Adam Clayton: “We had some prejudices about playing in Las Vegas”

From the September last year until March of this year U2 they performed, inaugurating it, at the hyper-technological ‘The Sphere’ in Las Vegas, making the Nevada city their headquarters by playing there 40 times with their “U2:UVAchtung Baby Live” and although they were quite thrilled to have to compete in that technologically cutting-edge arena, the bassist of the Irish band Adam Clayton in a recent interview he candidly admitted that initially they had some reservations and prejudices about it.

Speaking to Record Collector magazine, 64-year-old Clayton said: “It was Bono who first heard about this project called The Sphere in Las Vegas and, in many ways, there were a lot of misconceptions about it.

It was like, ‘Really, Las Vegas?’ After a while, however, we looked into the matter carefully and dove into the technology. The screen is actually 16k and covers three acres – that’s an incredible amount of LEDs projected onto a wall. It started to sound interesting, so we were like, OK, let’s dive in.”

The band appreciated the chance to “throw away the rule book” to give fans something different. “ It takes people to a different place emotionally. We are all a little conditioned by how the show works. There is a big opening. 20 minutes of uptempo, then it starts to slow down and becomes emotional and intimate, then it starts going up again…

So we threw away the manual and it was a bit like when you perform in a theater or a musical show where the scenery and the technology give you that emotional context for what you’re doing.”