The Joshua Tree Tour 2017

Set List
The opening: Sunday Bloody Sunday and New Year’s Day, into Bad (replacing A Sort of Homecoming, which re-appeared for the second show in Chicago last weekend.) Happy Birthday made a second appearance this tour when Bono got the audience to sing for Jake Berry, production director for The Joshua Tree 2017 Tour. (At the first Chicago show, the band serenaded Island Records founder Chris Blackwell who was in the audience.) The encore began with Miss Sarajevo and ended with the new tune ‘The Little Things That Give You Away,’ which Bono calls ‘the last song on the album,’ i.e. the forthcoming ‘Songs of Experience.’

Social Post
From @JEFFREINHART77: 'Pittsburgh = Wow. No words. Amazing live. Blown away #U2JT30'

In The Press
From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: ‘When U2 played Three Rivers Stadium on a bitter-cold night in October 1987 on “The Joshua Tree” tour, the band played eight songs from its majestic new album. On Wednesday night at Heinz Field, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers returned on the Joshua Tree Tour 2017 to finish the job. Magnificently. ‘’Here we still are, here you still are,” Bono said. “What a blessing.”… U2 began with a few songs that showed how the band climbed up to “The Joshua Tree,” starting with “Sunday Bloody Sunday” from 1983’s “War,” the album that put U2 on the stadium track. Bono’s first words “I can’t believe the news today” — referring to British troops firing on a peaceful protest in Northern Ireland in 1972 — certainly strike a chord with a 2017 audience that sees its share of bad news almost daily. ‘Bono, in fine voice, toyed with the words, singing “Fact is fiction, and reality TV” as The Edge played the stabbing riffs that echoed beautifully around the stadium. They stuck with “War” for the equally anthemic and fiery “New Year’s Day.”...'

If You Had To Pick One Song
'The Little Things That Give You Away'
'It’s the little things that give you away/ The words you cannot say/Your big mouth in the way…'

From @BLUE_JAY_FILMS: 'The Little Things That Give You Away is now one of my all-time favorite @U2songs. It's catchy yet heartbreaking. #U2TheJoshuaTree2017

What (else) did Bono Say?
Between Ultraviolet and One, Bono talked at length about the ONE Campaign, the incredible strides made in combatting HIV/AIDS—‘Today 18 million people take just one pill a day and it keeps them alive’—and the role the United States and its taxpayers have had in that progress.

‘This is an heroic American story. This country does incredible things…when people who don’t normally hang out together start hanging out,’ he said. ‘Punk rockers and priests, soccer players and soccer moms, you know what I’m talking about. We can disagree about almost everything if the one thing we agree upon is important enough.’

And as the band walked off stage at the end of the encore he turned to the cheering crowd and said: ‘Go The Steelers!’

If you were at the Pittsburgh show, tell us what it was like. Add your own review and photos on our tour pages here.