U2
U2 I + E Tour
The Forum - Inglewood, CA
Night 5 of 5
June 3rd, 2015
"Elvis Has Left The Building"
VG
Taper: mixter_
Dedicated to fellow taper: ijwthstd who provided the ticket. Sincere thanks and gratitude. I wouldn't
be able to attend otherwise.
Lineage / Equipment:
100' from apex of "e" stage -> 4.5' - 6.7' h -> at933's (4.7k dt mod) cards -> naiant pipsqueak pre (+4dB)
-> edirol r09 (24/48) -> san disk extreme plus 32gb class 10 - 80mb/s -> reader -> audition 3.0
(moderate level adjust +11dB l / +9dB r - fades - normalization - de-clap process) -> har-bal 2.3 (slight e.q.)
-> audition 3.0 (dither to 16/44.1) -> cd wave editor (track split) -> tlh (flac level 8, etc...) -> DIME
-> you -> sense of enjoyment -> sharing is caring -> support the artist (yes) -XX convert to mp3 (no!!!)
K.I.L.L. = Keep It LossLess. Convert to mp3 or shortwave radio for personal use only.
Please do no sell or attempt to profit from this recording. I do ask that any reposts, links
or artwork credit me as the original taper. Thank-you.
Setlist:
Set 1:
01. The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)
02. Out Of Control (with "Good Times, Bad Times" snippet)
03. Vertigo
04. I Will Follow
05. Iris (Hold Me Close)
06. Cedarwood Road
07. Song For Someone
08. Sunday Bloody Sunday (with "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" snippet)
09. Raised By Wolves (with "Psalm 23" snippet)
10. Until The End of the World (with "Love and Peace or Else" snippet)
Set 2:
11. Invisible
12. Even Better Than The Real Thing
13. Mysterious Ways (with "Burning Down The House" and "Young Americans" snippets)
14. Volcano*
15. Ordinary Love*
01:17:00
16. Can't Help Falling In Love (sung by an Elvis impersanator)
17. Every Breaking Wave
18. Bullet The Blue Sky (with "19" and "Black Dog" snippets)
19. The Hands That Built America / Pride (In the Name of Love)
20. Beautiful Day
21. The Troubles
22. With Or Without You
23. 'Encore Break'
24. City Of Blinding Lights (includes Stephen Hawking speech)
25. Mother And Child Reunion / Where The Streets Have No Name (with "California" snippet)
26. One (with "My Sweet Lord" and "Invisible" snippets)
01:02:40
02:19:40
*Tour Debut
U2 are:
Bono - Vocals
The Edge - Guitars, Piano, Backing Vocals
Adam Clayton - Bass
Larry Mullen - Drums
The band / performance:
The four Northside Dubliners make their return to the recently refurbished Forum for the fifth and final night
of their Los Angeles residency (sixth if you include their KROQ promotional club show, so aptly recorded by JEMS).
The band performed for nearly 2 1/2 hours to a capacity crowd. On the surface, it may appear strange that the set
was dominated by "Songs of Innocence" (nine in total!); an album that the band "couldn't giveaway" nine months ago.
However, the album has a natural ebb and flow to it and has the added benefit of telling a narrative of the band's
early formative years. After years of over the top stage productions with spaceships and claws, I commend them on
their decision to return to arenas and to scale the production back. The stage design allows nearly everyone in the
audience a closer view of the band at some point in the performance. I was located directly above the "e" stage which
afforded me a bird's eye view for the majority of the second half of the show. Unfortunately, I was not able to see
the massive two storey monolithic LED screen that was lowered across the center catwalk. The band would perform inside
the screen at different intervals during the night. The band was tight and well-rehearsed and Bono's voice was in fine
form. No doubt aided by the band's "two nights on - two nights off" itenerary. After all is said and done, the band
will make 70+ stops across 20 cities around the world over the next seven months. The set saw the tour debut of
"Volcano" and "Ordinary Love". The performance overall seemed a bit subdued. The band is clearly still mourning the
loss of their fallen comrade, Dennis Sheehan. Still it was nearly flawless. The two exceptions were a problem with the
"e stage" piano at the beginning of "Every Breaking Wave" in which The Edge was forced to retreat to the main stage.
During that time Bono brought up a 70's-era Elvis impersanator from the audience, who regailed the audience with a verse
of "Can't Help Falling In Love". Also, one of his guitar effects didn't trigger during one of the WTSHNN verses. All in
all it was a great show!
The recording:
It's a fairly solid pull from the fifth row of The Forum's proverbial "cheap seats" (Upper Section). This section used
to be called "The Collonade" when the Showtime Lakers and Gretsky-era Kings played here. The 60m that the MSG Group spent
in 2013 saw upgraded seats that didn't afford any extra legroom as they didn't change the configuration of the interior
bowl. Still, even these nosebleed seats afford a much better view than those at Staples Center, which are situated atop
three storeys of suites. Parking here is still a mad dog's breakfast , but that's a whole other story (YIKES!) This
section has the added benefit of having the most direct path to the ceiling stacks that are configured in a large ellipse
above the runway stage. I was situated directly in front of a small projection screen with speakers on either side.
Unfortunately, I had no direct "line of sight" to any single speaker. Still, the people directly in front of me were
situated in a Box section 2 feet below me and they were very quiet. There is very little chatter on the recording. That
being said, I did mildly attenuate a bit of clapping. Also, one dude behind me screams out "Gloria" between songs on 3
occasions. I did expand the frequency response a tad and tried to define the bass a bit more in order to reduce the "boom
in the room" sound. Still, it sounds pretty decent for an arena pull. I'll let you be the judge. On a final note, the
intermission portion was parsed as it contains a prerecording of Johnny Cash's "The Wanderer" in its entirety.
Personal highlights:
Tour (live?) debut of "Volcano". It's still a little rough aroung the edges but Adam's bass playing makes up for the lack of
polish. "City Of Blinding Lights". The band just killed it on this song! The recording of this sounds pretty distant though.
Wish we could have gotten "Bad", "40" or "A Kind of Homecoming". Maybe time to trade out "Pride", "Bullet" or "Streets";
blasmephy to be sure. "Desire" and "Still" did get the night off, though.
Enjoy,
mixter_
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