U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere
Residency by U2
Static variation of the dynamically changing colour logo, introduced in August 2023
LocationParadise, Nevada, United States
VenueSphere
Associated albumAchtung Baby
Start date29 September 2023 (2023-09-29)
End date2 March 2024 (2024-03-02)
No. of shows40
Attendance280,717
Box office$109,751,705
U2 concert chronology

U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere is an ongoing concert residency by the Irish rock band U2 at the Sphere in Paradise, Nevada, in the Las Vegas Valley. Scheduled to consist of 40 concerts from 29 September 2023 to 2 March 2024, the engagement is inaugurating the Sphere with performances focused on the group's 1991 album Achtung Baby. The shows are leveraging the venue's immersive video and sound capabilities, which include a 160,000-square-foot (15,000 m2) LED screen with a 16K resolution that wraps around the interior, and speakers with beamforming and wave field synthesis technologies.

The show was conceptualised over an 18-month period by U2's longtime production designer Willie Williams, in collaboration with artist and designer Es Devlin and architect Ric Lipson. Several artists were commissioned to provide video artwork for the concerts, including Devlin, Marco Brambilla, John Gerrard, and the effects studio Industrial Light & Magic. The stage features a minimalist design in the shape of a record player, borrowed from Brian Eno's art piece "Turntable". The band's creative team faced numerous challenges while developing the show, which included building a production for an unfinished venue with brand-new technology, designing a suitable playback system, and sharing the space with the crew for Darren Aronofsky's film Postcard from Earth.

The residency is not featuring U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr., as he will be recuperating from surgery, marking the first time since 1978 that the group is performing without him; Dutch drummer Bram van den Berg from the band Krezip is filling in. First rumoured in July 2022, the residency was announced in a Super Bowl LVII television advertisement in February 2023, followed by date confirmations and ticket sales in April and May. To coincide with the start of the residency, U2 released a Las Vegas-themed single called "Atomic City".

The inaugural Sphere show received wide critical acclaim, with many reviews highlighting the successful fusion of U2's anthemic music with the spectacle of the venue itself. Initially scheduled to run from September to December 2023 over 25 shows, the residency was extended into March 2024 with 15 additional concerts, following the positive reception and high demand for tickets. The first 17 shows grossed $109.8 million from 281,000 tickets sold.

Background

The Sphere was announced in February 2018[1][2] as a joint project between the Madison Square Garden Company (MSG) and Las Vegas Sands Corporation.[3] The venue was marketed for its potential to immerse audiences with revolutionary sound and video capabilities.[2] Measuring 366 feet (112 m) high and 516 feet (157 m) wide at its broadest point,[4] the Sphere is located east of Las Vegas Sands' Venetian resort, just off the Las Vegas Strip.[2] Groundbreaking on the venue took place in September 2018 with expectations that it would open in 2021.[5] In March 2020, MSG Entertainment announced that construction was being halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[6] By August, the company said that construction had resumed and that the Sphere's opening had been rescheduled until 2023.[7][8]

The idea to stage concerts for the 30th anniversary of U2's 1991 album Achtung Baby first emerged in 2021 as the band wondered if they should commemorate the milestone in some way during the pandemic. The group also considered the possibility of following the same model as their 2017 and 2019 concert tours that commemorated the 30th anniversary of their 1987 album The Joshua Tree. For bassist Adam Clayton, their biggest question was how potential anniversary concerts could possibly build upon their 1992–1993 Zoo TV Tour that supported Achtung Baby. He said, "how do you update the Zoo TV concept? Because all the predictions of Zoo TV have come to pass: fake news, media overload, the MTV generation, wars fought on television with camera systems that could follow a missile down the street, as it was in the Iraq-Kuwait war at that time. So we just thought: we can't take this out [on the road]."[9]

Booking

U2's residency at Sphere comprises their first performances since the Joshua Tree Tour 2019 (pictured). Drummer Larry Mullen Jr. (right) will not participate in order to recuperate from surgery.

According to U2 guitarist the Edge, the band first heard about the Sphere around 2021, as they were interested in staying informed about emerging technologies for concerts, particularly live audio.[10] He said, "We got the feeling that amongst the Sphere team, we'd been identified as prime candidates for the job of opening the venue."[11] Concert promoter Peter Shapiro, who was a producer for the band's concert film U2 3D, first approached lead vocalist Bono in autumn 2021 with the idea of U2 inaugurating the Sphere.[12]

After talking with Shapiro and MSG Entertainment chief executive James L. Dolan, Bono called the band's long-time sound engineer Joe O'Herlihy in August 2021 to tell him about the sound system that German company Holoplot would be providing for the venue. At Bono's request, O'Herlihy traveled to Germany to learn more about it. There, he experienced a demonstration of the speaker system in an industrial hall in Leipzig and tested it with recordings of U2's music.[13] O'Herlihy intended to visit for a day but stayed for the entire week,[14] and by the time he left, he was convinced that Holoplot system's was the "future of [his] industry" and that U2 should work with it.[13]

Bono and the Edge subsequently visited Sphere Studios, a quarter-scale replica of the Sphere located in Burbank, California, for a demonstration of the venue's eventual sound and video capabilities. The duo left the meeting excited but their creative team disabused them of the idea that designing a show would be easy.[11] Interest in a potential show that would commemorate Achtung Baby coalesced around the idea of not touring a complex concert production in the post-COVID era.[15] Negotiations subsequently began in earnest early in 2022.[12]

Reportedly, Dolan is paying the band US$10 million for the concert residency,[16] on top of a guaranteed $4 million per show from Live Nation.[17] Entertainment executive Irving Azoff, who helped Dolan secure the plot of land on which the Sphere was built, agreed to take U2 on a talent management client in 2022,[12] taking over for Guy Oseary after a nine-year tenure as the band's manager.[18]

In November 2022, Larry Mullen Jr. said that he needed surgery to continue performing, as he had "lots of bits falling off, elbows, knees, neck". He said that if U2 performed in 2023, it would likely be without him.[19] Mullen's physical issues had not surfaced until after the band had agreed to the concerts,[12] by which point they could not reschedule; the Edge said, "We made a commitment."[20] Azoff said the band has an option to continue performing at the Sphere for two more years.[12]

Development

In early 2022, Bono presented the idea for a U2 residency at the Sphere to their longtime production designer Willie Williams.[21] Initially, Williams thought "it was a terrible idea".[12] From a personal standpoint, he said that he hates Las Vegas, calling it a dark, cynical, and expensive city and "the place rock n' roll comes to die".[9][14] From a practical perspective, he was also sceptical about tailoring a U2 show to a specific venue with new technical requirements. In his prior experiences with the band, the creative team always started with ideas before selecting the equipment that could help them realise their ideas; for the Sphere, he found it odd that they would need to take the reverse approach by starting with an unfinished venue and its hardware as the only givens.[12]

Williams was also unsure whether the proposed show should reference the Zoo TV Tour, as he believed that its multimedia spectacle had become ubiquitous over the following 30 years. He said: "The Zoo TV video confessional basically is TikTok. So I felt like that language has probably played out. Every show out there looks like a cross between Zoo TV and [U2's 1997 tour] PopMart... and I wasn't sure there was much more water in that well."[12] Ultimately, he was convinced to take on the project after reflecting on the band's 2017 and 2019 Joshua Tree Tours which, despite being anniversary shows, he thought avoided nostalgia and instead presented The Joshua Tree in a contemporary way as if it was their latest album. He decided he could mirror this approach for an Achtung Baby anniversary show and focus on the album rather than the Zoo TV Tour.[22] Williams conceded that he could revisit the tour by highlighting certain visual elements from it that had not been as heavily replicated, aspiring to recreate the overall atmosphere of the tour.[12]

Sphere under construction in September 2022. The band's creative team felt challenged in designing U2's show while the venue was still being built.

To begin designing the show, Williams collaborated with stage designer and artist Es Devlin, who worked on the band's 2015 Innocence + Experience Tour, and Ric Lipson of the architectural firm Stufish. Williams said the band's creative team typically operated like a think tank and would first discuss ideas they had been thinking about since they last designed a show.[23] For the Sphere concerts, the trio began by trying to brainstorm a new type of show and its supporting visual concepts, all the while imagining the physical space of the venue in which the performances would take place.[15][23] They developed storyboards and held creative discussions over several months, during which they involved U2. Williams said he went to great lengths to explain to the band that they were "making an ocean liner not a dinghy", and that once they had decided on a direction, they would not be able to shift course quickly due to the production's heavy dependencies on video.[23] The creative team felt an extensive challenge in designing a show for a venue that had not yet been built. Williams likened the task to creating the "biggest art project in the history of our species whilst running a three-legged obstacle course".[15]

Williams said he wisely made the early decision to bring all the band's collaborators to Las Vegas, and that nearly his entire team relocated temporarily to the city.[15] Many crew members from prior U2 tours were involved in the production.[23] In August 2022, Williams asked Stefaan "Smasher" Desmedt, U2's long-time technical and video director and the creative technical director of the live production rental agency Fuse Technical Group, to come out of retirement to work on Bono's 2022–2023 "Stories of Surrender" book tour.[22][23][24] Desmedt subsequently became involved with U2's Sphere residency as well.[22] Joining him for the video and camera direction were Allen Branton and Felix Peralta; Williams previously worked with Desmedt and Branton on the 1993 filming of U2's concert video Zoo TV: Live from Sydney. Williams reunited lighting directors Alex Murphy and Ethan Weber, who previously worked together on U2's 360° Tour, and he added Matt Beecher, who served as lighting director on Bono's book tour.[23] Longtime U2 producers Brian Eno and Steve Lillywhite also served as advisers.[15]

Clayton said that despite the band being presented with demos of the Sphere's immersive capabilities ahead of time, the creative team had eight months of pre-production work to complete before they would even have access to the venue.[15] Most demonstrations that were conducted at the Sphere and Sphere Studios focused on high-resolution outdoor photography.[12] However, Williams said that he had an epiphany in February 2023 that very simple graphics could be very effective despite the screen's vastness, particularly since it does not have any corners to act as points of reference.[25] Consequently, he decided that he would leave the nature photography to the Sphere's other opening feature, the Darren Aronofsky film Postcard from Earth.[12] The venue's potential to create visual illusions and the band's confidence to allow their audience to temporarily be occupied by those illusions further inspired Williams. Soon he settled on a three-act structure to the show:[25] a 21st century continuation of Zoo TV with overwhelming visuals; an acoustic segment to provide a break from the visuals and focus on U2's performances; and a cinematic section that turns attention to the outside world.[13][25]

Artist Marco Brambilla designed the kaleidoscopic imagery for his sequence "King Size" with the help of artificial intelligence.

Williams's design agency Treatment Studio was tasked with producing all video content for the residency. While the majority of it was produced in-house, artists such as Devlin, Marco Brambilla, and John Gerrard were commissioned to contribute video based on existing works of theirs, although they had to be recreated for the Sphere's high-resolution screen.[15] Devlin's sequence "Nevada Ark" is based on her 2022 art installation Come Home Again at Tate Modern, for which she drew 243 of London's endangered species. After seeing the piece, Bono contacted her and asked if she would adapt it for U2's residency in Nevada;[9] the result was a sequence featuring 26 of the state's endangered species.[26] Brambilla spent three-and-a-half months creating the sequence "King Size" that features a kaleidoscopic collage of 1,000 looped video clips depicting Elvis Presley and various Las Vegas iconography.[27][28] Brambilla was asked to produce visuals that would instill sensory overload in the audience, and from conversations with Bono, he developed the themes of representing the death of Elvis, the birth of Las Vegas, and their parallels with the American Dream.[29] Brambilla trained the artificial intelligence model Stable Diffusion to categorise his personal library of over 12,000 film clips, many of them from Elvis's filmography.[30] He then used Stable Diffusion, along with the text-to-image models DALL-E and Midjourney, to create "fantastical exaggerations" of Elvis based on text prompts.[27][29] Pieces from Gerrard's "Flag" series, titled "Flare" and "Surrender", were produced for the residency,[9][31] using the Unigine 3D game engine.[32] The visual effects studio Industrial Light & Magic produced a computer-generated recreation of the Las Vegas skyline for a sequence in which Bono wanted the LED screen to depict the exterior surroundings of the Sphere and create the illusion that the building had disappeared.[23][26][33] Devlin said that the creative team approached the Sphere production like it was "a group art show".[15]

The high resolution of the interior LED screen posed several challenges, the biggest of which was building a video playback system that was suitable for live concerts, according to Williams. The Sphere's in-house playback system, provided by 7thSense, was designed to display high-resolution films but not with a timeline-based interface that is typical in the live concert industry.[23] Desmedt consequently engaged the firm Disguise, which had worked with U2 since their Vertigo Tour in 2005, for help building a media server system that could seamlessly integrate visuals from different sources;[34] it needed to play pre-rendered video content (most of it created at a 12K resolution), integrate live IMAG from cameras, and manipulate imagery, all in a manner more familiar to concert touring personnel.[23] Desmedt served as technical director to design the system,[22] with Disguise involved for six months.[34] According to him, one of his biggest challenges was working with the new SMPTE 2110 standard for transferring digital media over IP networks. Finding manufacturers that were willing to convert to the standard's 4096 × 2160 (DCI 4K) resolution proved difficult. Ultimately, Disguise's GX3 media servers were selected to handle playback, and the firm developed new IP video format conversion (IPVFC) cards for the servers that could output resolutions three times higher than DCI 4K over serial digital interfaces.[22] The show's high-resolution video requirements also meant that for some sequences, every frame of video was initially taking the video artists 15 minutes to render, according to Williams; Treatment's technical lead Brandon Kraemer consequently served as technical director in designing a viable workflow for the artists in collaboration with Desmedt, Disguise, and Fuse.[22][23]

Williams believed that not enough thought had been given to the Sphere as a performance space when its in-house lighting system was designed. According to him, Sphere officials "looked at [him] completely blankly" when he asked about their intended solution for providing backlight.[22] He also considered the venue's lights to be limited in their usefulness, since they are mostly positioned along the balcony rails and thus can only "provide a flat front light or point at the screen".[23] Williams subsequently collaborated with Murphy to design a custom lighting system for U2's residency.[35] The team faced difficulties finding a suitable location to place lights in the venue without resorting to hanging trusses that would obscure the LED screen.[23] Though they could rig lights behind the Sphere's video screen, their backlight would be insufficient and they would obstruct the on-screen visuals. Williams explored several solutions, such as scissor lifts, louvred screen panels and arches, before settling on four articulating "lampposts" that he and Lipson designed.[23][35] Their design was partially inspired by pumpjacks of oil wells.[22] To maximise visibility of the screen, Williams wanted the posts to be as thin as possible, but this came at the expense of their weight carrying capacity. As a result, the team was forced to attempt "to reinvent live entertainment with a sum total of twelve back lights".[23] The lighting team was onsite in Las Vegas about 50 days before the residency's first show in order to begin conducting their design review.[35]

Williams ultimately spent 18 months conceptualising the U2:UV Achtung Baby show.[36] The resulting theme of it is the conflicting relationship that exists between consumerism and climate change,[15] providing a commentary on human's relationship with the natural world.[11] Clayton acknowledged the theme was subtle and said the artists had created a narrative embodying "the idea of community" and that people were equally part of the problem and the solution.[15] The Edge said that the theme was not the result of an intentional decision but rather how the creative process evolved.[11]

In March 2023, U2 began rehearsing at Ardmore Studios in Ireland with a recreation of the Sphere's immersive sound system. Joe O'Herlihy spent this time creating mixes of each song that were tailored to the Sphere.[37] The Edge told Variety the following month that the group had begun rehearsing with Dutch drummer Bram van den Berg, Mullen's replacement for the residency.[38] In April, Bono departed to resume his "Stories of Surrender" book tour with an 11-show residency in New York City's Beacon Theatre; like the Sphere, the venue is owned by MSG Entertainment and has Holoplot's sound system installed. O'Herlihy served as sound engineer for the shows and spent the month acquiring hands-on experience with Holoplot's system, which he said had a completely different setup from the initial rehearsals. In mid-May, the band wrapped their rehearsals at Ardmore Studios and began making visits to Sphere Studios in Burbank. There, they began to define the setlist, while O'Herlihy used an immersive mix room to prepare his mixes. U2 and their team then moved rehearsals to Victorine Studios in Nice, France, with the band using Studio 1 and O'Herlihy using Studio 4 with a replica of the immersive sound system.[37] Speaking about the final sound design for show, Clayton felt that the group did not need to perform very loud, which in turn forced him to concentrate more on his bass playing to "lock in".[15]

A drum screen (background) was added to isolate the drums after a time alignment issue was discovered during on-site rehearsals.

On 5 September, the band arrived to the Sphere with their crew to begin on-site run-throughs of the show.[39] During rehearsals, Williams directed the band on how adjust their performance for the new space, saying: "They have to learn a new physicality. I keep saying to them, 'look up!', because it's an amphitheatre and a lot of the audience are up high. It's much, much more contained."[9] During soundchecks, Lillywhite detected a time alignment issue, whereby the drums could be heard acoustically from their source on stage before they were output by the sound system. This necessitated the creation of a custom-made drum screen to isolate their sound.[40]

Stage design and show production

The Sphere's interior LED screen measures 160,000 square feet and has a 16K resolution.

Concerts for U2:UV Achtung Baby are leveraging the Sphere's immersive video and sound capabilities. The venue is equipped with a 160,000-square-foot (15,000 m2) LED screen that wraps around the interior. Comprising 268,435,456 pixels at a 16,000 × 16,000 resolution, it is the highest-resolution LED screen in the world, according to Sphere Entertainment.[15][41][42][43][44] The screen is made of 64,000 video tiles[45] with an 8-millimetre (0.31 in) pixel pitch that were manufactured by SACO Technologies[46] in 780 different geometric shapes.[47] The building's exosphere features a 580,000-square-foot (54,000 m2) LED display,[48] the world's largest at the time the venue opened.[49] It comprises 1.2 million puck-shaped LEDs spaced 8 inches (20 cm) apart, each containing 48 diodes.[50]

The Sphere's sound system, dubbed "Sphere Immersive Sound", features spatial audio capabilities.[51] It is based on Holoplot's X1 Matrix Array of speakers,[52] which uses beamforming and wave field synthesis technologies[53] as well as software algorithms to deliver a consistent listening experience to every seat in the venue.[54] Each X1 array comprises a MD96 and a MD80-S sound module, equipped with 96 and 80 drivers respectively. Through a matrix of drivers within each speaker module and matrix of modules per array, Holoplot's system offers more control over the dispersion of sound in horizontal and vertical directions. The speakers use digital signal processing to amplify each driver, allowing a wider range of ways to control sound. Integrated into the Holoplot X1 system are several technologies by Powersoft, including 16-channel amplification, "Integrated Powered Adaptive Loudspeaker" for subwoofers, and energy-efficient solutions such as pulse-width modulation and "power factor correction".[55] The sound system comprises 1,586 permanently installed speakers and 300 mobile modules, with 99 percent of the system being hidden behind the LED screen;[56] in total, it comprises 167,000 speaker drivers, amplifiers, and processing channels, and it weighs 395,120 pounds (179,220 kg).[53]

The location in the Sphere where a traditional theatre proscenium would be built features the world's largest loudspeaker array,[54] comprising 464 Holoplot X1 arrays organized into 14 clusters and arranged in a semi-arch about 25–30 feet (7.6–9.1 m) above the stage.[13][40] Sound engineer Joe O'Herlihy decided to focus the sound image of the band's performances towards this area.[57] By routing separate audio of each band member to the corresponding speaker cluster above their location on stage, he achieved what he called "pictorial audio—where you see the musician, you hear the musician". Midway up the auditorium is the immersive sound system comprising eight or ten speaker clusters; O'Herlihy uses it for keyboards, backing vocals, guitar treatments, and string or choral arrangements, and he occasionally pans it from side to side, adding what he called "shimmer" to the band's sound. At the top concourse level, another eight or ten speaker clusters provide extended surround sound in the rear of the auditorium.[13][40]

The stage is shaped like a record player and features LED panels in the floor.

The stage for the residency is shaped like a record player, borrowing its design from the art piece "Turntable", a functional record player designed by Brian Eno.[46] The stage was designed by Ric Lipson of Stufish[9] and was built by Tait,[46] with additional scenic elements provided by the firms SRS Fabrication and Electric Sky and a central turntable built by All Access Staging and Productions.[13] Williams said the idea to replicate the design of "Turntable" began as a joke until the creative team "quickly realised it would be brilliant".[15] The square stage measures 46 feet (14 m) wide and features a raised circular platter in the center with a 30-foot (9.1 m) diameter. The stage is 6 feet (1.8 m) high in the front and has a two-degree rake to rise to 7.5 feet (2.3 m) in the back.[46] Lipson called it U2's most intimate stage in decades and said that it was deliberately designed without any catwalks so the band members would be limited in how far they could move away from the main performance area. Describing the placement of a minimalist stage within the high amphitheatre layout of the Sphere, Lipson said: "It feels like you're in a stadium but with the scale of a club."[9]

The surface of the stage is covered with several models of LED video tiles provided by Fuse:[58] 812 YesTech MG7S floor panels and 56 YesTech MG7S custom circular panels with a 3.9-millimetre (0.15 in) pixel pitch, 2 YesTech MG7S corner panels, 168 YesTech MG11 panels, 42 ROE Vanish V8T panels measuring 1 by 1 metre (3 ft 3 in × 3 ft 3 in), and 63 DesignLED custom flexible tiles measuring 400 by 225 millimetres (15.7 in × 8.9 in).[22] The ROE Vanish panels were chosen for the edges of the stage due to their acoustic transparency, allowing sound from speakers placed underneath the stage to reach the general admission audience.[22][46] Using the LED tiles, the stage can be lit by an ever-changing cycle of generative "colourscapes" using the algorithm used for Eno's "Turntable".[15][59] At the request of Williams, Eno added a few rules to his algorithm to limit the intensity and duration of certain colours such as green that were considered problematic for lighting the older band members.[13] Along the front and sides of the stage, robotic cameras film the shows;[46] the camera system uses seven Sony Venice 2 units, two Marshall CV380s, two Panasonic UE-100s, and one Panasonic UE-150 PTZ.[13]

The lighting system uses four articulating "lampposts" behind the stage.

The Sphere has approximately 150 in-house light fixtures positioned mostly along the balcony rails and behind the LED screen; the ones behind the screen are used for only two or three cues during U2's shows. A custom lighting system was designed by U2's team to supplement the house one. Four articulating lighting "lampposts" built by Y-Lines are positioned behind the stage,[23][35] each equipped with two Robe Forte profile lights and a Robe Forte FS followspot.[60] The lampposts stand 32 feet (9.8 m) tall,[61] and via controls from the lighting console,[35] can articulate from a vertical position to a 95-degree angle;[13] this allows them to be lowered for cleaner sightlines of the LED screen at certain parts of the show.[23] Williams said that the lampposts' chrome finish also helps them "disappear into the video picture".[23] Additional Robe Forte fixtures are used as key lights along the balcony rails, with a Follow-Me 3D Six tracking system; in total, 24 Robe Forte and 24 Robe Forte FS fixtures are used.[13] Scattered along the floor are 15 TMB Solaris Quasar 15K Strobe lights, which Murphy liked for the appearance of their filaments cooling down after flashing.[35][13] For effects lighting, 119 GLP JDC1 strobes and 25 Wildfire VioStorm VS-120 UV lights are placed on the venue's house lighting rails behind the audience. Behind the video screen are 30 GLP XDC1 strobes and 60 Chauvet Strike 1 blinder lights.[13] Six Astera AX2 PixelBar (50 cm) units are placed in a Trabant automobile that moves through the general admission area before concerts. Other equipment that is used includes 36 Astera Hydra Panel units with wireless controllers and eight MDG the One haze machines.[13][62] From several different positions within the venue, the crew operates lighting consoles that include three grandMA2 Full-Size units, two grandMA2 Light units, and six MA NPUs by MA Lighting, across a network system by Luminex; the crew also "jump[s] in and out of the house system".[35][13]

The video playback and rendering system uses 23 Disguise GX3 media servers; each is equipped with an IPVFC card and 30 terabytes of storage—giving the playback system 690 terabytes total—and each is capable of 100 Gigabit Ethernet networking with the production system for media management. The system can play pre-rendered content encoded with the NotchLC codec at 60 frames per second as well as apply real-time effects using the Notch rendering software. Disguise's system utilises the "single large canvas" technology that it introduced in 2022, whereby different sections of the Sphere's LED display are dedicated to their own media servers for rendering and the servers are synchronised with each other for simultaneous playback.[34] Rather than the video playback running on timecode or being linked to the lighting system, content is cued manually and triggered over MIDI.[13]

During each concert, 200–300 gigabytes of video data are processed every minute, while an average of 402 gigabytes of audio and video data being transferred every second.[24] To help process the large amount of data, U2's team employed the company WEKA for storage server solutions. Its Data Platform was used to migrate 500 terabytes of archival video footage from the United Kingdom, where it had been rendered, to a local cluster of WEKA servers at the Sphere via cloud servers.[63]

For sound mixing, two DiGiCo Quantum SD7 digital mixing consoles with redundant engines are used; O'Herlihy mixes on one console but maintains a mirrored backup to which he can automatically failover.[37] Each console is capable of 128 input channels, and of the 48 aux-sends available for each channel, O'Herlihy uses 32 of them for the various Holoplot speaker arrays. The band members wear in-ear monitors by Shure with an Axient wireless system. Sound is mixed for their monitors on three DiGiCo consoles: one for Bono, one for the Edge, and one for Clayton and van den Berg.[13] Each console for monitor mixing is also paired with a mirror one for redundancy.[37]

For the residency, the Edge eschewed the traditional guitar amplifiers that had long been part of his rig in favour of digital amplifier emulation pedals by Universal Audio.[64]

The Sphere contains multi-sensory 4D features such as scent and wind, along with haptic technology in 10,000 seats.[65] U2:UV Achtung Baby, however, is not utilising them; Williams said of the building's aromatic capabilities, "I wouldn't give that idea to a bunch of Irish guys".[9]

Announcement

In July 2022, Billboard first reported that U2 had entered into an agreement to perform a concert residency in the Las Vegas Valley at the Sphere for the venue's planned opening in 2023.[66] During a November 2022 interview with Brendan O'Connor on RTÉ One, Bono addressed the residency rumours, saying: "I can't announce Vegas, you'd have to shoot me. But if it happens, I can promise you it won't be like anything you've ever seen in Las Vegas or anywhere ever. It is the most extraordinary... If it comes off, it's grand madness by 100." Bono also said the shows would centre around Achtung Baby, which he thought they "need[ed] to really honour".[67]

A promotional image with the residency's branding that was used until August 2023

The concerts remained unconfirmed until 12 February 2023, when a Super Bowl LVII television advertisement aired to officially announce the engagement as "U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at the Sphere".[68] In the advertisement, an unidentified flying object is seen hovering over several cities, which is revealed to contain a disembodied baby, and U2 fans are mysteriously transported into the desert. Journalists found the advertisement to be eerily topical, as the preceding weeks and days were marked by sightings of several unknown aerial objects.[69][70][71]

U2 members the Edge, Bono, and Adam Clayton during the opening concert of the residency

The announcement confirmed that the concerts would be focused on Achtung Baby, and that Mullen would not participate in order to allow him to recuperate from surgery.[68] The residency marks the first time since 1978 that U2 is performing without him;[72] Dutch drummer Bram van den Berg from the band Krezip is filling in. In a joint statement, Bono, the Edge, and Clayton said, "It's going to take all we've got to approach the Sphere without our bandmate in the drum seat, but Larry has joined us in welcoming Bram van den Berg who is a force in his own right." The statement also said, "We're the right band, 'Achtung Baby' the right album, and the Sphere the right venue to take the live experience of music to the next level".[68] According to journalist Neil McCormick, who has had a longtime association with U2, the announcement drew criticism from many of the group's most devoted fans. Some felt the band were being hypocritical by agreeing to perform in a city whose values did not align with the band's "image of idealism and activism", while others were "up in arms" that Mullen, a founding member of the group, would be absent.[73]

Various media outlets called U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere a "residency", though the band have referred to it as a "venue launch" instead;[74] the Pollstar Awards have defined a residency as a run of 10 or more shows at a single venue.[75] The Edge said that he did not view it as a traditional concert residency, due to the Sphere's availability limiting the amount of possible shows and because he viewed the band's motives for agreeing to the performances as creative ones. He acknowledged that Las Vegas residencies tended to be negatively perceived by some as "very show-biz", and countered that for U2: "it's the venue and it's the technology that is really the catch for us, and the hook. Because when we found out about what this venue was really offering us creatively, we just were completely intrigued. And the more we found out, we kind of saw it as a throwdown... as a challenge."[38]

Itinerary and ticketing

Concert dates and ticket sale details for U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere were first announced on 24 April 2023. Initially, five dates from 29 September to 8 October 2023 were announced.[76] Subscribers of U2.com were offered the first opportunity to submit ticket requests via Ticketmaster Request, with a deadline of 26 April.[77] An additional presale was announced for 27 April; to participate, fans were required to register on Ticketmaster's Verified Fan platform by 26 April and then be selected. The retailer planned to hold a general public sale starting 28 April to offer any tickets remaining from the presales.[38]

After a million ticket requests were submitted within the first day, on 25 April it was announced that seven concerts had been added from 11 to 25 October.[77] Two days later, another five concerts were announced, spanning 27 October to 4 November;[78] the announcement confirmed that only fans who had already registered on the Verified Fan platform would be eligible to participate in the presale for the newly added shows.[79] Ultimately, presale demand for tickets was so high, Ticketmaster announced that no general public sale would take place.[80][81] On 12 May, eight shows were added from 1 to 16 December, bringing the residency's length at that point to 25 concerts in 2023.[82] Hotel packages and VIP upgrades for the concerts were sold through the hospitality firm Vibee.[83]

A view of the seating levels and wraparound LED screen of the Sphere, as seen from the general admission area. The overhang of the second level obscures the view of the screen for some lower-level seats.

Representatives for the Sphere and U2 announced that 60 percent of tickets would be available for less than $300. At the time tickets were first offered for sale, prices ranged from $140 (for upper-level seats) to $500 (for lower-level seats), all-inclusive figures that already accounted for fees. Additionally, tickets for the "Red Zone", an elevated VIP section, were first offered for $600 and were limited to 50 per show; proceeds from the VIP tickets will benefit (RED), the organization co-founded by Bono to fight HIV/AIDS.[84][85] Initially, the average ticket price was around $390.[47] Rather than prices being static, dynamic pricing allowed them to fluctuate as demand changed.[84] Within a week of tickets going on sale, seats that originally cost $140 were listed for $1,250, while the VIP tickets had increased from $600 to $6,000.[80] During the week before the residency began, The New York Times said that prices "recently ranged from $268 to $1,240" but noted that tickets for opening night were still available from Live Nation four days beforehand and that resellers had listings for tickets below face value.[86]

Hundreds of people who bought tickets in the Sphere's premium, lower-level 100 section were informed that their seats had obstructed views of the wraparound screen due to the overhang of the second level. Approximately 800 of the venue's 17,500 seats are affected.[87] The concert organisers offered refunds to impacted ticketholders, along with access to a presale for the December shows for seats with unobstructed views.[88]

On 19 October 2023, the band announced that U2:UV Achtung Baby would be extended with 11 additional concerts running from 26 January to 18 February 2024; the extension brought the residency's length at that point to 36 shows. A presale for U2.com subscribers began the same day as the announcement, and a general public sale followed on 25 October.[89]

On 1 December 2023, a special promotional sale was offered to Las Vegas area university students, wherein general admission tickets for the 2024 concerts were priced at $25 each.[90]

U2 extended the residency for a final time by announcing on 4 December 2023 that four shows had been added, spanning 23 February to 2 March 2024. This brought the residency's total length to 40 concerts. A ticket presale for the four dates was available to U2.com subscribers through 5 December, followed by a sale to the general public that began on 8 December.[91]

Show overview

The opening act for the concerts is UK-based drummer and multi-instrumentalist Pauli "the PSM" Lovejoy.[92] During the pre-show, they DJ music from inside a neon Trabant that moves around the general admission area.[93][94] During the entire pre-show, the LED screen displays what appears to be the interior of a concrete dome, with an oculus at the top "revealing" the night sky, in which a dove and a helicopter occasionally appear. J. R. Lind of Pollstar described it as "a Brutalist reimagining of the interior of Rome's Pantheon".[11][95] Lipson said it was inspired by caves being some of the first settings in which humans created light and performances, and he liked the idea of audiences arriving at the Sphere feeling like they were in a modern cave.[22]

"Zoo Station" begins concerts with the appearance of a concrete silo splitting open to reveal video imagery in the cross-shaped opening.

After Lovejoy completes their DJ set, a new remix of U2's 1993 song "Lemon" and a "Choral Intro" by Brian Eno are played over the sound system.[96] When the band arrives on stage, Bono briefly sings a sean-nós melody[97] before they begin the concert with eight consecutive songs from Achtung Baby.[98] As the introduction to "Zoo Station" is played, the concrete visuals on screen appear to crack open, splitting into four quadrants;[95] this allows in light in the shape of a cross, which was inspired by the architecture of the Church of the Light.[26][97] The opening reveals video imagery behind it, some of it the original footage by Mark Pellington from the Zoo TV Tour.[97] Bono begins the concert wearing the wraparound sunglasses that were characteristic of his Zoo TV stage persona "the Fly".[99]

During "The Fly", a barrage of multi-coloured characters flashes and creates the illusion of a cube-shaped space.

The second song, "The Fly", utilises a presentation similar to the one from the Zoo TV Tour, with a barrage of rapidly flashing words and aphorisms displaying on screen that recalls the work of Jenny Holzer.[100] The imagery undergoes a perspective shift, causing the optical illusion that the venue's geometry is cube-shaped rather than spherical. At the song's midpoint, seven-segment digital letters and numbers in a rainbow of colors slowly begin to fill up the entire screen from bottom to top, before the ceiling appears to fall towards the audience.[101] For "Even Better Than the Real Thing", Brambilla's kaleidoscope video piece "King Size", comprising imagery of Elvis Presley and various Las Vegas iconography, plays on the screen, scrolling from ceiling to floor to make the audience feel the false sensation of the stage moving upward.[102] "Mysterious Ways" is performed next, with the screen displaying moving bars of light that David Barbour of Lighting & Sound International said "creat[ed] a kind of Zoetrope effect".[13]

For "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World", Bono holds a tether connected to an on-screen balloon.

For "One", the video imagery displays a starfield.[103] An interlude follows during which the group performs a stripped-down cover of Elvis Presley's song "Love Me Tender",[99] accompanied by clips of Elvis's wedding to Priscilla Presley, John F. Kennedy's "We choose to go to the Moon" speech, and an Apollo rocket launch.[14][104] "Until the End of the World" is performed next, during which footage of storm clouds, lightning, and rising water are shown on screen.[93][105] The song culminates with Gerrard's video art piece "Flare", with shows a gas flare burning in the shape of a flag;[14] set in the open ocean, it is meant to "to illustrate warming seas and pollution".[105] Transitioning into the song "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses", the flare visual on screen breaks apart into flaming embers falling from the ceiling, as closeups of the band members are also shown.[14][102] For "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World", a digital chalk drawing of a balloon, designed by the Edge's wife Morleigh Steinberg, is displayed high on screen. It is attached to an actual tether of knotted-up bedsheets that Bono holds. Initial performances featured him picking a fan from the crowd to join him on stage to hold the tether and swing in it;[106] later performances added a prop door, with the story being that Bono had returned home only to find himself locked out and looking through the peephole.[107]

The turntable stage features algorithmically-generated colourscapes during the semi-acoustic segment of the show.

The show then transitions to a segment of semi-acoustic performances,[108] during which the turntable stage is the focal point and very little video imagery is displayed.[13] The stage's LED panels cycle through algorithmically-generated "colourscapes" during this portion of the show.[15] Williams said, "After 40 years of decision-making, I was quite giddy with the thought that we might have 20 minutes during a U2 show where the stage itself was deciding its own colour palette."[13] Many of the song arrangements during this section are taken from the band's 2023 album of re-recordings Songs of Surrender.[9] For the residency's opening weekend, four songs from the group's 1988 album Rattle and Hum were performed during this segment.[108]

Set list

Bono in the opening show of the residency. During shows, he reprises his Fly character from the Zoo TV Tour.

The following set list was performed on 29 September 2023 for the residency's opening show:[109]

Achtung Baby Part 1

  1. "Zoo Station"
  2. "The Fly"
  3. "Even Better Than the Real Thing"
  4. "Mysterious Ways"
  5. "One" (lyrical snippets of "Purple Rain" and "Love Me Tender")
  6. "Until the End of the World"
  7. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses"
  8. "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World"

Rattle and Hum Interlude

  1. "All I Want Is You"
  2. "Desire" (with lyrical snippet of "Love Me Do")
  3. "Angel of Harlem" (with lyrical snippets of "Into the Mystic" and "Dancing in the Moonlight")
  4. "Love Rescue Me"

Achtung Baby Part 2

  1. "So Cruel"
  2. "Acrobat"
  3. "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)"
  4. "Love Is Blindness"

Encore

  1. "Elevation" (with lyrical snippet of "My Way")
  2. "Atomic City"
  3. "Vertigo"
  4. "Where the Streets Have No Name"
  5. "With or Without You"
  6. "Beautiful Day" (with lyrical snippets of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" and "Blackbird")

Notes

Promotions

In the time leading up to the residency, Apple Music posted several promotional videos of interviews conducted by music presenter Zane Lowe with Bono and the Edge. On 21 April 2023, a video was released in which the trio toured the unfinished Sphere as well as the Neon Museum during a visit the month prior.[111] On 5 October, another video was released featuring a behind-the-scenes tour of the completed venue.[112]

The Sphere began promoting U2:UV Achtung Baby on 29 August 2023, a month prior to the first concert date, by displaying the residency branding on the exosphere's LED screen.[113]

The Plaza Hotel & Casino, where U2's video shoot for the Las Vegas-themed single "Atomic City" culminated

As a promotional tie-in to the residency, U2 issued a Las Vegas-themed single called "Atomic City". It was recorded at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles and produced by Jacknife Lee and Steve Lillywhite.[114] The band began filming a music video for the song in Las Vegas on 16 September. With them set up on a moving flatbed truck, the shoot began at the 3rd Street Stage on Fremont Street and culminated at midnight at the Carousel Bar in front of the Plaza Hotel & Casino, where the group were met by a crowd that included 250 extras. In addition to several takes of "Atomic City", U2 performed "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", whose music video had been filmed on Fremont Street in 1987. Mullen participated in the video shoot, despite his plans to be absent from the concert residency.[115] The single was released digitally on 29 September, and will also be released on limited-edition CD and 7-inch vinyl formats.[114]

On 28 September, an exhibit called "Zoo Station: A U2:UV Experience" opened in the Venetian resort, comprising 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2) of space across two floors to feature memorabilia and interactive displays related to U2.[116] Created by Vibee in collaboration with the group's longtime creative director Gavin Friday,[117] the exhibit features: a gallery of photography and video taken by the band's photographer Anton Corbijn; a pop-up shop of merchandise; the "Zoo TV Cinema", a theatre screening five films curated by the Edge;[116] a life-size German subway train; a vintage Trabant automobile[117] and an interactive "cyber-Trabant" that attendees can decorate with digital spray paint; a photo booth; and the "Ultra Violet Lounge" and "Fly Bar". In lieu of a traditional museum-like exhibit, the band "wanted to bring to life the themes" from Achtung Baby.[118] According to Vibee vice president Harvey Cohen, more than 15,000 people visited the exhibit on the residency's opening weekend.[119]

Reception

Critical response

U2 following a 7 October 2023 performance. Temporary drummer Bram van den Berg is on the right.

The inaugural Sphere show received wide critical acclaim, with many reviews highlighting the successful fusion of U2's anthemic music with the grandiosity of the venue itself.[120] Katie Atkinson of Billboard said, "Sphere never overshadows U2; Sphere magnifies U2, pairing a band that has attempted to innovate with each new tour over their 40-plus-year career with a venue that seemingly has no limits of innovation."[117] Neil McCormick of The Telegraph said the concert was "genuinely astonishing" and had "the best visuals and sound you have ever seen and heard", and he thought the band used the venue's technology with a "surprising degree of restraint". McCormick concluded his review saying, "What U2 are doing in the Sphere is going to have an impact on the whole of live entertainment".[121] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian praised the group's performance for retaining spontaneity and rough edges amidst the high-tech production, saying, "This cocktail of eye-popping visuals and slightly unruly performances absolutely works, allaying any concerns that a band from the post-punk era and the old showbiz connotations of a residency in Las Vegas constitute a slightly uncomfortable fit".[100] Melissa Ruggieri of USA Today called the band's performance "a marvel" that featured "many memorable visual stunners"; she ended her review by saying: "It's fair to wonder if such a gargantuan production eclipses a band. Not this one. Especially since some of the most moving moments were in the small details and the inherent earnestness of U2's music."[99]

Andy Greene of Rolling Stone said the Sphere had "somehow managed to live up to years of hype", adding that "By any measurement, it was a stunning success." He could not "imagine a better proof of concept for Sphere than this U2 show", calling it "a quantum leap forward for concerts."[93] Chris Willman of Variety praised the band's creative and production teams for both the impressive visuals and clear sound as well as the minimalism of the stage design. He found the show to be "the apotheosis of a bigger-is-better ethos" the band has followed throughout their career, saying, "It's a cliche to say that U2 can achieve intimacy in the midst of the most ridiculous extravaganza, but nobody in rock history has done a better job of taking visual and aesthetic dynamics to extremes."[108] Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times said the show's "production sets a new benchmark for the interplay between humans and technology" and that U2 offered "the sheer obliterating pleasure of sensory overload: a barrage of eye-popping sights and sharply rendered sounds that finds a kind of ecstasy in submission". While he believed U2 risked succumbing to irrelevancy by focusing on an album from their back catalogue, he posited that Achtung Baby may be "just a delivery device, in a post-pandemic age when live music feels more important than it has in decades, for a new way to think about performance".[122] Writing for the Irish Independent, Barry Egan said it may have been one of U2's best and most emotional performances, despite how weird he felt seeing them with a different drummer. In spite of Mullen's absence and the stigma of performing in Las Vegas, Egan felt the band had "proved that any theories of them damaging their reputation were wrong in so many ways".[123]

Pat Carty of Hot Press said, "For U2 to take their most painful, emotionally naked album to the altar of fake, a city that art and heart forgot, and then put it up on the largest display in history, and somehow succeed in making it even more intimate may just be the greatest trick they've ever pulled."[14] Brad Auerbach of Spin praised the Sphere saying: "The sound was fantastic. The video presentation was truly incomparable. It is doubtful any venue on this planet can match either aspect." Reviewing the performance, he said, "The anticipation of the crowd overcame some trepidation emanating from the band; the four lads seemed a bit uneven, almost by their own admission."[119] Jon Caramanica of The New York Times said that "for all the vividness of the setting, there was still something not quite complete about this performance, which at times was winningly small, at others winningly huge, and at still others a futile ramble". He found many of the visuals to be too cluttered and disorienting, and he judged that the setlist had too many "peaks and valleys" and was impacted by tentative performances. Caramanica said that at times the space between the band, the screen, and the crowd "paralleled the airy emptiness of a corporate convention gig".[124]

Commercial impact

The exterior of the Sphere in November 2023

On the Monday following U2's opening-weekend shows, the stock price of Sphere Entertainment Co. rose, peaking at a 17.3 percent increase before finishing the day up 11.1 percent. This increased the company's market capitalization by $143.2 million, bringing it to a $1.43 billion valuation.[125]

According to Pollstar, the first 17 shows grossed $109,751,705 from 280,717 tickets sold;[126] on a per-show basis, this averaged out to about $6.5 million in gross revenue and 16,500 tickets sold, with an average ticket price of $390.97. Billboard called U2:UV Achtung Baby the "fastest grossing residency in Boxscore history".[127] The same 17 shows earned the Sphere $30.7 million in revenue, with an average of $1.8 million per show.[128]

Accolades

Melissa Ruggieri of USA Today ranked U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere as the top concert of 2023, ahead of shows such as Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour and Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.[129] Chris Willman of Variety included the opening night of U2's residency on a list of the 25 best concerts of 2023.[130] Consequence included U2's residency on a similar list of the top 15 live shows from the year; writer Maura Fallon said, "There were a lot of impressive shows this year, but few hinted at the technological (and financial) future of concert-going the way U2 at The Sphere did."[131]

For the 2024 Pollstar Awards, U2 were nominated for Residency of the Year.[132] For the 2024 TPi Awards, the residency was nominated in the Outstanding Event Production of the Year category.[133]

Concert dates

Concert dates for U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere[126]
Date Opening act Attendance Revenue
29 September 2023 Pauli "the PSM" Lovejoy 280,717 $109,751,705
30 September 2023
5 October 2023
7 October 2023
8 October 2023
11 October 2023
13 October 2023
14 October 2023
18 October 2023
20 October 2023
21 October 2023
25 October 2023
27 October 2023
28 October 2023
1 November 2023
3 November 2023
4 November 2023
1 December 2023 — —
2 December 2023
6 December 2023
8 December 2023
9 December 2023
13 December 2023
15 December 2023
16 December 2023
26 January 2024
27 January 2024
31 January 2024
2 February 2024
3 February 2024
7 February 2024
9 February 2024
10 February 2024
15 February 2024
17 February 2024
18 February 2024
23 February 2024
24 February 2024
1 March 2024
2 March 2024
Total 280,717 $109,751,705

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