Watch Sinéad O’Connor’s performance of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ from final show

Footage of Sinéad O’Connor’s final performance has re-circulated following the singer’s death aged 56.

• READ MORE: Sinéad O’Connor, 1966-2023: an artist of integrity and intensity 

The news was confirmed yesterday (July 26) by her family. “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad. Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time,” read a statement by the singer’s family reported by The Guardian. No cause of death has yet been confirmed.

The likes of Garbage, Ice-T, Michael Stipe and Billy Corgan have been among those paying tribute.

Now, fans are revisiting footage of O’Connor’s final show, which took place at Santa Cruz’s Rio Theatre on February 12, 2020. She performed many of her hits including her cover of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ that made her name, despite saying she would retire it in 2015.

“I don’t want audiences to be disappointed coming along to a show and then not hearing it, so I am letting you know here that you won’t,” she wrote on Facebook at the time. “If I were to sing it just to please people, I wouldn’t be doing my job right, because my job is to be emotionally available. I’d be lying. You’d be getting a lie. My job is to give you honesty. I’m trained in honesty. I can’t act. It just isn’t in my training. I have ceased singing other songs over the years for the same reason.”

She relented on the decision in 2019. “You’ve got to be crazy to be a musician,” O’Connor told The New York Times in 2021 when asked about Prince, “but there’s a difference between being crazy and being a violent abuser of women…As far as I’m concerned, [‘Nothing Compares 2 U’”‘] is my song.”

Watch the footage and find the setlist for the whole Rio Theatre show below:

Sinead O’Connor’s Rio Theatre setlist [via Setlist.fm]:

‘Queen Of Denmark’
‘Take Me To Church’
‘4th And Vine’
‘Reason With Me’
‘The Wolf Is Getting Married’
‘Jealous’
‘I Am Stretched On Your Grave’ (acapella)
‘In This Heart’ (acapella)
‘Black Boys On Mopeds’
‘Back Where You Belong’
‘Thank You For Hearing Me’
‘The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance’
‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’
‘Nothing Compares 2 U’
‘Hold Back The Night’
‘Milestones’

You can find more tributes to O’Connor here.

The post Watch Sinéad O’Connor’s performance of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ from final show appeared first on NME.