2024-03-02

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"
"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"
"40"

Additional Music

Pre-Recorded Intro Song: "Lemon" (Remix) - U2
Pre-Recorded Exit Song: "Sky Saw" - Brian Eno
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) / "I Feel Love" (Donna Summer) / "Love Me Tender" (Elvis Presley) / "Sympathy For The Devil" (Rolling Stones) / "Paint it Black" (Rolling Stones) / "Landlady" (U2) / "Yellow" (Coldplay) / "Not Fade Away" (Buddy Holly) / "My Way" (Frank Sinatra) / "Moment of Surrender" (U2) / "All You Need is Love" (The Beatles) / "Gloria" (U2) / "Miserere" (Zucchero, Pavarotti) / "Blackbird" (The Beatles) /

Show Details:

This is U2’s 40th and final show at Sphere in Las Vegas, the second of two shows this weekend. The full listing of shows can be found in our show archive. These shows 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 this show. Although Larry Mullen was present at the show the night before to see the show, and thank the band and Bram, he is not in attendance for the final show.

Tonight the doors open late, at 6:55pm. The band are sound checking in the venue until late, causing the delay. Once open the lines are moved inside quickly. There is also a blacked out area near the roof where the screens are not working and teams are seen trying to fix the issue. These issues cause the opening act by DJ Pauli the PSM, Atomic MC to be delayed, and he finally hit the floor at 8:25 while the roof was still under repair. He plays a short half-hour set with the “Lemon” remix that heralds the start of the U2 show coming on at 8:55.

At the start of “Even Better than the Real Thing” Bono does a slightly different spin on his usual, “Where are we? Why are we? Who are we? I know who you are. You’re the Edge. I know who you are. Adam. You. Well getting to know you has been a priviledge and an honour. You’re Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Bram!”

Daniel Lanois joins the band on stage for “One” this evening. The Canadian musician was one of the producers of Achtung Baby. He has often joined U2 on stage over the years, most recently on October 25, 2017 in Sao Paulo, Brazil for “Mothers of the Disappeared”. He’s not expected to be the only guest voice heard this evening. Bono includes the “No them, there’s only us” snippet during “One” which he has used in the past, which also became part of “Invisible”. “Love Me Tender” comes in at the end of “One” as it has done each night during these Vegas shows.

Bono gets to the door tonight during “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World” and finds himself locked out. “I have a balloon. Should I keep or should I leave the balloon? I’m going to leave the balloon.” Fans hopes that Bono would find his keys, and manage to open the door go unfulfilled. At the end of the song he says “Honey, I’m nearly home!”

The turntable segment tonight is a bit of a mix with songs taken from Rattle and Hum as well as a cover of Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream it’s Over”. The set opens with “All I Want is You” which Bono dedicates to all of the women in attendance but one in particular, “She’s a teacher. She’s your First Lady. This is for Jill Biden.”

“Desire” is next but Bono first introduces Bram, “You sir have run away with the circus.” Bram takes the microphone tonight on the final night of playing with U2, and takes the opportunity to thank the band, and to thank Larry. When asked what job he would have in the circus, Bram replies “safety net!” Bono then says “Get well soon Larry Mullen Junior” Adam is called the “ringmaster”, the first to believe “we could take our act town-to-town”. The Edge is “one of the great trapeze artists of all times” and the “card-carrying card-playing genius”. “Desire” is followed tonight by “Angel of Harlem”.

The second guest of the night comes in during “Don’t Dream it’s Over”. The band have worked out a new arrangement of the song and Neil Finn, from Crowded House is heard on vocals. The vocals from Finn are pretaped and he is not at Sphere this evening. U2 have been using the Crowded House song off and on since the shows started up again in 2024. They have not played the song since the February 17 show at this point. Bono shares that Finn sent the vocals via email and told the band that they could use them. Bono also shares that U2 are recording the performance of the song for Alexi Navalny’s widow this evening, and asks the crowd to get involved in singing the song. (Note: During soundcheck, the vocals were attributed to Tim Finn, and not Neil, and are also listed this way on the soundcheck set list.)

The performance of “Don’t Dream it’s Over” with Neil Finn is streamed for International Woman’s Day on March 8, 2024, across U2’s social media platforms. It appears with a note, “Neil Finn beamed in to Sphere last weekend to sing his song with us for Yulia Navalnaya, who is continuing the fight for freedom and against Putin — a fight her husband Alexei Navalny gave his life for. On this International Women’s Day, we honor Yulia and all women fighting for freedom around the world, those whose names we know, and those whose names we’ll never know.”

The encore starts out after Elvis’ “Viva Las Vegas” and a remix of “Elevation” play over the PA. U2 take the stage to play “Elevation” complete with a “we believe in you David Grohl”. The song ends with “My Way” which has been performed at the end of “Elevation” at each Sphere show except for one. Going into “Beautiful Day” Bono teases they may have an actual encore for a change. And there is, the band go into “40” a song long used to end shows, but not played yet at Sphere. The band had worked the past two days, and earlier in the day at sound check to get the song ready for tonight. Bono introduces it as a song the band wrote in 40 minutes. At the end of the song Bram left the stage with Edge, and was not the last person remaining on stage, something that is done when performing the song with Larry Mullen.

Tonight, after “40”, the band do not play “Glorify” over the PA. That song, rumoured to be U2 with Brittany Howard, has been used at all the other 39 shows at Sphere. Tonight instead, it is Brian Eno that is heard over the PA after the performance, with his song “Sky Saw”. The last song heard as people saw the Brian Eno inspired stage, is one by Eno himself.

The first snippet this evening is “Drive My Car” which Bono sings briefly after thanking Pauli the PSM. Pauli has used the song in his set at all 40 performances at Sphere. During “Mysterious Ways” Bono works in “My Sweet Lord” and “I Feel Love”. During “Until the End of the World” Bono includes “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Paint it Black”. U2’s own “Landlady” is included at the start of “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World” this evening. Coldplay’s “Yellow” is included at the end of “All I Want is You” and Bono wishes Chris Martin a happy birthday at the end of the song. A short snippet of “Not Fade Away” is worked into “Desire”. “Viva Las Vegas” closes out the main set, added on to the end of “Love is Blindness”. “Moment of Surrender” is heard at the start of “Where the Streets Have No Name” which also includes a brief line from “All You Need is Love”. U2’s own “Gloria” is heard at the end of “Beautiful Day” as is “Miserere” a song Bono wrote for Zucchero and Pavarotti. “Beautiful Day” ends with “Blackbird”.

A number of special guests are at the show tonight beyond Dave Grohl and Dan Lanois. Also present? Musician and collaborator Ryan Tedder, and actors Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta Jones and Pierce Brosnan. Nils Lofgren, a member of the E Street Band was also at the show. Spanish basketball player Pau Gasol was also at the show.

This is one of four shows announced on December 4, 2023 to finish off the run of shows. Ticket requests for U2.Com subscribers opened immediately and were open until December 5, at 10pm PT. Subscribers are eligible to request again even if they have requested before, or have purchased tickets before. A general onsale happened on Friday December 8. Ticket packages were immediately available via Vibee. 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.

Officially Released Tracks