]
• U2.com FAQ says “ If you subscribed to the fan club and went through those things (subscribed, connected TM account, gave mobile phone number) it is not Verified Fan, it is Verified Subscriber. Verified Subscribers get access to pre-sale code (not guaranteed a ticket) that can be used prior to other sales.”
• You do not receive a confirmation email that the process has completed. But once finished you should see “Setup Complete” on your account page .
• U2.com pre-sale access does not guarantee tickets.

How many tickets can I buy in the First Leg U2.Com Pre-Sale?

• The pre-sale limit is two tickets. Other pre-sales may have different ticket limits.
• The two tickets can be bought for one show, or can be split so you buy one ticket for two different shows. (Link: U2.Com Zoo Mods )
• Yes, for The Joshua Tree shows we could purchase four tickets. U2.Com explains that the limit for stadiums per membership is four tickets, but for smaller arenas, the limit is two tickets. For the Innocence and Experience shows in 2015 we were limited to two tickets as well. U2.Com has not offered four tickets for an arena show since 2005’s Vertigo Tour.

First Leg, General Sales

• There will be a general on-sale, you must register for this before November 18 at 10pm. This sale starts on November 20. You must completed the verified fan process to take part in the general sale in the opening days.
• The link for the general on-sale registration is here . This is also not tied to your U2.Com account. Be aware going over ticket limits in a combination of pre-sales, however, can result in tickets being cancelled.
• Yes, you have to go through this link and register to participate in the general on-sale the day it happens. If you do not, you will not be able to enter the general sale on the day they first go on sale.
• There will be a 4 ticket limit per access code in the general sale.
• You must register for each city that you want to buy in for the general sale. This is different than the fan club system where you only have to register once.

What about Pre-sales for the Second Leg through U2.Com?

• There will be a Pre-sale for U2.Com members for the second leg, that will happen before other pre-sales that are offered in Europe.
• The U2.Com procedures for the second leg have not been determined yet, and if you are not attending the first leg, you may not need to register for the current pre-sales. On U2.Com’s Zootopia forums , a moderator says: “This part of the pre-sale is for the North America leg – If you are outside this region but plan to attend any of these shows, please complete all the steps. For Europe, please wait until the procedure is published. Thanks.” But the moderators are also suggesting in the same thread it wouldn’t hurt to link the accounts and follow the process if you can at this time.
• The pre-sale and verification process at U2.com is for shows in the US and Canada only according to the FAQ at U2.com

What about other Pre-Sales for the Second Leg? (Not through U2.Com?)

• Select retailers in Europe, such as FNAC in Portugal and Spain offer the opportunity to join a pre-sale that will happen after January 1, that is not the U2.Com pre-sale, but is a separate pre-sale.
• To participate in that pre-sale you will need to pre-order the album prior to November 30, 2017. More information about these offers can be found on U2.Com – look for the red links part way down the page. Fans in UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Italy and Holland who pre-order the album by November 30th will have the chance to enter a pre-sale to buy up to 2 tickets for the yet-to-be-announced 2018 shows in Europe. (You will receive a unique ticketing code, in early 2018. The pre-sale will not open until 2018 and of course availability is while stock lasts. Please note: a code does not guarantee a ticket.)
• The retailers participating appear to be as follows: Fanfire ( UK & Ireland ), Universal Music ( Germany and France ), FNAC ( Spain and Portugal ), Amazon ( Italy ), Gaffashop ( Denmark ), bol.com ( The Netherlands ) and empik ( Poland ) These links were current as of November 2 at 2:00 EST , however you can find the most current links here by choosing “Pre-Order for Ticket Presale Access”.
• If you are not from one of the nine countries listed, you can still buy in one of these offers and you will receive a code we are told. Be aware that there may be restrictions on which countries you can use the codes in when the pre-sale happens. (Thanks to U2Tour.De for the update)
• We have been told that countries outside of these ten receiving preorder offers will be receiving concerts. The offers are in countries where Universal had existing retailer agreements, and expect that other countries will be added if possible. (Poland was added after the initial nine were put up.)

What about the new album?

• This is the tour questions and answers, but we are updating our U2 Discography entry for Songs of Experience with new information as it comes out today.

Help I Can’t Get Things to Work?

• There is a dedicated thread in the Zootopia boards where moderators will attempt to help users with questions. Please have some patience as they are a small team, but they are able to ask questions and get some answers.
• If you have completed all the steps listed including buying a new membership, and your box is still red and you aren’t seeing an updated expiry date? Log out of U2.Com and log back in – a number of people are reporting that fixes the issues.
• Our friends at U2Start.Com are also answering questions to Pre-Sale and General Sale questions. Over at U2Tour.De they are also tracking Tour information and helping to answer some of the questions above.

The U2 Setlist Archive

• U2:UV AB Live at Sphere
• Stories of Surrender Tour
• Joshua Tree Tour 2019
• Experience + Innocence
• Joshua Tree Tour 2017
• Innocence + Experience
• SOI Promo Tour
• 360° Tour
• NLOTH Promo Tour
• Vertigo Tour
• HTDAAB Promo Tour
• Elevation Tour
• ATYCLB Promo Tour
• Popmart Tour
• Zoo TV Tour
• Lovetown Tour
• Joshua Tree Tour
• Conspiracy Of Hope Tour
• Unforgettable Fire Tour
• October Tour
• Various dates
• All songs U2 played live

Songs Of Innocence Promo Tour 2014

11/17/2014 NBC Studios - New York, New York, USA setlist not available comment: U2 were scheduled to perform a weeklong residency on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon . This would have been the first night. However, the residency was cancelled after Bono was seriously injured in a bicycle accident. During this episode, Jimmy Fallon dressed up as Bono and performed Desire with The Roots.

11/18/2014 NBC Studios - New York, New York, USA setlist not available comment: U2 were scheduled to perform a weeklong residency on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon . This would have been the second night. However, the residency was cancelled after Bono was seriously injured in a bicycle accident.

11/19/2014 NBC Studios - New York, New York, USA setlist not available comment: U2 were scheduled to perform a weeklong residency on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon . This would have been the third night. However, the residency was cancelled after Bono was seriously injured in a bicycle accident.

11/20/2014 NBC Studios - New York, New York, USA setlist not available comment: U2 were scheduled to perform a weeklong residency on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon . This would have been the fourth night. However, the residency was cancelled after Bono was seriously injured in a bicycle accident.

11/21/2014 NBC Studios - New York, New York, USA setlist not available comment: U2 were scheduled to perform a weeklong residency on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon . This would have been the fifth and final night. However, the residency was cancelled after Bono was seriously injured in a bicycle accident.

12/14/2014 The Forum - Inglewood, California, USA setlist not available comment: This performance was cancelled. U2 were to headline the second night of KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas, but as a result of Bono's bicycle accident they had to pull out.

More detailed listings from this tour can be found here .

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U2’s Songs of Innocence Is Totally Gorgeous, Totally Boring

On YouTube right now, you can — and should — watch the entirety of Live in Sydney , a 1993 performance from U2’s ridiculous, iconic, and undeniably spectacular Zoo TV Tour. It’s a polarizing junction in the band’s 38-year run, but it’s also the one I’ve always found most fascinating: pre- Pop , post- Achtung Baby , when they were trying to distance themselves from the achingly earnest image perpetuated by Rattle & Hum . It worked. For a few years, at least, the guys got to have their lemons and eat them, too: With his Bowie-esque alter ego the Fly, Bono could indulge his inner preening rock star and call it performance art; the band could justify the tour’s outrageous special-effects budget by saying it was some kind of McLuhan-esque critique of technology and the mind-numbing effects of the media’s “sensory overload.” Dopey and indulgent as they sometimes were, these contradictions were what made U2 a great band in 1993. They performed “The Fly” beneath a flicker of words that suggested the media’s complicity with war and capitalism’s distortion of our desires: WANT, BOMB, URGE, BUY, MEDIA, ORGASM, that kind of thing. Hey, it was the ‘90s. One of the most memorable images from the tour is the band performing against a backdrop of glowing screens that sardonically instruct, “Watch more TV.”

That’s the image that stuck in my mind yesterday afternoon, when at the Apple Keynote, U2 announced that — surprise! — it had just released its 13th album,  Songs of Innocence , and if you are one of 500 million iTunes users,  it was already in your library right now . It was “the largest album release of all time,” a humbly attired multimillionaire businessman informed us. Then, to symbolically seal the deal, he and Bono touched fingers ET -style, and in the front row a constellation of glowing, already-obsolete iPhone 5 screens rose to capture the moment. Even the Fly couldn’t have envisioned this scene exactly.

We must admit that it was all pretty impressive. U2 simultaneously out-Beyoncé-d Beyoncé  and  out Jay Z-ed Jay Z (especially since they turned their album release into a promotional campaign for a device people actually use). We must admit, too, that it was pretty creepy, maybe even a tad Lynchian. (Something about Cook’s “it’s already  in  your iTunes library” reminded me of  that scene  in  Lost Highway  when a terrifying stranger calls Bill Pullman to say, “We met already, at your house … as a matter of fact, I’m at your house  right now .”) Although Bono released a requisitely self-deprecating note about it on the band’s website later in the day (“for the people out there who have no interest in checking us out, look at it this way … the blood, sweat, and tears of some Irish guys are in your junk mail”), there is something delightfully silly, characteristically presumptuous, and  just so U2  about the conjecture that 500 million people would like to drop what they’re doing on a Tuesday afternoon and listen to a new U2 album. Although Apple likely paid them an absurd amount of money for the release, Cook and Bono repeatedly stressed that they were giving it away to us  for free . An act of self-aggrandizement disguised as globally resonant magnanimity? Looks like U2 also out-U2-ed U2.

The release will go down as by far the most surprising thing about  Songs of Innocence . With few exceptions, it sounds exactly like you’d expect a U2 album to sound in 2014: expensively glistening, perpetually awestruck, and often (though not always!) bloodless. It does have a slightly fresher, more contemporary feel than its predecessor, 2009’s unremarkable  No Line on the Horizon , and this has a lot to do with all the new producers in the mix: Danger Mouse (who also worked with them on “Ordinary Love,” last year’s Oscar-nominated single from the  Mandela: Walk to Freedom  soundtrack), Paul Epworth, and Ryan Tedder among them. (At one point in the album’s development, they were rumored to be working with David Guetta and RedOne, which definitely would have been bolder … and very likely “Discotechque”-part-2-level disastrous choices.) It’s unfortunate that the album’s Mumford-Goes-Electric opening moment is also the one that sounds most like an Apple commercial, because if you can endure the hokey “oh-woaaah-oh-ohs,” “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)” is actually one of the best songs on the album — the Edge’s ax buzzes and bites as the song builds to one of those classic, aerodynamically tuneful U2 choruses. (It’s also a sweetly reciprocal tribute; I’ll always have a soft spot for U2’s  “In a Little While”  since  hearing  it was the last song Joey listened to before slipping off to that great Rock’n’Roll High School in the sky.)

Much of the first half of  Songs of Innocence , though, suffers from a sense of one-size-fits-all grandeur. “Iris (Hold Me Close)” is about Bono’s mother; “Song for Someone” is a nostalgic reflection on first meeting his wife; “California (There Is No End to Love)” is about, well … California. And love. (The lyrics to that one in particular are a real scramble of Bono magnetic poetry.) Good luck telling them apart: These songs all blend together in a swirl of clenched fists, heart-swelling chords, and easy  whoa-oh-ohs  that try but fail to distract from unmemorable choruses.  Songs  does rustle to life a little late in the game, beginning with “Raised by Wolves,” a sparse, driving song about a Dublin car bombing, and the snarling “Cedarwood Road,” which opens with a buzzsaw riff that sounds a hell of a lot like Fugazi’s “Waiting Room” before (unfortunately) resolving into something more tame. My favorite song on the back half is also the album’s most sonically adventurous, “Sleep Like a Baby Tonight:” a pharmaceutically spacey, “No Surprises”–lite reverie that employs Bono’s endearingly wobbly falsetto. Except for that moment, actually,  Songs of Innocence  never sounds anything less than gorgeous — but given its sponsored rollout and the band’s near-evangelical zeal over the Apple partnership, I can’t help but feel a little cynical about exactly why. It would be a different story if the music were bolder or more interesting, but as it stands, it’s hard to shake the feeling that  Songs  will be remembered as a vessel for this (spotlight on my turtleneck, please, and cue up “Beautiful Day”) Revolutionary New Product, not the other way around. In the end,  Songs of Innocence  is just feels like the album equivalent of the  Planet Earth  episode playing simultaneously on all the 3-D TVs at Best Buy.

Selling out, we’re told, isn’t the crime it was in the simpler, halcyon days of  Zooropa . “Kill Your TV” isn’t a battle cry so much as an ironic/nostalgic T-shirt worn by a twentysomething twirling knobs at a Red Bull–sponsored DIY space. It’s hard out there for aspiring musicians, and they’ve got to take funding where they can get it. Still, even in this brave new world of corporate patronage, something about U2’s surprise iCloud drop left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe it was the timing: In the wake of last week’s Great Celebrity Nude Leak, even the plebs among us were feeling fresh anxiety about exactly what the cloud means for us and our ever-dwindling sense of privacy. Before yesterday, did you even know that Apple  could  drop a secret little “gift” into your iTunes library, whether you wanted it or not? (Are you also suddenly worried that Bono might leak your nudes?) It might sound a little paranoid, but part of being a music fan — hell, a human being — in 2014 is that creeping sense that there’s some new auto-share feature that our digital overlords haven’t told us how to switch off yet, that there’s some omniscient eye looking at all our personal data, and that we’re too far into this mess to be anything but powerlessly complicit. Something about yesterday’s surprise U2 release reminded me that Apple still occupies this strange cultural space that’s somehow beyond artistic critique. It’s not that we’ve resolved all of our Zoo TV–era worries about technology’s connection to sex and war and capitalism, it’s just that it’s become more difficult to extricate ourselves — musicians included — from the messenger. If the Zoo TV Tour happened in 2014, those flickering screens would probably command, “Buy an iPhone 6,” except I don’t think there’d be a trace of irony to the message.

In the end, U2 did not actually out-Beyoncé Beyoncé. Because, along with the fact that she transcended the gimmick by making a wildly good record, the brilliance of her surprise 2013 release was the way it subtly subverted the rhythms of the technology used to deliver it. Yes, you did have to shell out $16.99 and click a few extra buttons to purchase Beyoncé’s visual album, but once you did it also demanded your complete attention — full-screening each video was a moment of pause in our sensory-overloaded world.  Beyoncé  was an argument for the continued existence of the album-as-experience;  Songs of Innocence  is an argument for the album-as-background-noise, or maybe just the album-as-accessory-to-technology, the forgettable prize drowning in the much-more-desired Crackerjacks. On one of the album’s most elegiac songs, Bono sings, “Every breaking wave on the shore tells the next one there’ll be one more.” So does every iPhone.

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Songs Of Innocence

• The Miracle (of Joey Ramone) Lyrics
• Every Breaking Wave Lyrics
• California (There is no End to Love) Lyrics
• Song for Someone Lyrics
• Iris (Hold Me Close) Lyrics
• Volcano Lyrics
• Raised By Wolves Lyrics
• Cedarwood Road Lyrics
• Sleep Like a Baby Tonight Lyrics
• This is Where You Can Reach Me Now Lyrics
• The Troubles Lyrics
• Lucifer’s Hands Lyrics
• The Crystal Ballroom Lyrics
• Acoustic Sessions
• The Troubles (Alternative Version) Lyrics
• Sleep Like A Baby Tonight (Alternative Perspective Mix by Tchad Blake) Lyrics

The first studio album from the band since 2009, Songs Of Innocence was released on CD & Vinyl on October 13th 2014, just over a month after the groundbreaking digital release when Apple delivered the album free to more than half a billion people with iTunes accounts. The striking cover art of the physical releases, a photo by Glen Luchford, features Larry Mullen Jr protecting his 18 year old son. The image resonated with the band's iconic 1980 debut album Boy and, three years later, the War album. Both featured the face of a child, Peter Rowen, the younger brother of Guggi, Bono's childhood friend growing up on Cedarwood Road. 'We've always been about community in U2, about family and friends,' explained Bono. 'Songs Of Innocence is the most intimate album we've ever made. With this record we were looking for the raw, naked and personal, to strip everything back.' The idea of the unique relationship between a parent and child, the image of a father and son, came from the band. The shoot with Larry and his son was initially an experiment but everyone loved it as a visual metaphor for the record. If you know the album, added Bono, you'll see the themes in the visual language, how 'holding on to your own innocence is a lot harder than holding on to someone else's.' The eleven tracks on Songs Of Innocence, a kind of musical autobiography, chart U2's earliest influences from 70s rock and punk to early 80s electronica and soul... and reveal how music changed everything. As Bono sings in the lead song, 'The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)', 'I woke up when the miracle occurred/ Heard a song that made some sense out of the world...' Exploring themes of home and family, relationships and discovery, detailed liner notes fill out the picture with resonant stories, like one of the first gigs the teenage band got into. 'The 4 members of U2 went to see the Ramones playing in the state cinema in Dublin without thinking about how we were going to get in. we had no tickets and no money. My best friend Guggi had a ticket and he snuck us through a side exit he pried open. The world stopped long enough for us to get on it. Even though we only saw half the show, it became one of the great nights of our life....' Songs of Innocence is released in three physical formats and digital. Deluxe, 2 CD Format which comes with 2 x 16 page booklets, the 11 track album on CD1 plus additional tracks on CD2 including a 6-song acoustic session along with Lucifer's Hands, The Crystal Ballroom, The Troubles (Alternative Version) and Sleep Like A Baby Tonight (Alternative Perspective Mix by Tchad Blake). 2 LP 180gram White Vinyl Format featuring the 11 track album on sides 1, 2 & 3 with bonus track The Crystal Ballroom 12" Mix on side 4. Single CD Format with a 24-page booklet along with the 11 track album.

'We've always been about community in U2, about family and friends,' explains Bono. 'Songs Of Innocence is the most intimate album we've ever made. With this record we were looking for the raw, naked and personal, to strip everything back.' Bono

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