It was played live again for the first time in 14 years during the band's homecoming gig at Slane Castle in Ireland on 25 August 2001, however the performance didn't go well with Bono struggling to recall its original lyrical construction. It made only one more Elevation Tour appearance, when at a concert at the Oakland Arena on 16 November 2001 a fan was invited up on stage by the band to perform on an acoustic guitar, and he began playing the song impromptu. U2 played along but Bono's recollection of the lyrics was even worse than at the Slane Castle gig three months earlier, with him admitting as much mid-song to the audience, and he re-coursed to improvised word-play instead, during which he cited Van Morrison's work as a source of inspiration for the song originally. "A Sort of Homecoming" was not performed again until opening night of The Joshua Tree Tour 2017, where it has been performed occasionally in alternation with "Bad."