To coincide with the U2 and Green Day recording of the song, both bands performed it live during the Monday Night Football Pregame show of the New Orleans Saints versus Atlanta Falcons game on 25 September 2006. This was the first game in the Louisiana Superdome since it was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. The live performance of the song was later sold online to benefit Music Rising, a charity created by U2's The Edge in order to bring instruments and music programs back to New Orleans.

A music video for "The Saints Are Coming," directed by Chris Milk, was released on YouTube on 27 October 2006. The music video shows the two bands playing at the Abbey Road Studio and at the Louisiana Superdome (though the footage from the live performance at the Superdome has been overdubbed with the studio version of the song), intermixed with news footage of the displacement of residents after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The second half of the video shows an alternate history in which George W. Bush redeployed troops and vehicles from Iraq to New Orleans to help victims of the hurricane, with the military personnel fulfilling the titular role of the "saints." According to Chris Milk, this was done to "make a commentary on the Katrina disaster ... from the standpoint of how things can and should be done in the future."[4] The video ends with military support vehicles fading out as the camera pans to a sign that reads 'Not as seen on TV', alluding to the criticized response to Katrina while also parodying media deception on rescue coverage. The video had more than two million views on YouTube five days after its initial upload.

The live version of the song: