In 1991, U2 caught a dose of glitzy showmanship. The Irish band, whose career up to that point was distinguished by its soaring anthems and ongoing, earnest effort to make their arena-sized rock feel more personal, dropped Achtung Baby, a fuzzed-out, brilliant swerve of an album inspired by Krautrock, rave culture and Berlin-era Bowie. They supported the album with the Zoo TV tour, a multimedia spectacular that not only changed U2, but played a role in how arena rock was presented going forward.
Like Pink Floyd’s The Wall shows, Zoo TV was an “I was there” event. Everyone who saw it was floored. Not even subsequent U2 tours, like 1997’s Pop Mart—which featured a McDonald’s-like golden arch and an enormous mirrorball shaped like a lemon—could seemingly match up to Zoo TV’s visual overload. Which is to say: U2’s show at Las Vegas’ new Sphere, an 18,000-seat venue dominated by a concave, 16K-resolution screen capable of delivering images that can easily trick the eye, isn’t so much a game-changer for U2 as it is a leveling-up.
U2 UV, playing at the Sphere on assorted dates through mid-December, brings a U2 that’s been all over and been all over you, and is perhaps better for it. It unites all three iterations of the group—chest-beating idealists, post-ironic art rockers, warm and fuzzy hit singles band—underneath the most technically dazzling concert production ever mounted. Even people leery of U2 could walk out of this one completely gobsmacked by this show’s crystal-clear sound and towering, beautiful imagery.
Built around an end-to-end performance of Achtung Baby, U2 UV zips along with an energy you wouldn’t expect of a show whose backbone source material is 32 years old. But thanks to some smart sequencing, a mid-program acoustic set, a rip-roaring and hit-laden encore and a creative team that includes stage designer Es Devlin, local multimedia whiz Brett Bolton and such large-type geniuses as Brian Eno and Industrial Light and Magic, U2 UV—named for one of Achtung’s deep cuts, “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)”—revives U2 in a familiar way: as the thrumming engine of a must-experience stage blockbuster.
As the show has nearly two dozen dates yet to come, I’m hesitant to offer many specifics about what you’ll see and hear. (And I strongly recommend that you steer clear of spoilers on social media sites; some well-meaning attendees, myself included, have posted clips of the show, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you could see the whole thing on your phone. Believe me, it doesn’t come close to approximating the experience.) But you’re here for a concert review, and as a U2 fan of old—I first saw the band in 1985, though my interest in them waned in the early aughts—I can tell you this: U2 2023 puts on a good show. They’ve still got moves.
Perhaps in deference to the massive screen that both magnifies and dwarfs him, Bono is humble and engaging, often speaking to the audience in a soft voice that’s perfectly audible over the Sphere’s magical sound system. He’s still in strong voice—only a handful of songs are re-tuned to accommodate his older pipes—and his stage banter, though accented with old-school Vegas corn (he often tiptoes into “where you folks from?” territory, and interpolates Elvis lyrics and "My Way" into songs), is friendly and genuine.
The rest of the band is also in sharp form. The Edge, enjoying a sound mix that accents every last nuance of his guitar playing, has rarely sounded better. Bassist Adam Clayton once again proves himself the band’s secret sauce, making the bops bop and the rockers crunch. And Bram van den Berg, a stand-in for ailing drummer Larry Mullen Jr. “deputized” by Mullen himself, plays near-perfect versions of that player’s beats, fills and flourishes.
The song list will likely change over time—Bono has likened U2 UV in interviews to a “turntable” the band can throw different songs onto each night—but it’s safe to tell you that Achtung tracks “Acrobat,” “One” and “The Fly” are standouts, for reasons both musical and visual.
And one of the encore tracks played when I saw the show on September 30 was the band’s new single “Atomic City,” a Vegas-inspired stomper that grows on me a little bit more every time I hear it. It’s the capper on an evening that’s packed with Vegas references and Easter eggs. U2 knows whose house they’re in, and they go the extra mile to make you feel welcome to it. You can’t get more Vegas than that.
