2023-10-27

Sphere, Las Vegas, NV

Set List of Show:

Main Set:

"Zoo Station"
"The Fly"
"Even Better Than the Real Thing"
"Mysterious Ways"
"One"
"Until the End of the World"
"Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses"
"Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World"
"All I Want is You"
"Desire"
"Angel of Harlem"
"Love Rescue Me"
"Acrobat"
"So Cruel"
"Ultra Violet (Light My Way)"
"Love is Blindness"

Encore:

"Elevation"
"Atomic City"
"Vertigo"
"Where the Streets Have No Name"
"With or Without You"
"Beautiful Day"

Additional Music

Pre-Recorded Intro Song: "Lemon" (Remix) - U2
Pre-Recorded Exit Song: "Glorify" - U2 featuring Brittany Howard
Pre-Recorded Exit Song: "What A Wonderful World" - Louis Armstrong

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

"Drive My Car" (The Beatles) / "Love Me Tender" (Elvis Presley) / "Paint it Black" (Rolling Stones) / "Two Tribes" (Frankie Goes to Hollywood) / "Walk On the Wild Side" (Lou Reed) / "Satellite of Love" (Lou Reed) / "Happy Birthday" (Traditional Song) / "Viva Las Vegas" (Elvis Presley) / "My Way" (Frank Sinatra) / "Moment of Surrender" (U2) / "What A Wonderful World" (Louis Armstrong) / "Glorify" (U2 featuring Brittany Howard) /

Show Details:

Tonight U2 plays their thirteenth night of 25 shows in 2023 at the Las Vegas Sphere. An additional 11 shows will bring the total to 36 with newly added shows going on sale earlier this week. The full listing of shows can be found in our U2 show archive. U2 are performing these shows without founding member, Larry Mullen Junior, who is missing due to surgery to repair damage suffered from years of drumming. A Dutch drummer, Bram van den Berg replaces Mullen at these shows in Las Vegas.

It’s a Friday night in Las Vegas and the band are having fun on stage. The performances at Sphere have become quite relaxed, and the full band appears to be having much fun at these shows. Tonight at the end of “Zoo Station” Bono exits the song chanting “Baby, Achtung Baby, Baby, Achtung Baby, Achtung Baby”. Going into “The Fly” Bono says thanks to their opening act, “Thank you Pauli the PSM” before doing a brief bit of The Beatles’ “Drive My Car” which Pauli the PSM has been using in his opening act as he starts to move around the venue in the Trabi he is using to DJ.

Ahead of “Even Better than the Real Thing” Bono speaks to the audience and then addresses The Edge and Adam Clayton, “Hello. How are you? Where are we? Why are we? Who are we? I know who you are. You’re the Edge. I know who you are. You’re Adam right? Now? I feel like I know you all my life…” He returns to the look back at the years spent with Adam and The Edge later in the show during the band introductions. At the end of the song he takes off his Fly glasses and puts his own glasses on, “oh…there you are!” “Everyone alright up there? How are you getting on in this mes-miracle spherical object?” Tonight the balloon is seen for “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World” but once again no one is pulled out of the audience.

Tonight, as on most nights, the break in the middle of the main set is Rattle and Hum and Bono introduces the segment speaking first about Brian Eno and then about their families who are at the show tonight. “Are we ok? Ok let’s put the baby to bed for a while. This isn’t exactly side 1 / side 2, but close. We’re here on the Brian Eno turntable. Are you feeling that up there? With Brian Eno you can play with space and time. Now straight up, Achtung Baby was a difficult birth. Bringing up children is a great adventure really? And then the humbling realization that they’re actually bringing you up. That’s quite humbling. Jordan, Arran, Blue, Hadrian, little Alba, we’ve got our children here tonight. Ella and Peter. You’ve done a pretty good job of getting us to adulthood. Pretty good.” During “All I Want is You” Bono stops to appreciate the bass, sharing “Beautiful liquid bass” before kicking into a few lines from “Walk on the Wild Side”. He also includes a snippet of “Satellite of Love”, a song that was one of the B-Sides for the original Achtung Baby singles. Another of those B-Sides, “Paint it Black” was included as a snippet earlier in the night as part of “Until the End of the World”.

Ahead of “Desire” Bono stops to talk about their missing drummer, Larry Mullen, absent because of issues with his elbows, shoulders and back from years of drumming. Bono shares “We’re not going out. We are out. This is the moment I like to introduce the band, and especially the one that isn’t here. Drummers are not made, they are born. And they take a lot of punishment over the years. and that’s just from singers. For Larry Mullen we send him our deepest love.”

He continues into introductions for those on stage, saying Bram “Saved our ass when it was quite the ways out the window”. Of Adam, Bono shares, “Who is this man? I’ve known him since school, I still don’t know him. Ever mysterious. Ever extraordinary.” Likewise, The Edge – “I’ve known him since school. Still have no idea who he is. He is a scientist, and I think we are his experiment this evening.” And Bono also introduces himself, “one of the most humble people I know, thoughtful, kind to his friends, children and animals, sometimes a danger to himself, on the vocals, Bono”.

Ahead of “Angel of Harlem” Bono wants to sing “Happy Birthday” to a “friend who happens to be a lion tamer”. Edge starts playing “Angel of Harlem” before Bono sings “Happy Birthday” or even finishes talking. Bono walks over to The Edge to stop him from playing. He continues “It’s a circus town and our friend is a lion tamer”, talking about Arthur Fogel, prior to getting the crowd to sing “Happy Birthday” and then he turns to The Edge and says “Now you can try” and the music for “Angel of Harlem” starts.

Bono introduces “Love Rescue Me” with “Let’s make this whisper a kind of scream. There’s a lot to scream about these days. Some subjects I’m bring up, too upsetting to many people here.”

Other than the songs mentioned above, “Love Me Tender” appeared between “One” and “Until the End of the World”. “Two Tribes” was part of “Until the End of the World” as was the previously mentioned “Paint it Black”. “All I Want is You” referenced both “Walk on the Wild Side” and “Satellite of Love” by Lou Reed. Bono sang “Happy Birthday” briefly ahead of “Angel of Harlem”, and “Viva Las Vegas” ended “Love is Blindness”. In the encore “My Way” had its usually home at the end of “Elevation”, and “Moment of Surrender” is sung over the start of “Where the Streets Have No Name”. “Beautiful Day” ends with a snippet of “What A Wonderful World” one of the two songs heard over the PA after the show ends. As “Glorify” starts over the PA, Bono takes the mic and sings along to the first verse of the as-yet-unreleased song as he’s been doing most nights.

Many thanks to Sallie-Ann, Brad, Toby and to Jason for letting us into the sound tonight.

Initially five shows in Las Vegas were announced, quickly followed by seven more. These all went to pre-sale and verified fan sale at the same time. During these verified fan sales an additional five shows were added on April 27 and went immediately on sale without a pre-sale. This show was one of these five. U2.com did offer a special sale for these shows after the Verified fan sales had happened. All sales outside of the U2.com sales were subject to Platinum pricing. Ticket face value ranged from $140.13 – $501.35 at four different price points for seats. A General Admission floor was priced at $267.88, and at each show there was be a (RED) Zone riser at the back of the GA area which will hold 50 people, priced at $600.00.

Officially Released Tracks