2024-02-18

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"
"When Love Comes to Town"
"Peace on Earth"
"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
Pre-Recorded Intermission Song(s): "Viva Las Vegas" - Elvis Presley

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

"Drive My Car" (The Beatles) / "Discothèque" (U2) / "Love Me Tender" (Elvis Presley) / "Sympathy For The Devil" (Rolling Stones) / "Paint it Black" (Rolling Stones) / "Landlady" (U2) / "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" (Kris Kristofferson) / "Walk On the Wild Side" (Lou Reed) / "Viva Las Vegas" (Elvis Presley) / "My Way" (Frank Sinatra) / "Moment of Surrender" (U2) / "Blackbird" (The Beatles) / "Glorify" (U2 featuring Brittany Howard) /

Show Details:

This show is the 36th of 40 shows that U2 will play at Sphere in Las Vegas. Due to the President’s Day holiday in the US this is the second Sunday show in the entire run of shows. The last Sunday night show was back in October.

This was at one point the final show planned for Sphere, stopping the residency at 36. However 4 additional shows have since been added. Regardless many have decided to stick with their plans to see these shows and the week is one that sees hundreds of fans in Vegas for these shows.

Going into “Even Better than the Real Thing” Bono stops to introduce the band, “Hello hello hello! How are you? Sunday evening. Let’s start with the positives. I. I’m in a band with The Edge. Who knows a Sunday crowd can be a very transcendent situation. Because we are in Las Vegas, we can go just about anywhere we want to go while we’re just standing here. Right? So how are you? And might I ask where are we? Why are we? Who are we? I got you, Edge. I got you, Adam Clayton. And you. Have I seen you somewhere before, apart from last night? Wham-bam-thank-you-Bram!”

A fan organized event popped up between “Even Better than the Real Thing” and “Mysterious Ways”. Sherry Lawrence brought hundreds of fake moustaches tonight to celebrate Adam Clayton. They are handed out in the GA line up with instructions to stick the moustache on ahead of “Mysterious Ways”. The gesture of love towards Clayton is noticed with smiles from Adam as he sees faces throughout the audience now clad in moustaches. Also sporting the fakes? Members of the crew, and drummer Bram van den Berg are all seen with moustaches, the latter causing Bono to pause, singing “It’s alright, it’s alright” and continues with a “It’s not alright”. “Mysterious Ways” brings some suprising flirtation this evening, as Bono breaks out a short snippet of “Discotheque”, heard for the first time at Sphere since these shows started. “Oh oh oh love. Love. Boom! Cha! Discotheque. Boom! Cha!” Although difficult to confirm, we believe Bono inserted the lyric thanks to the gift of a friendship bracelet earlier in the day that read “Boom cha!” It is known that he received the bracelet from Jenny, part of The Garden Tarts Podcast earlier in the day. They’d made several lyrical bracelets to give out through the weekend. The last time “Discotheque” had been played in full was September 2005 on the Vertigo tour, and the last time it appeared as a snippet was the final show of the U2360 tour in 2011.

Tonight, Bono is still searching for his keys during “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World” asking “Edge…my keys. Have you seen my keys? Anyone seen my keys? You seen my keys? Sid? Anyone? Ok. Here goes.” After he speaks about the balloon, “I apologize if the symbolism is a bit obvious there. Yes, the balloon. The head swells up. Big sore head after Saturday night, but there’s always Sunday morning coming down.”

The middle acoustic section is made up of “All I Want is You”, “Desire” and “When Love Comes to Town” from Rattle and Hum. “All I Want is You” is sent out to “all the women in ridiculously difficult circumstances around the world, that we don’t know, and can never know what they are going through.” Bono ends the song with a snippet of “Walk in the Wild Side” sharing, “Everyone welcome here, whatever you’ve been through, whoever you want to be, all welcome!” The band introductions during “Desire”, “It takes a lot of balls to sit on Larry Mullen Juniors’s drum stool, a lot of confidence, in Larry Mullen’s drum stool, to sit in Larry Mullen’s drum stool. On drums, the flying, while seated Dutchman, Bram Van den Berg. Muchos cojones.” Adam Clayton is up next, “Might I say? What a thrill it is to be in a band with you. Just want to say that much. And might I say what a thrill it is to have witnessed this, whatever this is that you have grown upon your being. I mean it really is a magnificent moustache is it not? And one other thing! I mean this…it is said for anything truly great to take place, there requires a long obedience in the same direction, and you have that in abundance my friend, my comrade, four strings is better than six, you have held on to that all of your life, the only thing this man ever wanted to do in his life is…Adam Clayton on the bass.” Edge: “Now on my right, he’s part-scientist, and we are pleased to be one of his experiments. Who am I talking about? Our very own WMD. Weapon of Mass Devotion. That is, the Edge”. Bono skips his own introduction tonight. “When Love Comes to Town” is introduced by Bono asking if anyone had come to Las Vegas on a road trip. “There is nowhere in these United States I would want to fly over. I like driving through. We love to drive through your country. The landscape of America. The desert, very special.” (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction is the name of a book written by Bono’s friend and mentor, Eugene Peterson.)

The acoustic set wraps up with a surprise debut, as U2 pull out “Peace on Earth”. The song was last played in full in November 2001. Tonight, it debuts as part of a political message. Bono has been quiet for the most part through this run of shows, but last night he took on Putin, and tonight he’s looking towards the Middle East. Ahead of the song he’s given lyrics to the song which he tapes down. “This is a song we haven’t played very many times. We’re a Saturday night Sunday morning kind of band. I think it’s ok to confess in this evening’s Sunday service, that how a religion can so enrage us sometimes. To see what the children of Abraham have been doing to each other all over the world for a millennia, as well as this very day, is bewildering. Christians, Muslims, Jews, it’s bewildering. To see the suffering of the Palestinian children, after witnessing the same Israeli children…” Bono is interrupted by cheers when he mentions Palestine and he quickly angers, and tells the crowd to “shut up” quickly getting the attention he wants before continuing. “To see the suffering of the Palestinian children, after we saw the suffering of the Israeli children, it was almost too much. When love looks laughable, I’m sure it is the devil that is laughing. And I understand how ridiculous love thy enemy sounds right now. We can’t live with love thy neighbor, even in our band, in our country. But it is a divine command, and not advice. Easy to say, almost impossible to enact. God help us, in Ireland, we haven’t quite got there, but we have a fragile but beautiful peace that we are grateful for. That’s right! It is an impossible standard, the faithful are called this Sunday evening to pray for the terrorists, as well as the terrorized, to pray for the armies as well as the civilians. It’s a hard call. For me, cause I really really, really, we really, really, growing up in Ireland, cannot stomach non-elected militias, executing people. It’s very hard to say that. But tonight, we pray, for the peace that passes all understanding, knowing what’s impossible can only be made possible by brave, brave, brave, probably politicians, probably people we don’t like. We did it in Ireland, we’re proud of what we did in Ireland, it’s not perfect.” During “Peace on Earth” Bono changes the names of the children in the original song, tonight singing “Gal and Ayat, Hind and Mila”, names of children killed in the recent war in the Middle East.

Bono shares “That’s a Sunday Service” as “With or Without You” starts and then catches sight of the Irish flag, off in the stands, “Didn’t used to believe in flags, but i love that flag now, see that flag over there?” At the end he thanks the crowd, “a lot of us have come a long way to be here, and to get us to our destination, and we thank you. Some of you have come from just around the corner. And thank you for looking out for us while we’ve been in your city. We really appreciate it. You work so hard around it. Waiters, drivers, magicians, sword swallowers.” “Beautiful Day” finishes off the evening, with a snippet of “Blackbird” at the end.

The first snippet of the night is in honor of Pauli the PSM, opening DJ, where Bono sings a bit of “Drive My Car”. “Love Me Tender” appears after “One” in its now usual spot. “Until the End of the World” contains pieces of “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Paint it Black”. U2’s own “Landlady” appears over the start of “Tryin’ to Throw My Arms Around the World” and “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” by Johnny Cash is included at the end of the song. “Viva Las Vegas” appears at the end of “Love is Blindness” before we hear Elvis’ version on the PA during intermission, followed by a new remix of “Elevation” heard on the PA as U2 return to the stage. “My Way” appears at the end of “Elevation” tonight as it has all through these shows. “Moment of Surrender” is sung over the opening of “Where the Streets Have No Name” as the sun rises over the desert. On the way off the stage, as “Glorify” played on the PA, The Edge was spotted (and heard) singing along to the song tonight.

Celebrities at the show include musicians Julian Lennon, Dave Grohl and Weird Al. sofia Vergara is also spotted at Sphere as is Ashley Judd. Businessman and musician Larry Strickland, who was once married to Judd’s mother Naomi, and who once recorded with Elvis Presley is also at the show. Weird Al posts a photo of himself pointing toward the screen when it reads “Everything You Know is Wrong”. Not confirmed but highly rumoured, is that Barack Obama is present at the show as well. There is added security throughout the venue tonight including dog teams, stricter entrance policies, and more thorough metal detection practices, which delay an already late line from entering. If Obama was at the show, he watched from some location other than the usual VIP boxes. The new remix of “Lemon” which kicks of the show starts at 8:50 tonight.

On October 19, 11 additional shows for 2024 at Sphere were announced. The first 11 announced shows had a presale opportunity via U2.com which started right away, with requests due October 21, 2023 by 10pm. Vibee packages went on-sale immediately when the shows were announced. General sales started on October 25 with staggered start times. (11am PT for Jan. 26, 27; 12pm PT for Jan. 31, Feb. 02, 03; 1pm PT for Feb. 07, 09, 10; and 2pm PT for Feb. 15, 17, 18.) Ticket pricing at face value included GA Floor at $267.88, seats ranging from $140.13 to $501.35, and (RED) Zone tickets at $600. During all general sales, most tickets were raised in price due to Platinum pricing with the exception of Floor and (RED) Zone. On December 1, 2023, a special sale was held for local Las Vegas College and University students, offering GA tickets for $25 in-person at Sphere box office. VIP / Hotel and Ticket / Hotel packages were once again available via Vibee.

Officially Released Tracks