U2, the residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas has ended
It was already late morning in Italy when the curtain finally fell on “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live At Sphere”, a show that U2 staged starting last September 29th at the Sphere in Las Vegas, a futuristic venue inaugurated in the capital of American gambling.
Prepared in about a year and a half, the show was repeated for forty evenings, selling over 661 thousand tickets at the box office for a total taking estimated at 256 million dollars, of which 170 (gross, i.e. net of expenses) ended up in the pockets of the group, 10 paid by the venue's owners and 160 paid by Live Nation, the company that takes care of the band's live interests.
On average, the group performed 22 songs per evening: overall, the songs performed were 38, with forays outside the band's repertoire such as “A Rainy Night in Soho” by the Pogues, dedicated to Shane MacGowan in the days of his death, and “Shallow” by Lady Gaga, performed together with the New York artist on October 25th.
During the penultimate evening of the residency, last Friday March 1st, Larry Mullen Jr., the band's drummer who was forced to give up the series of dates in Las Vegas for health reasons, also arrived at the Sphere. “The rumors that Larry will play with us tonight are unfortunately not true. But he's here with us”, explained from the stage Bono, who with The Edge and Adam Clayton for the last forty dates was accompanied by the Dutch drummer Bram van den Berg: “That's the guy who put up an advert (for the elements of a band) on the notice board at Mount Temple Comprehensive School many years ago. And we are very grateful that he did and that he is here with us tonight. We wish him a speedy, speedy, speedy recovery. We love you, Larry Mullen Jr.” “We do this shit every fucking night and pretend we're doing an encore,” Bono continued: “But it's not an encore, it's in the program. This is a beautiful evening, Larry. And this is 'Beautiful Day'.”
“What an incredible night it was,” explained Mullen at the end of the show: “I'm very grateful to Bono, Edge and Adam and obviously to Bram for the extraordinary work they did. For me, personally, it was very emotional.”
These are the songs performed during the last evening, Saturday 2 March 2024:
The last song performed by the group to close the final evening, “40”, was published in its studio version in February 1983 as part of the group's third album published by U2, “War”, but it also became popular in live, being included in the set list of the live mini album “Under a Blood Red Sky”, recorded at Red Rocks Amphitheater and released in November of the same year.
“40” – which saw The Edge and Adam Clayton swap instruments during last night's performance at the Sphere – hasn't been performed live by U2 since 2016.
