July 5, 2022 – Royal Arena, Copenhagen, DNK

Show Notes:

Release opens in the dark, the stage bathed in blue light. Ed lets the crowd take it during Animal. Retrograde pops up again for the first time since Berlin. Another intense W.M.A. tag, Jeff is playing the actual W.M.A. bassline,…

Show Notes: 

Release opens in the dark, the stage bathed in blue light. Ed lets the crowd take it during Animal. Retrograde pops up again for the first time since Berlin. Another intense W.M.A. tag, Jeff is playing the actual W.M.A. bassline, Josh is helping out on extra percussion, and the guitars have a little extra bite to them. As it seems to be winding down, Ed goes on a rant:

If a parent makes a mistake, that’s okay…a man makes a mistake and it’s okay, a white American man makes a mistake and it’s okay, he’ll live his life the way he wants anyway, white man American, yea, it’s okay. Personally…since they make up half of our country, I say the women need their power, the women need their power too, ‘cause we should all be able to make a FUCKING MISTAKE…government get your hands off the women’s bodies, government get your hands out of their fuckin’ vaginas, let them have the power to make their own decisions about their own bodies and their own futures and their own minds, because we need them on the planet to make this a fuckin’ better world…

Never Destination is very energetic, Jeff and Matt especially; a great, driving rhythm. Ed thanks the crew and says longtime crew member George Webb is out with COVID, one of the first shows he’s missed since the band started. Someone in the front row has a sign for Inside Job, and Ed sees it and takes the request. Following DTE, a girl has a sign for Black which is also then acknowledged and played. Afterwards, Ed is strumming a guitar at the front of the stage and asks for a bright spotlight on him to be turned off, then asks for all the lights to be turned off and the crowd to bring up their lights, and takes a deep breath before continuing:

Jeff went out to the memorial at Roskilde today and saw the trees, and you know that was a day that changed so many people’s lives, and we kind of remember…there’s like our lives before that, and then there’s our lives after, and that day, in so many ways, colored our humanity, our compassion, our empathy, our sadness, and since that time a lot of us have gone on to have children, so now, even more than back then, we understand the depth of loss [Ed starts to break down in tears] and we’ll always be so sorry for the tragic events that took place…and we just want to say how grateful we’ve been to some of the families that we’ve been able to be in contact with and to share our lives with, and share their futures, and we’ve become friends and we’ve witnessed grandchildren in their lives, and their accepting of us as people has meant as much as anything in our whole lives, [Ed starts to break down again] because for everyone involved, it was just the most traumatic day, so we’re thinking about ‘em, which is not unusual, but thank you…for still being here when we come back, and again, it never stops, but I don’t get the chance to say it, on behalf of all of us, and all of our crew, I just want to send all of our love, and appreciation, and gratitude, and sorrow, to all those families…

Which leads right into a powerful performance of Love Boat Captain, Ed is visibly emotional during the entire song. After the break, he comes back out holding a guitar again and thanks the crowd, adding:

I’m fortunate that we get to play, you know, there was a chance that, out of respect…because there was a tragic occurrence that happened not far from here two days ago, and there’s just one quick thing I want to say, you are so doing the right thing here, it’s impossible to, you know… there’s somebody back home, there was someone who said one of the most ignorant things I’ve ever heard, and they said ‘you know, you see what happened in Denmark, that even when you have the strictest gun laws possible, it still happens’ but you know what, the fact that they can say that when you’ve had 2 incidents in HISTORY, in your history, of what they call mass shootings, so obviously it’s the right thing to do, compared to say, back in our country, where we’ve had 300 THIS YEAR, and it’s early July…so the fact that someone could be so ignorant and idiotic to say such a thing…and not only that, this person is somebody in US government, that is fucking reprehensible.

Ed does a short “Don’t Dream It’s Over” intro to Better Man. During Alive, Ed kneels on the stage and lets the crowd sing the chorus at him, and the song ends with Ed balancing the mic stand upside down in his hand before slamming it down on the stage. Someone from IDLES is brought on stage during RITFW to play tambourine and sing backups.

Special thanks to Kevin Deutsch for relaying the setlist live!


July 10, 2012 – Forum København, Copenhagen, DNK

Show Notes:

The final European show of 2012 kicks off with a feel-good version of Small Town, and the crowd’s energy transfers momentum into clapping along to the beat of Last Exit. The building is warm and gets hotter as the show…

Show Notes: 

The final European show of 2012 kicks off with a feel-good version of Small Town, and the crowd’s energy transfers momentum into clapping along to the beat of Last Exit. The building is warm and gets hotter as the show goes on, well above 80°. Do The Evolution has more great participation, as the famed South American-style “whoa-oh-oh-ohs” continue on well past the song’s end. Ed, making an attempt to speak Danish, says they are doing their best to make it a great night after a memorable tour. Love Boat Captain, perhaps the single most important song for Denmark, is uplifting and inspiring with another tremendous call and response section at the end. Present Tense and Push Me, Pull Me are welcome surprises early in the set. Ed takes a minute after Insignificance to say how thankful he is for Denmark being the biggest creator of wind power, and that Seattle has bands, beer, and coffee, and Boeing, a war plane manufacturer.  The last three songs of the main set are played again at a furious pace. Mike adds in a delay effect over his solo on State of Love and Trust that adds a different sound to the song. Perhaps due to the heat, a very quick 67-minute main set. After the break, Ed says he wishes they could turn on the sprinklers. Footsteps opens the encore and brings some balance into the set before building up to the faster songs. Without any Backspacer songs played in the main set, a chunk is played in this section, with Unthought Known providing another great sing-along for this crowd. Jeff’s bass is heavy and vibrant on both Jeremy and Rearviewmirror, both songs putting this set back into the sprint mode that started the night. To open encore 2, Ed tells the story of how Smile was written as a note to him by The Frogs’ Dennis Flemion, who passed away a day before the show, saying the words ‘miss you already’ are exactly what they’re feeling right now, and it’s a messy, haphazard version. A request is made for another No Code song, Habit, the only instance to date where Habit was played in an encore. The crowd continues their strong showing of the night, singing along to Better Man, and we get a rare instance of Ed singing the full Save It For Later lyrics. After a tremendous Mike vs. Boom duel for Crazy Mary, Ed recognizes the faces in the crowd that have been following them around Europe and encourages them to start a band, adding “writing songs is easy, touring is hard…you got the hard part down.” As the band says goodbye to the continent, they go out with thunderous versions of Alive and Baba, and close with a bluesy Yellow Ledbetter with a Mike jam tacked onto the end.