The third city on U2's Joshua Tree Tour 2019 was Melbourne. This tour is only the second time U2 have played just one show in Melbourne - normally they have played at least two, but Popmart also featured just one show, on 21 February 1998.

Before the show, the band soundchecked Bad, Pride, I Still Haven't Found, some guitar from Bullet the Blue Sky, and two songs not yet performed on the tour: I Will Follow and Desire. One of these later appeared in the setlist.

I Will Follow appeared second, after Sunday Bloody Sunday. This is its first performance since 13 November 2018, the last show of the previous tour. It did not come at the expense of any other song; today's set was 25 songs rather than the 24 played at the three previous shows. At shows on the Joshua Tree Tour 2017, U2 played I Will Follow sporadically - it appeared at 11 out of 51 gigs.

The other 24 songs were the same 24 that were played three days ago in Brisbane. Bono again dedicated Bad to the firefighters combating the bushfires in Australia, but sang a different snippet - Nick Cave's Into My Arms.

During Streets, a light drizzle began. Bono sang a brief snippet of Eurythmics' Here Comes the Rain Again before I Still Haven't Found, and then ended that song with a lengthy snippet of Singin' in the Rain. Marvel Stadium's roof was closed by the end of Red Hill Mining Town.

Bono is starting to make a habit of chatting with the rest of the band between In God's Country and Trip Through Your Wires. Like at the second Auckland show, he asked Edge and Larry about their time in the Drifting Cowboys, a country band they played in as teenagers. Larry played a foxtrot rhythm for the crowd, and both of them talked at some length about their experiences. Adam added that he failed the audition for the Drifting Cowboys.

Bono made similar remarks about the need for action on climate change before One as he did in Brisbane. At the end of Beautiful Day, he gave a nod to the news that Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist held in indefinite detention on Manus Island by Australia for seeking asylum, has finally been able to leave Manus and is now free in New Zealand.

The large screen had some serious glitches during Noel Gallagher's support set, with the right-hand side failing during most songs. It was, however, flawless during U2's set.

The full setlist was:

1. Sunday Bloody Sunday
2. I Will Follow
3. New Year's Day
4. Bad / Into My Arms (snippet)
5. Pride (In the Name of Love)
6. Where the Streets Have No Name
7. Here Comes The Rain Again (snippet) / I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / Singin' In The Rain (snippet)
8. With or Without You
9. Bullet the Blue Sky / The Star-Spangled Banner (snippet) / America (snippet)
10. Running To Stand Still
11. Red Hill Mining Town
12. In God's Country
13. Trip Through Your Wires
14. One Tree Hill
15. Exit / Wise Blood (snippet) / Eeny Meeny Miny Moe (snippet)
16. Mothers Of The Disappeared
17. Angel of Harlem

encore(s):

18. Elevation
19. Vertigo / Devil Inside (snippet)
20. Even Better Than The Real Thing
21. Every Breaking Wave
22. Beautiful Day
23. Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
24. Love Is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way
25. One

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

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Posted on November 15, 2019 by Macphisto