U2, ‘We Can Be Heroes’ (Eat A Peach EAT 188/89)
Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Italy, July 15th, 2017.
Disk one; Intro: The Whole Of The Moon / Sunday Bloody Sunday / New Year’s Day – Ode On A Grecian Urn / Bad – Heroes / Pride (In The Name of Love) / Where The Streets Have No Name – California (There Is No End To Love) / I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / With Or Without You / Bullet The Blue Sky – America (West Side Story) / Running To Stand Still / Red Hill Mining Town / In God’s Country / Trip Through Your Wires / One Tree Hill
Disk two; Exit – Wise Blood – Eeny Meeny Miny Moe / Mothers of The Disappeared / “Encore Break” / Miss Sarajevo / Beautiful Day – Miserere / Elevation / Vertigo – Rebel Rebel / Ultra Violet (Light My Way) / One – Hear Us Coming / The Little Things That Give You Away – Twickenham Stadium, London, England, July 9, 2017 – Bad – Heroes – Where Are We Now? / Miss You – Mysterious Ways
Capturing and documenting a U2 show has become a regular sport for Eat A Peach, together with their sister labels, they have covered a lot of bases in the history of the bands tours.
It was going to be inevitable that they would capture the latest, greatest hit, tour celebrating the anniversary of the launch of the Joshua Tree album – as we’ve heard, the largest performance that the band have ever staged, set to stun with it’s huge video screens, challenge to the ‘biggest band in rock’ badge.
The EAP label have gathered a unique audience recording for release, a standard two disks covering the event and also a couple of bonus tracks tacked on to the end as the band began in slide them in to the set as the first night nerves dissipate. The tape that the label have used is slightly distant but clear enough to capture everything clearly and captures the full concert (The label use the same trick that EV have and have left the opening track from the concert alone – It’s the Waterboys, ‘Whole Of The Moon’ lest you were still wondering.)
Any nerves or production standardising that made the first shows too straightforward began to be dismissed by this point and Bono exceedingly rolls off track to punt out a little bit of improvisation from time to time such as the break away that gives this set it’s title, ‘Bad’ segues by way of a short prologue in to a version of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. ‘Vertigo’ has a false ending in to ‘Rebel Rebel’ but retains it’s insistent riffing.
‘Beautiful Day’ tangles with a brief performance of ‘Miserere’. ‘Bullet The Red Sky’ features tiny snatches of the West Side Story favourite, ‘America’.
Of the bonus tracks, ‘Bad’ performed in London’s Twickenham stadium also features a take on ‘Heroes’ while ‘Mysterious Ways’ from the same venue starts with the whooping refrain from the Stone’s ‘Miss You’.
More than a postcard from the field, for anyone who doesn’t appreciate the quiet clarity of the IEM matrix recording, these are really rather favourable sounding concerts. If you find the EV versions too difficult to come by or want a version that’s a little less prohibitive in price, these will more than do the job in your collection.
