Bono picks the best U2 song to play live: “It’s as if God walks through the room”
This might not come as a surprise to the millions that have seen them live, but U2 top the bill for the highest-grossing tour of all time. When you adjust the net gross of tours for inflation, the Irish band ended up at the top with their U2 360 Tour, which racked up a whopping $736million over 110 shows from 2009 to 2011. In today’s money, that gets topped up to $887m, which is enough of a mind-bending figure to see them nip ahead of Ed Sheeran, whose massive 255-date tour from 2017 to 2019 would’ve earned him $822m with inflation.
Over 7million people watched the shows, which took place mainly in enormous stadiums like Barcelona’s Camp Nou. In fact, they had an average attendance of roughly 66,000 over the course of the global jaunt. Playing such huge stadiums meant that they could offer rather reasonable ticket prices with a sliding scale of price categories to suit all budgets. Most tickets retailed between $30-55 in the US ($41-$68 today), with additional packages at $90 ($123 today) and $250 ($342 today).
This typifies the essence of the band in many ways: they are a stadium rock act who put on a show worthy of the space, but they remain grounded in their humble roots. In an era whereby you can create a giant spider stage, their opinion has been, ‘Well, why the hell not?’ safe in the knowledge that they have songs that will not be dwarfed by the spectacle. However, they’re also well aware that an insincere show can turn an awe-inspiring feat into a daft gimmick.
Thankfully, there is one song that they always know will deliver on this front. “If ever a song got to live up to a ridiculous billing, ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ is that song,” Bono writes in his memoir, Surrender. “We must have played it a thousand times, and no matter how shite a show, how off form the band or, more likely, the singer, to this day when we play ‘Streets,’ it’s as if God walks through the room.”
In actual fact, according to tour statistics, they have only played it 905 times, making it their fourth most player track live behind, ‘Will Follow’ (1061), ‘Pride (in the Name of Love)’ (1024), ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ (946). Completing the top five is ‘With or Without You’ (840).
However, the song didn’t always look fated to become a live staple. In fact, for a while, it looked like it would never leave the studio. It had entered the studio as a mere sketch with Ethiopian influences, and the problem was that it was perhaps too unstructured. Honing it became an obsession for Eno, taking up “40% of his time” on the album. In turn, he grew so frustrated by the track that he ended up hating it. He eventually told the studio’s assistants to destroy it.
Thankfully, it survived, and now Bono opines that it is not only U2’s best song live but also his favourite to perform.
