U2 - Lemon: Unauthorised Live (1993) Bootleg

(Irish 1976 - Present)
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The cover says "Live In Seattle" but from the research I've done (see U2 Gigs), U2 didn't play Seattle on their Zoo TV tour. Because this is an Australian bootleg, and "Dirty Day" was only first played during the Australasian section of the Zoo TV tour, I'm thinking that this recording is from one of their Zoomerang concerts. In fact, I reckon it is from their 2nd Sydney Concert held on 27th November, 1993 due to the similar track listing and because this particular concert was recorded on Video: Zoo TV: Live from Sydney.and broadcast live on FM Radio, making it easy pickings for the bootleggers
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One interesting side note is that the Sydney show from the previous night is infamous as being the only U2 concert to be missed by a member of the band. Adam Clayton was so severely hung over that he could not take the stage, and the show could not be postponed as it was a necessary rehearsal for the videotaping of the next night's concert (which, as well as being recorded for official video release, was also to be broadcast live). Adam's bass technician, Stuart Morgan, filled in on the bass, and Bono informed the crowd that Adam was "sick".
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The following is an extract taken from 'U2: The Rolling Stone Files' by editors of Rolling Stone magazine, Sidgwick & Jackson Publishers, 1994. p215-216, where Bono discusses the changes that they had made to their setlist during the later stages of the Zooropa '93 concerts.

The U2 MANAGEMENT crew, friends and hangers-on pile on a bus that will travel from Sydney Football Stadium to a 5 star Hotel in Sydney, about a half-hour trip. It's about 1:30 A.M., the 2nd show ended a few hours ago, and only four shows remain until the end of the Australasian leg of Zooropa '93. It feels like the last week of school.
Bottles of wine are being passed around and someone shouts for music. Someone else pops a cassette in the deck. Over the speakers comes the fanfare that begins "Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car," on Zooropa. An instant collective drunken groan: "Oh, nooooo!"

The Zoo TV show, which starts out so explosively, fades out on a far more ambiguous, introspective note. A desperately searching "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" is followed by an equally desperate, equally searching "Love Is Blindness." Then comes Bono's eerie, falsetto rendering of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love." "Elvis is still in the building," Bono says softly, as U2 exits the building and Elvis' own version of the song comes up on the PA. Through all this Bono is dressed as the devil.
What's the meaning of all that Elvis business at the end of the show?

THE EDGE: Well, we wanted to move away from the well-established and longstanding tradition of ending on "40" [laughs]. It seemed like the only way to make sure we didn't have to.
Really, who else but Elvis could have made that possible? You have to call in the big guns, it always comes down to that.
I think at this stage, yeah. People still start singing "40" at the end of the set. I guess it'll be a while before we can lay that one to rest. People come to the shows who have seen U2 before, and you're constantly having to deal with their expectations as opposed to what you're trying to do. I know there are a lot of people who come away disappointed from the Zooropa show because we didn't play "Sunday Bloody Sunday" or whatever other old song they wanted to hear.
But you dose the set proper with "Pride." How does a song as emotionally direct as that fit in with all the irony and media chicanery in the rest of the show?
At the beginning we weren't sure if that was going to work. I think it does work. It may be a bit of a jump to go from something as ironic as Bono as MacPhisto or the Hy and yet pull off "Pride," complete with Martin Luther King on the video screen. But it comes at a part of the concert where to make a connection like that is important. Amid the uncertainty there are certain ideas that are so powerful and so right that you can hold onto them no matter how screwed up everything else is.

Bono as 'MacPhisto'

"Everybody wants a long life. Longevity has its place. But I don't care about that now. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land!"( Passage spoken by Martin Luther King on the videowall during 1/2 V version of "Pride")
There's a really theatrical element to that MacPhisto character.
BONO: The cabaret aspect ... I was called by a tabloid photographer, who said, "You know, the fellow you do in the fin-ah-lay" [laughs]. I thought, "Oh, wow."
It's great, your singing an Elvis song in the fin-ah-lay, too.
For me, MacPhisto is sort of sad, bad, not so funny but might be. It's like taking the rock jerk that the Fly is and—if you're going to play him—take him to his logical conclusion, which is when he's fat and playing Las Vegas. It's a bookend to the funky and fucked-up swagger of the Fly.
It's rather poignant. Also, whoever he is now—Jesus or whoever—Elvis once was the devil.
The "devil's music"—that was the thing, wasn't it? The beat. The sadness of that last song, though, that child's voice, that falsetto as the song ends, is the most poignant moment of the show, because, in among all those fucked-up qualities, there's just that little childlike voice. That voice to me is the cover of Boy. If you study those films of Elvis—and I have—there were some very powerful moments as he was in decline. Maybe more powerful than when he was the svelte pop hero.
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This post consists of MP3's (320kps) ripped from my Grapefruit Bootleg CD and includes full album artwork as per usual. I've also included artwork associated with an alternative release of this amazing concert - 'Zoomerang Live Down Under' & the first half of the concert which was released under the title 'Mysterious Ways' by the same Australian bootlegger.
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Track Listing
01 - Dirty day
02 - Bad - You've got to hide your love away -All I want is you
03 - Bullet the blue sky
04 - Running to stand still
05 - Where the streets have no name
06 - Pride (in the name of love)
07 - I still haven't found what I'm looking for
08 - Stand by me
09 - Desire
10 - Help! - Ultra violet (light my way)
11 - Daddy's gonna pay for your crashed car
12 - Lemon
13 - With or without you
14 - Live is blindness
15 - Can't help falling in love
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U2 Lemon Link (172Mb)  New Link 15/01/2023

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