by Will Stabley, Stabley Times
(Originally posted March 1, 2013)

36.33088, -117.74527 marks the location of a dead tree and a metal suitcase. The inland California desert is sprinkled with countless Joshua Trees, but only one is singularly iconic. Made famous by U2 in 1987 in the photo sessions for the album of the same name, that one particular Joshua Tree has gone on to be immortalized in posters and banners for the past quarter century. U2 fans have pinned down its location over the years through trial and error, gradually determining that it's nowhere near Joshua Tree National Park, but instead hundreds of miles to the north, somewhere between Yosemite and Death Valley. It's located where the proverbial streets have no name, far enough out into the middle of nowhere that the only accurate way to convey its location is by the global coordinates above. So I head north out of Los Angeles into the desert the hopes of finding what I'm looking for.

Opening Act(s): Carney, Arcade Fire

Setlist:

Even Better Than The Real Thing, The Fly, Mysterious Ways, Until The End Of The World - Anthem, I Will Follow, Get On Your Boots, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - Ballad Of Springhill, Beautiful Day - Space Oddity, Elevation, Pride (In The Name Of Love), Miss Sarajevo, Zooropa, City Of Blinding Lights, Vertigo, I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (Remix) - Discothèque - Life During Wartime - Psycho Killer, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Scarlet, Walk On. Encore(s): One, Hallelujah - Where The Streets Have No Name, Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me, With Or Without You - Love Will Tear Us Apart, Moment Of Surrender, Out Of Control, 40.

Remarks:

It's the final concert of the U2 360 Tour as well as the first time U2 has ever played a show in New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada. "The Ballad Of Springhill" (aka: Springhill Mining Disaster) is performed for 30-40 seconds soon after "I Still Haven't Found..." and it is the first time U2 has played any portion of this song live since 1987. The band debuts "40" for the first time on the tour and it is the final song of the concert (in Pittsburgh only a snippet of "40" was performed at the end). It is the first time U2 has ever debuted an original song in the final show of a tour. Just prior to playing this song, U2 sprayed fans with a bottle of champagne, and at the end, each band member walked off the stage with Larry Mullen the last to leave. U2's most profitable tour (7.3 million tickets sold grossing over $736 million dollars) comes to a graceful conclusion.