U2 wrapped up their residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere last night (March 2) by playing alongside Daniel Lanois and a pre-recorded performance from Neil Finn.
Lanois, who co-produced the band’s classic albums ‘The Joshua Tree’ and ‘Achtung Baby’, joined them on stage to play the latter record’s ‘One’.
Additionally, U2 played a version of Crowded House’s ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’, a song they have been covering at recent shows. For this farewell performance, however, they were joined by the song’s writer Neil Finn, albeit virtually.
Watch the performances of both tracks below.
“The other day we got a beautiful e-mail from Neil Finn, who wrote this bewilderingly beautiful song,” Bono said ahead of ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’. “Attached to the e-mail was a version of the song he said we could play whenever we wanted. It’s a new version that he did, and we’re going to try and record it.”
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As noted by Variety, the band’s drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who has been sitting out the Sphere shows as he recovers from neck surgery, was in attendance for the final show, watching from a box seat. Bram van den Berg, from the band Krezip, has been filling in for Mullen for the run of shows.
The band have been playing at the Venetian resort in the city since the end of September, in the state-of-the-art, 18,000 seated structure. The Sphere boasts 160,000 speakers and a dome-shaped wraparound LED screen.
The ‘U2:UV Achtung Baby’ show ran for a total of 40 shows, and to mark that number, they pulled out their song ‘40’, from the 1983 album ‘War’ for its first live outing since 2016.
Per Rolling Stone, Bono introduced the song by saying: “It’s been 40 days and 40 nights in the desert. What’s a fellow with a messianic complex going to do? Here’s a song we wrote in 40 minutes. I opened up the sacred text of the Psalm of David. I just kind of read it out. That was the lyric.”
NME visited their show, and in a five star review said that it “truly takes your breath away”: “They pull off a dazzling series of technological tricks right from the outset as whirring drones whizz past the audience while everything from giant helicopters, falling letters, widescreen desert landscapes and even a projection of the Sphere itself come hurtling towards the audience.”
It was reported in November that the venue has made a loss of $98.4million (£80.5million) since opening. Revenue from the venue included $4.1million from the sold-out U2 shows and $2.6million from suite licensing and advertising on its exosphere. Meanwhile, a survey of Wall Street analysts has predicted a quarterly loss of $1.27 a share.
U2 are said to be working on a new album, and in a November interview, Bono said that the record was “somewhat tied” to the medical status of drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who has been recovering from neck surgery, and pulled out of playing at the band’s Las Vegas Sphere residency.