Today, U2 performed their first of two shows in Chicago. They are playing at the United Center, to which they have been regular visitors: this is their sixth run of shows at this venue since 2001, having played at least two shows here on every North American arena leg this century. The arena will now be all the more special to the band, as Bono told the audience that the United Center's staff had today raised money for Project Red and that venue management had matched it.

The start of the concert was delayed by technical difficulties with the screen. Bono alluded to this in the introduction to The Best Thing, remarking that "the people were just so cool with it" as part of an imagined letter to his wife; he then added "I think I scared them with the devil thing", i.e. Macphisto before Acrobat.

Bono fell off the stage at the beginning of Lights of Home but was fortunately okay as he immediately climbed back on. This is not the first time he has taken a tumble; most famously he slipped during Exit on 20 September 1987 and finished the show despite a dislocated arm. Four years earlier he lost balance at the Rockpalast Festival on German TV during Surrender. In similar fashion to tonight he slipped while walking backwards on the opening night of the Elevation Tour, also during the third song. And on this same stage Edge fell on opening night in 2015.

Tonight's performance of The Ocean means that it has been performed at ten consecutive shows. This is a record for known performances at consecutive gigs. It was performed at nine consecutive gigs on the Vertigo Tour, from 16 September 2005 to 7 October 2005. Before that, it was almost certainly played at more than ten shows in a row in 1980–82, but because of missing setlists we have no such example in our database—every decent-length run is broken by a show with an incomplete or unknown setlist. The Ocean was performed at every show with a full setlist available in December 1982 on the War Pre-Tour, and it is likely that it appeared at all 21 shows.

Sunday Bloody Sunday reached a milestone tonight, for it became the first song with 1,000 live appearances in our database: 899 of those are full performances, and 101 are snippets. It almost certainly has been played more times than this, but we are missing a number of War Tour setlists and a handful from the Unforgettable Fire Tour. It was most likely performed at about 20 shows with missing setlists across those two tours, but we simply cannot confirm that.

Tonight's setlist was identical to that played at the previous show, in Omaha. That means Raised By Wolves missed its second successive show, but that Gloria stuck around.

The full setlist was:

1. Love Is All We Have Left
2. The Blackout
3. Lights Of Home
4. I Will Follow / Mother (snippet)
5. Gloria / Van Morrison's Gloria (snippet) / Patti Smith's Gloria (snippet)
6. Beautiful Day
7. The Ocean
8. Iris (Hold Me Close)
9. Cedarwood Road
10. Sunday Bloody Sunday / When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet)
11. Psalm 23 (snippet) / Until the End of the World / Introduction (snippet)
(Intermission - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me)
12. Elevation
13. Vertigo / The Jean Genie (snippet)
14. Desire Hollywood Mix
15. Acrobat
16. You're The Best Thing About Me Full band acoustic
17. Staring at the Sun Bono and Edge acoustic
18. Pride (In the Name of Love)
19. Get Out Of Your Own Way
20. American Soul
21. City of Blinding Lights

encore(s):

22. One / Invisible (snippet)
23. Love Is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way
24. 13 (There Is A Light)

All details for this show including reviews, videos and photos can be found here.

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Posted on May 23, 2018 by Axver