The number of superlatives bandied about by those who have taken in one of the U2 shows at Sphere at The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas since the state-of-the-art venue opened at the end of September is endless. Audience members report being left speechless at the sights and sounds while even the most hardened critics fumbled for an accurate descriptor for the experience.
“The greatest show on earth.” “Nothing can prepare you.” “Astonishing.” Those are just a few of the reactions from places like, well, pick a reputable outlet and you’ll find some variation of the falling down fawning theme.
Venturing into the bowels of Sphere – putting a “the” before it is superfluous – a few nights before the first leg of 17 shows closed out earlier this month was breathtaking. The result was coming away with yet another word to add to the bag of praise: insanity.
First, let’s look at a few numbers to illustrate the impressiveness of the spectacle.
Sphere is the world’s largest spherical structure, measuring 516 feet wide and 366 feet tall and 5.7M cubic feet in the main atrium. The 4D technology enhances storytelling and the screen’s resolution is the equivalent of 72 HD televisions combined. Therefore, every one minute of content produced for Sphere is the equivalent of one hour of streaming television.
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When watching the band perform, the immersive display plane wraps up, over and around the audience, with a 16K-by-16K resolution – the highest resolution LED screen on the planet. Outside, the exosphere has a 580,000 square feet of fully programmable LED exterior with 2K resolution on the Las Vegas skyline.
As if the lure of venue itself weren’t enough of a reason to check it out, U2 is performing their 1991 masterpiece Achtung Baby in its entirety. Dubbed “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere,” seeing the Irish group’s greatest album not named “The Joshua Tree” played live could easily sell out stadiums worldwide. At Sphere, that potential is whittled down to 17,500 people per night.
One of the first things you notice about the setup, even before U2 takes the stage, is there are no speakers. No Marshall stacks, no clunky line array loudspeakers hanging from the ceiling. In fact, there’s just a few monitors on the floor for lead singer Bono, guitarist The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and Dutch drummer Bram van den Berg – sitting in for the recovering from surgery Larry Mullen Jr. – to hear themselves in the mix.
“The entire building is a speaker,” the band has been oft quoted as saying.
The reality is a bit more technical, but not too far off from that proclamation. The setup consists of approximately 1,600 permanently installed and 300 mobile loudspeakers and includes a total of 167,000 individually amplified loudspeaker drivers. The entire sound system is completely hidden behind Sphere’s 160,000 square foot interior LED display plane.
Graphics are obviously a major part of the appeal of the Sphere experience, and from the opening number of “Zoo Station,” it’s all systems go. U2 know they have the toy all the other kids in the neighborhood wish was left under their tree on Christmas morning and they’re not afraid to flaunt it.
There are all the concert tropes like words flashing across the screen to drive home the points made in the lyrics in case you didn’t get it the first time. Live feeds have Bono appearing several stories high as The Edge churns out his gorgeous and echoing melodies next to him. But it’s the ever-changing and evolving graphics in such stark high resolution which steal the show.
“Flare (for U2)” from artist John Gerrard sees a gas flare, burning in the form of a flag, during “Until the End of the World.” Es Devlin’s “Nevada Ark,” containing sculptures of 26 endangered species chosen from a list of 152 endangered species specific to the State of Nevada, comes together as “With or Without You” plays.” Much lighter notes, like Marco Brambilla’s video sequence for “Even Better Than the Real Thing” features AI-generated Elvises.
At times, one must consciously refocus on the stage to remember there’s a band at the center of all this and that band is U2. Yet even they’re performing on an art installation, dreamt up by Achtung Baby producer and artist Brian Eno, which is meant to replicate a turntable, one with two color fields; one is for the turntable itself and the other for the platform which it’s mounted.
Despite all that goes into the show, the timing of the graphics to the music and all the behind-the-scenes intricacies, it never feels like U2 are going through the motions. It all follows a uniform program, but there is a surprising amount of wiggle room in the set.
The first “side” of Achtung Baby is first up, seeing the band loose and inserting snippets of songs from The Beatles, Prince and Donna Summer. That was followed by what’s being called the “Turntable” portion of the show. On this evening in particular, the band did a Rattle and Hum mini set of four cuts from the part studio/part live 1988 LP. Then came the second half of Achtung Baby and a six-song encore of greatest hits and the newest U2 song, “Atomic City.”
“Yeah, but what if I don’t like U2?” goes one of the most obvious questions from those on the fence about dropping some serious coin on travel and the concert.
Out of the four of us who went to the show, I was the only one who professed outright fandom for the Dublin lads going into Sphere. The other three were either “meh” or downright disdainful of Bono and Co. Still, everyone walked away gleefully dumbfounded by the extravaganza. And if you can make it out there between now and February to catch one of the 18 remaining shows – 11 were recently added due to high demand – it’s a guarantee you will too.
A version of this article appears in this week’s print and online editions of my syndicated Rock Music Menu column under the title “U2 at the Sphere in Las Vegas an out-of-this-world experience.“
The Chronicles of Michael Christopher 