ULTIMATE DVD U2 THE JOSHUA TREE TOUR 2017 (MULTICAM - HD)

November 15, 2019 10:01 PM

A true miracle of fan editing, this is probably the video U2 wishes they had done of their Joshua Tree 30 Year Anniversary Tour [2h30m] from 2017.

Setlist: (clickable in the video under "Show More")

1º Act
00:00 Intro (Whole of the Moon)
04:51 Sunday Bloody Sunday
09:56 New Year's Day
15:37 Bad
26:40 A Sort of Homecoming
32:07 Pride

The Joshua Tree Album
36:48 Where The Streets Have No Name
43:19 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
47:20 With or Without You
52:31 Bullet the Blue Sky
57:58 Running to Stand Still
1:03:14 Red Hill Minning Town
1:08:11 In God's Country
1:11:17 Trip Through Your Wires
1:15:24 One Tree Hill
1:21:05 Exit
1:26:34 Mothers of the Disappeared

3º Act
1:34:50 Beautiful Day
1:41:03 Elevation
1:44:34 Vertigo
1:49:20 Mysterious Ways
1:55:17 You're The Best Thing About Me
2:00:10 Ultraviolet
2:06:53 One
2:12:39 I Will Follow
2:16:40 The Little Things That Give You Away
2:22:09 Don't Look Back in Anger (with Noel Gallagher)

posted by hippybear (23 comments total)

Note that "The Whole Of The Moon" is actually by another very excellent band, The Waterboys, and I am chuffed that U2 uses it for their pre-show music as a Thing, apparently.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:37 PM on November 15, 2019 [7 favorites]

I'm never gonna love U2, but I still love seeing the letter "U" and the number "2" on the front page, and being able to predict with a high degree of certainty that they will shortly be followed by the letters "hippybear": thanks for keeping up the work of caring about stuff and trying to make people happy, mate. I'm always glad you're around.
posted by howfar at 11:37 PM on November 15, 2019 [27 favorites]

This reminds me of what Beastie Boys did with Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That in 2005.

Gathering up all the various sources must have been a hell of an effort. Seeing their multicam layout would be very interesting / nightmare-inducing.
posted by dumbland at 1:25 AM on November 16, 2019 [3 favorites]

Apparently this guy really loves U2. So many fan videos.

Thanks for sharing this. I'm going to send this to my partner, she loves U2. We went to see them on this tour in Toronto (from Durham), and they put on a fine show. This will spark some fond memories for us. Bless, in a non-denominational, non-religious sort of way, the folks who do this kind of work.
posted by jzb at 1:39 AM on November 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm never gonna love U2, but I still love seeing the letter "U" and the number "2" on the front page, and being able to predict with a high degree of certainty that they will shortly be followed by letters "hippybear" apocryphal hipster nerd controversy about the Negativland lawsuit and "these guys are from England and who gives a shit? Fuck Snuggles!"

Ok, I got that traditional old derail out of the way in one hopefully lighthearted paragraph, we may now all continue peacefully and amicably. Salud!
posted by loquacious at 1:42 AM on November 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

So do we watch these now or wait for them to appear in iTunes on their own?

(I jokes. Thanks, Hippybear.)
posted by mhoye at 5:08 AM on November 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

Reading the setlists makes me want to watch Rattle and Hum.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:12 AM on November 16, 2019 [3 favorites]

apocryphal hipster nerd controversy about the Negativland lawsuit and "these guys are from England and who gives a shit? Fuck Snuggles!

Full and entirely complete documents concerning this sort of sideways derail. I'm sorry I can't find Dead Dog Records (the accompanying CD) online, but it's likely withheld due to fair use rights issues.
posted by hippybear at 6:45 AM on November 16, 2019 [4 favorites]

Thanks so much for sharing this. Fun to relive it---really was a great show. (And Beck was the opener the night we went, which made for extra awesome.)
posted by percolatrix at 7:28 AM on November 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

Note that "The Whole Of The Moon" is actually by another very excellent band, The Waterboys, and I am chuffed that U2 uses it for their pre-show music as a Thing

The Killers also seem to have embraced it to powerful effect.
posted by philip-random at 10:44 AM on November 16, 2019 [2 favorites]

Well, that was lovely, absolutely, I love those Irish boys! I love that amazing scrim! Thank you HB!
posted by Oyéah at 11:25 AM on November 16, 2019

Fuck Negativland. Those guys owe me money.
posted by thelonius at 11:30 AM on November 16, 2019 [2 favorites]

I saw this show in Auckland last weekend after seeing a few of the JT shows in North America in 2017. It's an incredibly good retrospective on the band's career. The album holds up incredibly well. It's their songs from the 00s that have actually aged poorly.
posted by dry white toast at 8:18 PM on November 16, 2019 [2 favorites]

Joshua Tree (and Rattle and Hum) is the apex of the original U2 sound for me, and Achtung Baby was differently great.

But then I really didn’t care for Zooropa at all. Pop was a mixed bag, with a few standouts. And that was the end for me.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:27 PM on November 16, 2019

I saw the original Joshua Tree tour at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1987. Then the anniversary tour at Ford Field smack on my 47th birthday. They are my favorite.

Thank you for this, hippybear.
posted by MissySedai at 10:22 PM on November 16, 2019 [3 favorites]

"But then I really didn’t care for Zooropa at all. Pop was a mixed bag, with a few standouts. And that was the end for me."

Pretty much same with me. I love everything through Achtung Baby, and then I have a steep decline in enthusiasm. I won't say that the new stuff isn't good, but it's not for me. I keep hoping for a new U2 album I enjoy as much as anything they did before 1992, but even if it never comes I still have the pre-92 stuff.
posted by jzb at 8:01 AM on November 17, 2019

While we are gathered here, I will offer that "Fragments" by The Manic Street Preachers is the most U2 song that is not U2 I've ever heard, sort of in between Joshua Tree and Achtung in sound. To the point I thought it was some weird B-side the first few times I heard it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:36 AM on November 17, 2019

Note that "The Whole Of The Moon" is actually by another very excellent band, The Waterboys, and I am chuffed that U2 uses it for their pre-show music as a Thing

And the lead of World Party was a member of the Waterboys, and sang the high parts towards the end. They were like an alternative late '80s supergroup.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:28 AM on November 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

And the lead of World Party was a member of the Waterboys, and sang the high parts towards the end. They were like an alternative late '80s supergroup.

Not quite -- Karl Wallinger left The Waterboys at the end of 1985 and recorded the first World Party album in 1986. So definitely a relationship there, but as far as I know Wallinger wasn't well-known for anything but being a Waterboy when he was in The Waterboys.

Pretty sure Robert Christgau dismissed The Waterboys at the time as "arty but unfocused U2 contenders," which pissed me off, but I can't find that exact quote right now. (Also Christgau: "How could they be U2 imitators? They're from Scotland. Pompous as hell, too.") Amuses me to hear them at the front of a U2 show, but I like that album This Is the Sea about as much as anything U2 ever did.
posted by Mothlight at 9:50 AM on November 18, 2019

Pretty sure Robert Christgau dismissed The Waterboys at the time as "arty but unfocused U2 contenders,"

this was my attitude on first hearing them -- their second album Pagan Place. I liked it, I guess. I certainly didn't hate it, but I probably only listened to it once. And then This Is The Sea came out and I was in the process of ignoring it more or less completely when a younger friend called me an idiot. "Are you f***ing kidding? It's the best album of the year, no question, way better than anything U2 have ever done."

Fighting words because I was pretty big U2 fan at the time.

Anyway, all these years later -- it's the Waterboys who continue to amaze me. Both their vast back catalogue ... and whatever they're currently up to. Which never seems to disappoint.

Also this. Arguably the best damned live performance ever.

The Waterboys - Don't Bang The Drum, Live 10.03.2012 in Oslo

More than seven years old now, but even then a solid thirty years into their trajectory.
posted by philip-random at 10:17 AM on November 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

Dumb question: is this actually edited together only from YouTube fan videos? Because a lot of the shots I saw at the beginning look quite professional. Some of them look like angles that would normally be impossible for concertgoers, but it looks like U2 is on a stage surrounded by people so stuff like the behind-the-band shots do seem plausible as fan videos.

In general, as someone who hasn't watched the original concert video, about 80% of this looks totally credible as an official product, which is pretty amazing.
posted by chrominance at 10:38 AM on November 19, 2019

chrominance: I don't know if it's only YouTube fan videos. He might have had access to fan videos from other sites, downloadable in better format than YouTube. A lot of the audio seems to be coming from pirate signals tuned in to wireless mic / instrument pack signals. There are some crowd sounds mixed in, but they're missing a lot.

This really seems to be a fan mix using a high quality audio as the basis and then scouring some inconceivable number of hours to create some of the montages and also some of the best filmings from maybe YouTube but also likely other fan sites or torrents or whatever.

It's a really brilliant piece of work. I've seen official U2 DVD releases with less energy than this. It was thrilling, and it's a really great presentation of that particular tour, which was a pretty self-contained artistic statement.
posted by hippybear at 9:12 PM on November 20, 2019

Although now that I look, I see they say all the footage is from YouTube, so why question that, really? Yeah, it's all YouTube, it's thousands of hours of research and work, it's a gift of love to the indifferent internet masses. I'm so glad it exists.
posted by hippybear at 9:15 PM on November 20, 2019