It's important to keep in mind that, by the end of the 1980s, U2 was one of the biggest musical acts in the world, but that definitely wasn't the case at the time of this festival. By this time, the band had hit it big in Britain and Ireland. Their third and most recent album, "War," was released in early 1983 and reached Number One in Britain. But the band hadn't made much of an impression in the U.S. yet. They resolved to change that by touring to support "War." When the tour started in February 1983, they were booked in clubs. But as the tour went on, and word of mouth grew, they moved to halls, and then to arenas. The US Festival, with about 200,000 in attendance on Rock Day, was their biggest break, by far.
Berry Fay was the promoter putting the 1983 US Festival together. He already happened to be a big fan of the band. He later recalled, "They were originally booked to be on the first night with the Clash. But Bono called and said we'd really rather not be on the new wave night, we'd rather be on the rock 'n' roll night. So I just moved 'em, I'd have done anything for those guys."
The set list and performance is very similar to that of the video "U2 Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky." That's no coincidence, because that video was filmed in Colorado just one week after this festival. But the resulting live album "Under a Blood Red Sky" is significantly shorter than the video or this festival performance at only 35 minutes (and most it actually was taken from other concerts on that tour). It was the release of that video and live album later in 1983 that really broke the band in the U.S., especially since the video was repeatedly shown on T.V., starting in July 1983, well before the live album release. The "War" album was lingering in the album charts, but went way up, eventually peaking at Number Twelve.
This is sourced from a soundboard worthy bootleg. As far as I know, everything from this remains officially unreleased.
This album is 57 minutes long.
045 Gloria (U2)
046 I Threw a Brick through a Window (U2)
047 A Day without Me (U2)
048 talk (U2)
049 An Cat Dubh (U2)
050 Into the Heart (U2)
051 New Year's Day (U2)
052 Surrender (U2)
053 Two Hearts Beat as One (U2)
054 talk (U2)
055 Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2)
056 Cry - The Electric Co. (U2)
057 I Will Follow (U2)
058 talk (U2)
059 '40' (U2)
https://www.upload.ee/files/17039589/VA-1983USFstvlDay0305UToo_atse.zip.html
alternate link:
https://pixeldrain.com/u/mCg6sqvQ
The cover photo of the band's lead singer Bono wading into the crowd is from this exact concert.
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