Love Is Blindness - Live Performances

Live Performances

"Love Is Blindness" debuted on 29 February 1992 in Lakeland, Florida, on the opening night of the Zoo TV Tour, where it closed the concert. It remained in this position throughout the first and second leg of the tour, with only two concerts concluding with an alternate song – "With or Without You". "Love Is Blindness" was not performed on either of those two occasions. Beginning on the third leg of the tour it was followed by a cover of the Elvis Presley song "Can't Help Falling in Love" and, on one occasion, "Are You Lonesome Tonight?". The song was performed at 154 of 157 concerts on the tour, closing 67 of them. On multiple occasions Bono brought a girl from the audience on to the stage to dance with during the song. Following the conclusion of the Zoo TV Tour, "Love Is Blindness" has appeared in concert only twice. The first occasion was on the Elevation Tour; while performing in Calgary, Alberta, on 10 April 2001, Bono sang a few lines from the song at the conclusion of "One". The final appearance was during a Vertigo Tour concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 1 March 2006, when U2 performed the song spontaneously to conclude the concert.

U2 concert historian Pimm Jal de la Parra called the live rendition "sultry, as the screens show a constellation map, giving the crowd a feeling of floating across the universe by the way it moves, transmitting a mood of distance and loneliness that corresponds with the nature of the song." Mark Lepage of The Gazette described the dance at the conclusion as "an appropriate moment of human contact after almost two hours of uproar." Julie Romandetta of the Boston Herald believed it to be an anticlimatic finish to the concert, calling the song "low-key" and saying "U2 soared for more than 90 minutes, but left with a whimper, instead of a bang." Gary Graff of the Houston Chronicle believed it to be a "moody show-closer". Writing for The Arizona Daily Star, Gene Armstrong called it an "achingly romantic closing tune", describing The Edge's solo as "especially tender".

A live performance of the song appears on Zoo TV: Live from Sydney (1994), and Zoo TV Live (2006). The Zoo TV Live performance is an audio rip of the performance from Zoo TV: Live from Sydney. One performance, recorded on 30 August 1992 in New York City, was included as a B-side on some versions of U2's 1994 single "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)". A video for the song, directed by Matt Mahurin, was included on the 1994 VHS single "Numb". It featured the studio recording set to footage of the Zoo TV Tour. An acoustic performance by The Edge appears in the 2011 documentary From the Sky Down.