U2 Is Playing the Linc This Summer

Photo illustration, obviously | Wentz photo by Keith Allison (license; U2 photo by Zachary Gillman (license)

LiveNation announced today that U2 would play Lincoln Financial Field on June 18th as part of a 30th-anniversary tour celebrating the band’s 1987 critical and commercial smash The Joshua Tree.

“Recently I listened back to The Joshua Tree for the first time in nearly 30 years … it’s quite an opera,” U2 lead singer Bono said in a release. “A lot of emotions which feel strangely current, love, loss, broken dreams, seeking oblivion, polarization … I’ve sung some of these songs a lot but never all of them. I’m up for it, if our audience is as excited as we are … it’s gonna be a great night.”

The show will be U2’s sixth stadium concert in Philadelphia. On September 25th, 1987, the band played at the since-demolished JFK Stadium. In 1992, U2 played two shows on its ZooTV tour at Veterans Stadium. The band played a show on its PopMart tour at Penn’s Franklin Field in 1997. U2 previously played the Linc on its 360° tour in 2011.

The stage at Veterans Stadium for U2’s ZooTV tour in 1992 | Photo: Wasted Time R (license)

The band plans to play the entire Joshua Tree album at the show. “The show might not necessarily start with Track One, Side One, ‘Where the Streets Have No Name,’ because we feel like maybe we need to build up to that moment,” U2 guitarist The Edge told Rolling Stone, “so we’re still in the middle of figuring out exactly how the running order will go, so yes. We will be playing the album in sequence.” The band will be playing several songs it hasn’t played live since the 1980s, and one (“Red Hill Mining Town”) it has never played live.

The Joshua Tree was U2’s first number-one album in the U.S. It includes several hit singles, like “With Or Without You”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and “Where The Streets Have No Name.” The show will be U2’s 21st in Philadelphia.