U2 today made their appearance at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC amongst a star-studded line-up at the We Are One inaugural celebration for Barack Obama. Their setlist did not diverge from what was soundchecked yesterday, and was:

1. Pride (In The Name Of Love) / I Have A Dream (snippet)
2. City Of Blinding Lights

For both songs, this was their first performance since the last Vertigo Tour concert on 9 December 2006 in Honolulu. At the start of Pride, Bono acknowledged that it was being performed on the site where Martin Luther King Jr gave his famous "I have a dream" speech 46 years ago. Like last night's soundcheck, Bono revisited the "not just an American dream" speech he gave at the end of Vertigo Tour performances of Pride, describing it as also being an Irish, African, Israeli, and Palestinian dream. After this, he snippeted from "I have a dream", namely the lines to let freedom ring in every village, hamlet, state, and city. Over the start of City Of Blinding Lights, Bono spoke of it being a thrill for U2 that Obama had chosen to use the track as part of his campaign's soundtrack. Its lyrics featured modifications for the occasion; in the first verse, instead of singing the "day-glo eyes" line, Bono instead sang "America, let your road rise/Under Lincoln's unblinking eyes/They're advertising in the skies/For people like you". He also altered "I'm getting ready to leave the ground" to "America is getting ready to leave the ground". At the end of the show, U2 and all the other acts returned to the stage during a performance of America The Beautiful by Beyonce and a choir.

Posted on January 19, 2009 by Axver