2024-02-03

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"
"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
Pre-Recorded Intermission Song(s): "Viva Las Vegas" - Elvis Presley

Snippets of Other Songs Performed by U2:

"Drive My Car" (The Beatles) / "My Sweet Lord" (George Harrison) / "Love Me Tender" (Elvis Presley) / "Sympathy For The Devil" (Rolling Stones) / "Paint it Black" (Rolling Stones) / "Landlady" (U2) / "Walk On the Wild Side" (Lou Reed) / "Not Fade Away" (Buddy Holly) / "America" (Simon and Garfunkel) / "Viva Las Vegas" (Elvis Presley) / "My Way" (Frank Sinatra) / "She Loves You" (The Beatles) / "Moment of Surrender" (U2) / "All You Need is Love" (The Beatles) / "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (The Beatles) / "Blackbird" (The Beatles) /

Show Details:

U2 is playing their 30th show at Sphere in Las Vegas tonight. Tonight the band ties the number of shows that they have played in Madison Square Garden in New York, which holds the record for the venue they have played the most. The tally for MSG does include an appearance by Bono and Edge with Kendrick Lamar for a single song, as well as a shortened set for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame anniversary. There are ten shows left at Sphere, so U2 will break that record on Wednesday night. The full listing of shows can be found in our show archive. The show tonight will be played without Larry Mullen who is healing from surgery to repair years of damage from drumming. U2 will once again be joined onstage by Bram van den Berg for tonight.

Bono speaks after “The Fly” sharing, “If you think, cause this is a Saturday night crowd, that you can make more noise than we had to endure last night, I want to know about it now!” The crowd is a loud one tonight, and are up for the challenge. Perhaps a little too rowdy in places, as there is a fight between fans at one point in the show near the front, where U2’s crew has to get involved to break things up. During “Mysterious Ways” Adam Clayton breaks a string on bass, and takes a bit to get back into the song.

For “One” Bono again speaks about Candlemas, which is February 2, a day where clergy used to give out candles to help light the darker days of winter. “There is a huge and hungry darkness out there in the world, but last night I was told it was Candlemas. I don’t think we have that in Ireland. But I’ll tell you this, there is a light that shines in the darkness, that the darkness cannot put out” and then he asks “anyone got a light? Digital ones will do.”

For “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World” Bono opens by talking about the balloon he’s holding, “What have we got here? I am holding onto a balloon, believing that the balloon is going to get me home. I believe the balloon is going to explain some stuff for me”. He then sings some lines from “Landlady” a song from their last album written about his wife Ali. He then walks the stage with his balloon, walking back to where Al is, but finding the door locked, and his keys missing. Tonight Bono asks The Edge and Katie Taylor if they’ve seen his keys. (Taylor is a Irish sports figure in boxing and football, who has been meeting with promoters in Las Vegas this week).

After a return to the Rattle and Hum turntable set last night, the band mix it up a bit tonight only doing three songs from the album. “All I Want is You” opens the segment and is dedicated to women, “We want to dedicate this to the great women in our lives, our partners, our mothers, our daughters, all the women in the U2 crew, to all the great women in the audience we feel we know, and to the women in difficulty in far off places that we can never hope to know what they are going through.” It features a nice snippet of “Walk on the Wild Side” tonight. After Bono shares, “whoever you are, whoever you’re trying to be, you are always welcome, you are all welcome here at a U2 show. Acrobats, magicians, cab drivers, astronauts, parents and children…”

The band introductions are next as “Desire” starts, with Bono carrying on the circus theme and asking Bram “You have run away with a circus, and I would like you to ask you a question, one—how’s it going with the circus and two—what’s your job in the circus?” Bram takes the mic tonight, something that hasn’t happened often at these shows. Bram talks about enjoying the circus, the band, the crew, and the fans every night. Bono suggests that Bram would be a tightrope walker, and Bram says, “I’d rather be the safety net is that ok?” Bono then sends wishes to Larry Mullen to “get well soon”. Adam Clayton is called the ringmaster, “the first showman in the band”. The Edge is “one of the great trapeze artists of the age, not because he attempts death-defying, dangerous, grandstanding acts of show business, but precisely because he does not.” There’s one more introduction, “He’s quite shy. Your resident show pony, Bono Vox”. “Desire” features a quick reference to “Not Fade Away” tonight. The segment is finished with “When Love Comes to Town” and a cover of Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over”. It’s the first time “When Love Comes to Town” has appeared in the set list for 2024, and “Don’t Dream it’s Over” returns after missing a single show, played at every show in 2024 otherwise.

The intermission between main set and encore once again includes Elvis’ version of “Viva Las Vegas” as the band leave the stage, after Bono has added the lyrics to the end of “Love is Blindness”. The Elvis version is followed by the new, unreleased remix of “Elevation” over the PA as the band return to stage. Katie Taylor is named again after the “I believe in you” in “Elevation” with Bono singing “Katie Taylor, yes we do”. “Elevation” is finished off with “My Way”.

“Vertigo” starts out with “Uno, dos, helicopter-os” instead of the usual count-in, as helicopters are seen on the screens. During “Vertigo” Bono stops to say “Put your fucking phones down for a minute” towards the end of the song, before doing another round of short introductions to the band. He finishes the song with a short “She loves you yeah yeah…” It’s the start of a Beatle-heavy snippet run. “Where the Streets Have No Name” has a brief “All You Need Is Love” and Bono works in “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Blackbird” into “Beautiful Day”. The Beatles’ “Drive My Car” made a brief appearance at the end of “Zoo Station” and George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” made an appearance during “Mysterious Ways”.

A lengthy version of “Love Me Tender” comes in after “One”. “Sympathy for the Devil” pops up during “Until the End of the World” as does “Paint it Black”. It’s U2’s own “Landlady” that starts “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World”. Simon and Garfunkel’s “America” makes an appearance in the cover of Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over” tonight. “Viva Las Vegas” comes in at the end of “Love is Blindness”, and “My Way” comes in at the end of “Elevation”. “Moment of Surrender” opens “Where the Streets Have No Name”.

The “Lemon” remix that kicks off the show starts at 8:30 tonight. Many thanks to U2log.com for sharing this evening, and to Amy, Caroline and Peter for information that helped us write this one up.

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