U2, “Desires Around The Joshua Tree”, (Tarantura TCDU2-7-1,2)
Disk 1; The Whole Of The Moon (The Waterboys) / Sunday Bloody Sunday / Gloria / New Years Day / Bad – The Boxer / Pride (In The Name Of Love) / Where The Streets Have No Name / I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / With Or Without You / Bullet The Blue Sky / Running To Stand Still / Red Hill Mining Town / In God’s Country / Trip Through Your Wires.
Disk 2; One Tree Hill / Exit / Mothers Of The Disappeared / Desire / Elevation / Vertigo / band introduction / Even Better Than The Real Thing / You’re The Best Thing About Me / Beautiful Day / Ultraviolet / Love Is Bigger Than Anything In It’s Way / One / Never Tear Us Apart (INXS) ~ Announcement
Satiama Super Arena, Satiama, Japan. 5th December, 2019
Released at the same time as it’s sister set, ‘Angels Around The Joshua Tree’, this is the second IEM of the two days that U2 played at the Saitama Super Arena in their (very short) visit to Japan on the second leg of their Joshua Tree anniversary tour.
I mentioned in that first review that this is the set that I preferred of the two that were released – The first night, as good as it was, tapped in to the feed that featured the controlled count-in’s for the band. Nothing that was too significant in itself, however, it’s still nice to hear an unadorned show – One where, while there may be a couple of flubs and blunders along the way, it doesn’t feature any technical interferences. This capture seems to be from the same feed that was included on the first disk – For instance the song that the band chose to announce their appearance – The Waterboys’, “The Whole Of The Moon” appears here again in full (Mike Scott need not worry, one should assume though) before the ripple of guitar over the stattaco drum break that introduces, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.
There are a couple of charade to the set list from the previous night too – “Gloria”, from the album ‘October’ makes a very rare and early appearance coming in as the second track. The song that the band merge “Bad” with is Simon and Garfunkel’s ’The Boxer’ (Bono chooses to change the “New York winters” fo the “Fukayaka (sic) winters”, ‘Vertigo’ ends with a snippet of Bowie’s “Rebel, Rebel”
“Songs Of Experience”’s, ‘You’re The Best Thing About Me’, is one of the only nods to the bands very recent past in the set (‘Love Is Bigger Than Anything In It’s Way’ is the other), thankfully, it’s place in the set comes much further towards the end, it negates the “middle-gig-going-to-the-bar” stage but also lights the way towards the encore section of the set, lulling the crowd while asking for for their call and response before the euphoric ‘Beautiful Day’.
After a mesmerising ‘One’, the band leave the stage to INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart”, this is not captured by the stage feed however and leads out with the end of the concert announcement by the venue – A nice little touch to give it the full concert experience.
Again, the packaging is quite simplistic for the Tarantura label – 2 CDs in a simple, full colour, card cover. The text is relatively un-showy (Though personally, I’d have made do with only putting the shows date on once), the beautifully silkscreened disks are contained in simple white CD sleeves but there is the extra addition of a triple fold booklet inside featuring photos from the show and repeating the track listing. As it’s a grab from the internet, Tarantura have kept their prices a little more reasonable (They’ve obviously paid no more for the tape anyway) and this should make it a slightly better deal for the buyer who usually avoids the luxury product because of the price.
A very nice purchase to have if you were in the crowd or need something from the tour, I’d recommend this set over the previous night’s recording.
3 Comments
An excellent review as usual. There have been so many releases from this particular tour, and I was wondering which you consider to be the best. Thanks!
I have a preference for the Rattlesnake sets, personally, the Dutch crowds always know how to enjoy themselves without over crowding the band.
The later EV titles (From the London shows, onwards) are really good recordings too.
Thanks, Stuart!