Drowning Man & Bad?

Tweet Found this very interesting note from U2's Willie Williams about how the band was working out the setlist for opening night in Barcelona. Gives some insight into why we haven't seen Drowning Man yet...but also proves that U2 wanted to try and get Bad into the show right away. Read below:

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Saturday, 27th June 2009. Barcelona. Production rehearsals.

We did another full run-through this evening, which has brought us very close to the set that I think we'll play on Tuesday. It's working well overall, with only a couple of things still proving troublesome. Drowning Man is one of these and I am beginning to wonder whether my judgement has been clouded by my sheer delight and joy at hearing this being performed live after 25 years waiting in the wings. Everybody really wants it to work and it sounds great but it's proving to be a very difficult mood to recover from. We tried going into Bad afterwards but by the end of that double-whammy of beautiful melancholy the set didn't recover for about half an hour. This may well be why U2 never performed this song in '83. I remember we tried a set which opened with it (brave move) but as far as I recall this was never unleashed on the public. We were all a bit too post-punk at the time, I think. The plan is to rehearse bits and pieces tomorrow night then do a final dress rehearsal on Monday at which point we'll make the call. We're going to shuffle its place in the show a little too, so it may not be over for Drowning Man just yet.