Setlist:
11 O'Clock Tick Tock, I Will Follow, Seconds, MLK, The Unforgettable Fire, Wire, Sunday Bloody Sunday, The Cry, The Electric Co., A Sort Of Homecoming, Rain, Bad, October, New Year's Day, Pride (In The Name Of Love). Encore(s): Party Girl, Gloria, 40.
Remarks:
U2 performs in the Longest Day concert. Other bands included: The Faith Brothers, Spear Of Destiny, Billy Bragg, The Ramones and R.E.M.
Fan Review:
By Andrew Connolly
The rain was very steady all day - sort of damp and a bit depressing. I can't really remember any of the support acts because I was getting cold and for amusement I watched people. The steady stream of bodies trudging up the bowl towards the beer tent and back again turned a well worn path into a mudslide. Essex girls who had come to watch Bono strut his stuff were all dolled up in their 80's clothes - white stockings, white stilletoes. (no-one warned them about the mud which eventually swallowed their shoes and splattered their legs). The mud slide was now impossible to traverse and for fun people would hurtle down covered from head to toe in mud. The crowd at the back were enjoying this so much that they(and me) were caught off gard by 11 O'clock tick tock. I was no longer cold.
Fan Review:
By Dennis
I remember this day like it was yesterday.
It was my last few weeks at art college, I bought tickets for me and three mates who said they would definately go, only for two of them to bottle out AFTER I got the tickets ('it's too far...no money...I've got to work in the morning'. Pathetic.)
I spent the morning touting my spares outside the gate. All I wanted was face value. I couldn't believe how long it took to get rid of them, especially when I think back to how this day is now the stuff of rock legend.
Few top memories in order they happened: Billy Bragg having a handbag moment because of relentless lobbing of piss-bottles; Amazement at how, what you think is an immovable, packed human mass, CAN move VERY quickly outwards in a neat radial pattern from pissed Glaswegian puking on his boots - from the stage it must have looked like some freaky human crop-circle formation - I think the Ramones were playing, so I'm not sure they would have noticed. I try not to think about his pal who then picked bits out of the vom, putting them in his mouth; Trainload singing '40' all the way to London, a mob still singing '40' as we walked across town to Waterloo, and still singing '40' as we waited forever for the next train heading in the general direction of Hampshire.
Epilogue. Twenty years on and I'm still best of pals with the mate who came with me. We were reminiscing about Longest Day the other week on a camping holiday in the New Forest with our own families, kids, etc.
We may get old, but rock and rolll never dies....
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I think Bono referred to this gig at their Glastonbury after set interview saying last festival they did was 1985 and yes I was at Milton Keynes Longest Day and I totally agree with Andrews and Denis comments. Boy excuse the pun did it rain. I remember that U2 almost got electrocuted as pieces of equipment failed in the rain. Bono even told jokes whilst they tried to fix it. Also remember the mud slides which were fun. You should have seen my mates 3.0ltr Granada Estate which we all kipped in the car park that night as it had sunk in the mud. The interior was ruined but no one cared back then. We got a tow out in the morning and the carnage was unbelievable. Well it rained again at Glastonbury just for good measure but my beloved U2 never fail to impress. So a big hello to all who attended either, or both of these gigs.