2023-11-01

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:

"New Gold Dream (81,82,83,84)" (Simple Minds) / "I Feel Love" (Donna Summer) / "Love Me Tender" (Elvis Presley) / "Paint it Black" (Rolling Stones) / "Two Tribes" (Frankie Goes to Hollywood) / "Landlady" (U2) / "Atomic City" (U2) / "Into the Mystic" (Van Morrison) / "Sign of the Times" (Harry Styles) / "Like a Rolling Stone" (Bob Dylan) / "Viva Las Vegas" (Elvis Presley) / "My Way" (Frank Sinatra) / "Moment of Surrender" (U2) / "Gloria" (U2) / "Glorify" (U2 featuring Brittany Howard) /

Show Details:

Tonight U2 plays their fifteenth night of 25 shows in 2023 at the Las Vegas Sphere. An additional 11 shows will bring the total to 36 with these newly added shows going on sale last 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.

Tonight Bono is having fun, enjoying the crowd, and including lots of snippets in the show tonight. And he is very talkative throughout the show. He thanks “Pauli the PSM” and launches into “Drive My Car” ahead of “The Fly”. Pauli has been using the song in his set nightly, as the Trabant he is in starts to move throughout the crowd. Bono also shares, “Come on Wednesday night! New Year’s Eve!” as “The Fly” starts, referring to Samhain, the evening marking the end of the Celtic year and the start of the new. Introducing “Mysterious Ways” Bono speaks about Sphere, “It’s a grand madness is it not? But sometimes grand madness is just the right thing to do, don’t you think? We’ve got some great art hanging on the wall. We’ve got praying hands, we’ve dice, we’ve love and marriage. Faith, luck, love and marriage. We’re covering all options here this evening.” Included in “Mysterious Ways” is a bit of “New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)”, originally by Simple Minds, and a piece of “I Feel Love”, originally by Donna Summer.

Ahead of “One” Bono calls for everyone to light up Sphere with their cell phones, sharing “So much darkness in the world”. The segue between “One” and “Until the End of the World” is filled with “Love Me Tender” and both “Paint it Black” and “Two Tribes” can be heard during “Until the End of the World”. During “Until the End of the World” Bono stops to leave the stage, and grabs the hand of someone in the audience on the front rail, he then turns to watch the screen behind the stage from the rail. There’s no audience member on stage for “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World” but Bono breaks into another song as the band plays that one. Included at the start is a few lines from U2’s 2018 song, “Landlady”. During the song itself he references Ali and their girls. “Dreamed I saw Ali, with a supermarket trolley, trying to look after our girls.”

Bono is especially chatty as “All I Want is You” starts, while the band plays the instrumental, he first speaks about Brian Eno, “We can flip the script because we stand on Brian Eno’s turntable. Brian Eno played his first shows in ten years just last week. Wish we were at one of those shows. Love Brian Eno. We owe so much to him. We like to think the sphere is kind of the shape of Brian Eno’s brain. A perfect marriage of art and science.” After speaking about art and science some more, Bono stops to discuss the relationship between U2 and their audience, “Art and science, that’s what is getting married tonight…and us…you and us, if that’s not too forward. I think U2 are involved in a committed relationship with our audience. Our lives are bound together. Other bands may like you, but we looooove you. You love us back. This life you’ve given us is wonderful actually. Thank you for the life you’ve given us. And the freedom, such freedom. Later I’m going to sing, we’re going to play and I’m going to sing, ‘I’m free, took me my whole life, I’m free, where you are is where I’ll be, and your freedom is contagious’, that is, that’s a love song to you.” Later in the show, as promised, Bono does sing those lines as part of their new single “Atomic City” but “All I Want is You” gets underway first.

During “All I Want is You” Bono goes into an extended snippet of “Into the Mystic” and in the midst of that snippet, goes into yet another snippet, this time Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times” singing, “Just stop your crying, it’s a sign of the times, we gotta get away from here. Just stop your crying, it’ll be alright, they told me that the end is near.” After he finishes with the Styles song, it’s back to “Into the Mystic” to finish off “All I Want is You”.

Band introductions come ahead of “Desire” with Bono sharing “Your bass parts never get old. You sir, never get old. You go to shows, you might feel the bass, but you don’t notice the bass player. We notice Adam Clayton!” The Edge is introduced as “our musical director, and say how difficult it is to describe you, and what it is you do. I’m not sure even you know. A mystery even to himself. Our non-card-playing-card-carrying-genius, The Edge.” And finally Bono asks “Who else do we have on stage?” before introducing Bram as “too tall” and “too good looking”.

A snippet of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” comes in at the end of “Angel of Harlem” with Bono getting the audience to sing the “how does it feel” line. Other songs used in the show include “Viva Las Vegas” at the end of “Love is Blindness” and “My Way” at the end of “Elevation”. U2’s own “Moment of Surrender” can be heard over the introduction of “Moment of Surrender”. Bono introduces “Beautiful Day” saying, “Wednesday is the new Friday. What a time I’ve been having here. A lot of guests here tonight. A lot of family. We love you.” and sings a bit of U2’s “Gloria” during the song.

At the end of the night, after U2 finish “Beautiful Day”, Brittany Howard’s vocals can be heard over the PA as “Glorify” plays. The song is played each night after U2 finish their show. And tonight, like others, Bono briefly takes the mic as he’s saying his goodbyes to sing a couple of lines from “Glorify”.

Additional elements have been added to “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World” (additional lighting) and “Ultra Violet” (lights rising into the clouds from below) as the show continues to build and change.

A big thank you to Lisa for this evening.

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