Well, you read the headline, and by now you know the rules: It’s St. Patrick’s Day in Boston (and probably elsewhere), and we all have an Irish responsibility. So instead of serving up the perfect pint of Guinness, we’re instead presenting some wonderfully grainy-ass live clips of an exciting Dublin band called U2 playing the old Boston Garden exactly 30 years ago today (March 17). It was the latest stop on the first leg of the 1992 Zoo TV tour, and a hot local band called Pixies opened up the show, according to u2tours.com.
Not a bad way to spend St. Patrick’s Day in the greatest city in the world.
Clips from this show have been circulating online for the past several years, but it seems appropriate to share today as we look back three decades at a band on top of the creative world. It’s also wild to be reminded just how intimate the old Garden was, as the balconies hung down so low to the floor. The energy in the old barn is palpable.
The attendance at this show according to the link above was a sold-out 15,212, and U2’s setlist included more than 20 songs, including 10 from Achtung Baby , which just hit shelves that prior November, and five from The Joshua Tree.
The first clip below might be the best quality, as it from something called a QVC Broadcast, and features the show’s opening trio of songs: “Zoo Station,” “The Fly,” and “Even Better Than The Real Thing.”
Sláinte.