Bono wasn’t just thinking about the 18,000-plus fans who were in attendance while the show was actually happening — in real time — on Friday night (Feb. 23) at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
The U2 front man, who is nothing if not forward-thinking, was also concerned with those people who’d be witnessing this same performance down the road a bit.
“We are filming tonight,” Bono informed the crowd, gesturing to the high-tech cameras that were hard at work during the concert. “So this is the show people will see after we go home.”
And, most certainly, it was an event well worth documenting, as the band moved ever closer to the finish line of what is certainly one of the most celebrated residencies in rock ‘n’ roll history.
The run began in late September, as U2 opened the $2 billion sensory-overload known as the Sphere. In all, Bono and company — which includes The Edge on guitar, Adam Clayton on bass and Bram van den Berg filling in on the drums for Larry Mullen Jr., who has missed the entire residency while recovering from surgery — signed on to do 40 gigs at the venue.
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Friday’s show was gig No. 37. And, whether it was due to the camera crew (who were also reportedly filming the Feb. 24 show) or not, the four players certainly did their utmost to make every moment of the evening count.
One of the roughly 435,775 selling points of this show is the chance to hear the band perform 1991’s chart-topping, multiplatinum-selling, Grammy-winning “Achtung Baby” in its entirety.
Like the album itself, the show opened with the adventurous mood-setter “Zoo Station.” From there, however, the set list forged its own path, as the four musicians shoehorned “The Fly” (which doesn’t come until much later on the album) in before “Even Better Than the Real Thing” and then zipped over to Side Two again for “Mysterious Ways.”
They’d zig and zag their way through the album in concert, during two “Achtung”-focused segments that were separated by a quartet of tunes from other records. Yet, they’d eventually play all 12 of the “Achtung” tracks.
The band sounded stellar, complemented by the incredible onslaught of hi-def video imagery that filled the 366-foot-tall building. it’s truly a presentation like no other, causing fans to swivel their heads at least 180-degrees, from left to right, as well as tilt their heads back so far as to strain necks.
Amid all that demand for our attention and awareness, which takes screen culture to a level that is truly sci-fi in nature, these four musicians still managed to be the true stars of the show. That’s impressive, given that many lesser-acts would surely be crushed by the virtual reality weight of all that surrounds them. (I do, however, expect the next two acts coming into the Sphere — Phish and Dead & Company — to handle the pressure as easily as U2.)
Closing the 16-song main set with powerful version of “Love Is Blindness” — which also happens to close “Achtung Baby” the album — the band was quickly back in action to deliver a generous six-song encore.
“Are you ready to get Elevated?” Bono asked fans.
They answered in the affirmative, singing along with gusto to “Elevation” from 2000’s “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” (for this critic’s money, the best album in the band’s catalog) as well as the new song “Atomic City,” “Vertigo” from 2004’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” and a pair of legendary numbers from 1987’s “The Joshua Tree” — “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “With or Without You.”
The group closed the show with the transcendent “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” anthem “Beautiful Day.”
It was a great show — and one that apparently many other fans will get to experience in the future. According to a post by the always helpful U2songs.com, these two U2 shows over the weekend were being filmed with special Sphere-friendly camera equipment, leading to speculation that this film project could be intended to be shown at the venue itself — rather than being released via regular streaming/DVD/theater channels.
So, that means that this “Achtung Baby” celebration might still be going in Las Vegas long after U2 has left the desert and returned to Ireland.
Setlist:
1. “Zoo Station”
2. “The Fly”
3. “Even Better Than the Real Thing”
4. “Mysterious Ways”
5. “One”
6. “Until the End of the World”
7. “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”
8. “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World”
9. “All I Want Is You”
10. “Desire”
11. “When Love Comes to Town”
12. “Love Rescue Me”
13. “Acrobat”
14. “So Cruel”
15. “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)”
16. “Love Is Blindness”
Encore:
17. “Elevation”
18. “Atomic City”
19. “Vertigo”
20. “Where the Streets Have No Name”
21. “With or Without You”
22. “Beautiful Day”