Frontman Bono, joined by Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr and The Edge, played a two hour gig on Tuesday night featuring tracks from their latest album, as well as crowd-pleasers Vertigo, Elevation and Beautiful Day.

Bono stood in front of a huge EU-style flag on stage with yellow stars, but one star was not yellow but instead filled with a Union Jack and circled with a heart, and hailed London a great European city.

The band has spent the European leg of the tour reflecting on and celebrating Europe.

The London gig was no different with Bono talking about their "love affair with great cities, great European cities", mentioning London, Manchester, Amsterdam, Berlin and Madrid.

During the encore, Bono said: "We've just been touring all across Europe and whatever you think about it, all we heard about from Madrid to Berlin to Paris to Amsterdam is that people love the UK.

"They love you. And no-one wants you to leave. And that's just the truth.

"For us it's more than just a gold star falling off a blue flag.

"It's a loss of shared dreams, shared strengths.

"Without you, we are less. Without you, the English, the Scottish, the Welsh, the Northern Irish, we are less."

The eXPERIENCE + iNNOCENCE tour follows the recent release of U2's 14th studio album Songs Of Experience and sees the band return indoors to pick up where 2015's iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE tour left off.

By the time the band reach Dublin for four home town shows in November, the current tour will have played to almost one million fans in 30 cities across North America and Europe.

Australian Associated Press