Sunday, October 16th 2011
News: U2
Watch U2 Debut Live Songs & Rarities For Bill Clinton
Saturday night’s “A Decade of Difference” event at the Hollywood Bowl, celebrating 10 years of former-US President Bill Clinton’s charity foundation, featured a series of musical guests including Stevie Wonder, Usher, Lady Gaga, and U2′s Bono & The Edge. While most artists’ performances went by without much surprise (Gaga’s “Monroe moment” notwithstanding), the U2 frontman and his guitarist played an acoustic set wherein they resurrected a few live rarities, and even added a string section to some songs.
Presenting the set as “some hits, and some other songs that should’ve been hits,” they performed 2004′s A Man and a Woman live for the very first time, as well as Staring the Sun for the first time in 10 years. That song also featured a beautiful string arrangement that stayed with the duo for the last two songs – One and a near-flawless rendition of Miss Sarajevo. Watch the whole set below:
The setlist (with timestamps, if you want to jump to a specific song):
1- Desire
2- I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (4:00)
3- A Man And A Woman (8:40)
4- Sunday Bloody Sunday (15:00)
5- Staring At The Sun (20:30)
6- One (25:55)
7- Miss Sarajevo (34:00)
Bono shared a few obligatory words praising Bill Clinton, calling him “by far the most beloved American since JFK, for all of us Irish” – after all, Clinton was instrumental in Northern Ireland’s peace process, besides having Irish ancestry himself. (“Too tall to be a despot,” indeed.)
The entire “A Decade of Difference” event can be seen here. (Bono & The Edge start at 3:00:40)
You can donate to the William J. Clinton Foundation here, if you’ve got money to burn.