2024-01-26

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"
"Sweetest Thing"
"Don't Dream It's Over"
"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) / "I Feel Love" (Donna Summer) / "Love Me Tender" (Elvis Presley) / "Landlady" (U2) / "Into the Mystic" (Van Morrison) / "Viva Las Vegas" (Elvis Presley) / "My Way" (Frank Sinatra) / "Moment of Surrender" (U2) / "Gloria" (U2) / "Blackbird" (The Beatles) /

Show Details:

U2 resume their show at Sphere, in Las Vegas, returning tonight after a break of several weeks. The band have spent the last two nights rehearsing and getting back up to speed. The show is played without Larry Mullen, who is healing from surgeries to repair years of damage from drumming. Tonight U2 were once again joined onstage by Bram van den Berg, who will play the remainder of the shows at Sphere.

At 26 shows in, the venue they are still shy of the number of shows they have played at Madison Square Garden, where they have performed 30 times, but that record will be tied and broken with next weekend’s Sphere shows. (The tally for Madison Square Garden includes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame anniversary show, as well as Bono and The Edge performing with Kendrick Lamar for the Grammys)

The show opens with “Zoo Station” and Bono is drawn to the crowd response he is getting from the start, singing “It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s Friday night!” during the song. Moving into “Even Better than the Real Thing” Bono does his now usual routine of asking who Bram is, but tonight he jokes that he knows who Bram is, calling him Bram Stoker and saying “fancy meeting you here!” Bono appears to be having much fun being back in front of an audience. After the final “child” of “Even Better Than the Real Thing” Bono sings “man child” and then proceeds to tell the crowd “we’ve missed you!” before going into his talk about luck and love. After a well-received “Mysterious Ways” that gets the crowd going, Bono laughs and says “Well it is Friday night isn’t it?” and asks the crowd if “anyone got a light?” to get the crowd to light the arena while the screen is in darkness as the band move into “One”.

During “Until the End of the World” Bono takes a riser from the stage down to the front rail so he can get closer to the crowd at the front rail. He reaches out for the hands of several fans, before turning around and facing the band as he starts to sing “Paint it Black” as the crowd holds him up. He takes the hand of a fan in the front row and mime’s a bite on the hand before returning to the stage.

“Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around the World” opens with a nice lengthy snippet of “Landlady” (from U2’s last album.) During the song Bono slips in “Man child, I’m a man child” again, before he does “I dreamed I saw Ali” as he starts to walk the stage with the balloon. The door at the back of the stage is locked, and Bono shares that he has lost his keys, and asks the Edge if he knows where his keys are, and then asks Gemma Doherty if she knows where his keys are (Doherty who toured with Bono for his “Stories of Surrender” tour is presumably at the show). And finally he asks TV presenter Cat Deeley if she knows where his keys are. Not finding his keys, Bono gets no response after ringing the doorbell, “I’ve got a balloon!” is his final plea before he leaves the balloon and walks away with The Edge.

The band start out with the Rattle and Hum set with “All I Want is You” and “Desire” before taking a swerve. “Sweetest Thing” is performed for the first time at one of the Sphere shows, with Bono on keyboards. The last time the song was played was in Mexico City in 2017. After finishing on keyboard, Bono shares “I fell off my bike” and tells the audience he hasn’t been able to play well as a result of those injuries. Bono and The Edge then continue into “Don’t Dream it’s Over”, a cover of a Crowded House song. The only previous time U2 have performed the song was as a short snippet during “Beautiful Day” at a show in Auckland, NZ on November 26, 2010. Bono dedicates the song for Neil and Tim Finn (the brothers who formed Crowded House), as well as their mother Mary who hails from Limerick, Ireland. The band then returns to finish off Achtung Baby. “Ultra Violet” which underwent a number of video changes during the 2023 shows once again has new graphics, featuring a circular view of the band behind the stage on screen, while the rest of the sphere screens are covered in moving dots in various colours.

After the encore break U2 return to the stage with a remix of “Elevation” they’ve been using for these shows playing over the PA as they take their instruments to play the same. (Please can we get a release of that “Lemon” remix at the start and this “Elevation” remix? And “Glorify” while we’re at it? And those ambient “Sphere Mixes”?) “Atomic City” follows “Elevation”, and Bono seems to be struggling with the words in places, “Sinatra sings, a choir sings” is followed by “If your dreams don’t kill you they’re not big enough” (The lyric we’re familiar with has Sinatra swinging, and if “your dreams don’t scare you”). “Atomic City” is followed by “Vertigo” which gets a count in of “Uno, dos, helicopter…” Bono calls Bram “Wham-bam-thank-you-Bram” during “Vertigo” and calls The Edge “the quietest storm that ever blew into town”. As the end of the show nears Bono shares “it’s a beautiful life that you have given to us” as he thanks the crowd ahead of “Beautiful Day”.

“Drive My Car” is a brief snippet after Bono thanks Pauli The PSM ahead of “The Fly”. Bono includes a brief snippet of “I Feel Love” during “Mysterious Ways”. “One” is followed by “Love Me Tender”. “All I Want is You” ends with Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic”. “Viva Las Vegas” comes in at the end of “Love is Blindness”. “Elevation” ends with “My Way” as it has for the shows in 2023. “Moment of Surrender” is part of the opening of “Where the Streets Have No Name”. U2’s own “Gloria” is included at the end of “Beautiful Day” as is a snippet of “Blackbird”.

Daniel Lanois, who has worked with U2 on a number of albums, is at the show tonight, and Bob Ezrin who worked with the band on the recent Songs of Surrender is there as well. Bono mentions both during “All I Want is You”. Lanois is mentioned again in “Elevation”, “I believe in you…” Also at the show tonight is actress Rebel Wilson and her partner Ramona Agruma. Ahead of the show Bono leaves Rebel a note saying “Welcome to Atomic City Miss Wilson. x. Bono.” The first “O” in Bono is drawn to be a sphere with the baby design displayed on the outside.

In the lead up to this show U2 sound checked “Sweetest Thing”, “City of Blinding Lights”, and “Don’t Dream it’s Over”. They’ve also worked on several songs that have been in the set list from the start, and the night before gave a full run through of tonight’s set list. Bono has also been working on some material for the upcoming appearance they will film for the Grammy Awards.

The “Lemon” remix which heralds the start of the show started to play at 8:30 tonight, directly after the opening act, Pauli the PSM, Atomic MC, finished his set.

The full listing of Sphere shows can be found in our show archive.

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