(Credits: Far Out / Island Records)
There are bound to be a couple of songs that every rock band dreads to play whenever they see it come up in the setlist. It’s always nice to have songs that people always want to hear and want to shout at the top of their lungs, but when you’re listening back to songs that you may have written in your teens, it gets a bit tiring to hold onto those same ideals once the baby fat fades away. And while U2 have always been grateful for every fan coming to their shows, they were still human when it came to having a few songs that got old.
Then again, there are even some casual music fans who would rather not have to listen to another U2 song for as long as they live. As much as the Irish legends have garnered a secure place in rock and roll history, it’s easy to see them as incredibly pompous whenever they perform as well. It’s one thing to listen to ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ in the context of The Joshua Tree, but when Bono becomes too holier-than-thou live, it’s enough for anyone to roll their eyes.
But it’s not like they haven’t earned their spot as a stadium-rock act. Bono proved that he could entertain a crowd of that size when he played Live Aid, and once he had the tunes to back him up on The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree, he felt confident enough to forget about traditional rock and roll altogether when making Achtung Baby.
In that respect, all of their older tunes should have sounded fresh to them when they played the ZooTV tour. The frontman had metamorphosed into ‘The Fly’ whenever he played, so when looking back on records like ‘Pride’ or ‘I Will Follow’, it was always going to be a little bit different since they were doing a send-up of their old sound. But even some of their greatest tunes got a little tired after a while.
Granted, it also concerns the kind of set they were working with. Songs like ‘Until the End of the World’ and ‘Zoo Station’ showed the band with their tongues firmly in their cheeks, and while that meant there was still room for a couple of serious tunes like ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’, there was something about the song ‘With Or Without You’ that managed to get a bit monotonous after a while.
“I wouldn’t say anything’s really unbreakable, but you can wear songs out. We’re not doing ‘With or Without You,’ for example.”
The Edge
Even as late as 2008, The Edge remembered that the ballad is one of the few songs that they grew tired of playing live, saying, “I wouldn’t say anything’s really unbreakable, but you can wear songs out. We’re not doing ‘With or Without You,’ for example, as well as a few other hits, because they don’t feel right in the set.”
And listening to some of their other tunes from The Joshua Tree, it’s easy to see why ‘With Or Without You’ overstays its welcome a little bit. Since a lot of the band’s material is malleable once they reach the live stage, there’s no way to stray from the original recorded version of this tune, which makes it more than a little bit boring when all The Edge has to do is throw on a handful of effects and play a handful of chords in between Bono’s vocal performance.
But the beauty of U2 is having a few songs in their back pocket that they can pull out whenever the time calls for it. ‘With Or Without You’ might not work with every crowd they play to, so having something in that same vein like ‘Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses’ makes for a much more entertaining moment during the live show than having to run through the same tired effects over again.
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