I Went To The Vegas Sphere for U2 And Was Blown Away. A Visit To Experience It Should Be On Everybody’s Bucket List
I woke up this morning and sat down trying to attempt to write this blog but my brain was still splattered on the walls of my hotel room from The Sphere, and U2, blowing my fucking mind last night.
I still couldn’t wrap my head around what I had seen. And heard.
I'm so lucky I got to go last night and experience it.
It was truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen or heard before.
A good friend of mine from Chicago, Brian Noonan, who used to work for me back in the day when I was young and I had a promo company, moved out to Vegas to kickstart the Las Vegas Knights entertainment experience (which raised the bar so high on sports entertainment that the NHL stole away Brian's boss and made him director of the concept for the entire league and has him working on improving all teams' fan experience). When the launch of The Sphere was announced he left to take a job with a new Live Nation venture, Vibee, that provides special VIP, curated experiences, for die-hards and big swinging dicks.
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He's seen the numerous blogs I've written about it, because I'm obsessed with it,
He reached out and asked me when I'd be in Vegas next, and said he had a special surprise for me. I went there this weekend to go to the Patriots Raiders game with my dad, and he told me to stick around for the U2 show Wednesday.
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I couldn’t believe it. I was actually going to get to go.
And his “surprise” ended up being a private backstage tour of everything that U2, Live Nation, The Sphere, MSG, and Vibee have put together to create a fan experience unlike anywhere else.
It starts in The Venetian, where the U2 UV experience, dubbed “Zoo Station” is located.
As soon as you walk in you’re treated to screens with rotating images of the band that have never been seen before, captured by the bands personal photographer Anton Corbijn.
The space is massive and is filled with a ton of band memorabilia and artifacts dating back to the “Achtung Baby” album days.
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They’ve got various stations set up with full instruments where you can jam out, a vintage Trabant car where you can mix a classic U2 song using gear shifters, the pedals, and dash controls, and of course, an exclusive merch shop.
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They’ve also got an incredible bar setup. Multiple bars. And tons of bartenders. Zero wait.
Once in the venue, U2’s dj Pauli The PSm was spinning, in the middle of the floor on a retrofitted Trabant turned into a dj booth, lit up with neon. It was sick. He played a great mix of European new wave stuff mixed with old people music that set a great tone.
Doors opened at 6:30, and he wound down around 8:30, and they wheeled the car out off the floor.
The Sphere’s interior was lit up, or projected, (I still can’t figure out what the correct terminology is) with what reminded me of a dam wall. It felt like we were in Bane’s prison in Batman. Just cement walls all around us rising up to the top where there was a hole and just a black abyss. What was really cool is they had random birds that would appear to fly in the hole, that looked so freaking life like you thought that maybe the top was open and a bird really did get in? Or there was some poor bird stuck inside since construction flying around?
The pictures and videos you’ve seen online, and ones posted here don’t do it anywhere near the amount of justice it’s due. Honestly, it’s that incredible.
I didn’t think things could look more clear or lifelike than 8k but The Sphere somehow doubled that clarity and picture resolution.
The developed and constructed 1.2 million LED pucks each with 43 bulbs all displaying 16K resolution! Bonkers.
At one point during the show, you can’t tell if it’s projected or not, but the video walls are blacked out, appearing blank, and behind the stage is illuminated slightly. Being down close to it, it looked almost like you could see through the screens (they looked like soft mesh or cloth screens, not hard material) and were littered with nothing but speakers behind them. I couldn’t tell if this was another optical illusion or not. It plays tricks on you.
At another point, the longest rope of tied together bed sheets rises up from the ground and ascends upwards, towards the top of The Sphere. It keeps going and going until a drawing of a balloon appears in the sky and you realize it’s the string to a balloon. Easily one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. As the balloon sways around in the sky, so does the rope.
It was The Edge’s wife’s birthday, so they brought her out, sang her happy birthday, praised her for helping the band all these years by being their choreographer, (Bono especially, he went on and on about how terrible he is to work with and how she’s a super star for putting up with him and putting him in his place), and then gave her the rope and watched her swing around on it out above the crowd. It was really cool.
When the balloon drifted away and the rope with it, the rope disappeared into a hole in the roof. It appeared as if they never closed the hole and it was just a black space the rest of the show but I think this was again another optical illusion they were purposely playing on the crowd.
Speaking of Bono, I think this was my 8th time seeing U2 in concert and was far and away my favorite time seeing them, and seeing Bono perform.
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Before the haters and political nut jobs start in on how Bono sucks because of his political beliefs, let me say loud and clear there was ZERO, I repeat, zero talk from Bono about politics, world leaders, or world issues.
Which is pretty crazy considering everything going on at the moment.
On the contrary, he was incredibly gracious, thanking the crowd over and over for coming all the way from all around the world to see them, and experience The Sphere. He spoke about how humbled they were getting the opportunity to be the band who got to debut such an incredible spectacle.
He spoke about how he’d spent the last couple months in America traveling, and how beautiful the country is when you get outside the cities and drive around the various landscapes we’re lucky to have. As he talked about this some mind blowing imagery appeared behind him on the screens of a full, current, Las Vegas skyline, that slowly began becoming deconstructed until it was eventually just the dessert it once was with the picturesque mountain skyline surrounding it. Really really cool.
He was very self deprecating throughout the show. Perhaps a late inning realization of self awareness?
Whatever the case, he was awesome to listen to, and sounded incredible. His voice was in perfect pitch, and booming. You could tell it’s been well rested.
And speaking of the sound, I don’t think I can put into words how this space sounds.
I thought Dolby Atmos was a game changer. I didn’t think anything could beat the natural acoustics of Red Rocks. I never knew something could sound like The Sphere sounds.
I was told there are over 160,000 individual speakers in this place.
How they managed to tune it like they did, with this only being the 12th show they’ve had there was insane. (It’s one thing to tune a room when there’s no people in it, it sounds completely different when you fill it with warm bodies.)
It sounded like it was a private concert for 1,000 people. And when you’re focused on the stage, which is small, and purposely unassuming: adorned simply with 4 chromed out, moving robotic armed light fixtures and nothing else- it really feels like it is.
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But then you remember, and look around you and realize you’re in a space with 17,000 other people.
There’s really nothing like it.
This tour highlights the Achtung Baby album, and they play the entire tracklist.
During the middle of the set they break things down and play a few songs acoustic with a plain blue, and later black, video backdrop.
There’s a small encore where they come back out and do a handful of their greatest hits. (A fan who’s been to three shows already told me they mix these up every night which is cool).
In summation, I like U2 a lot but I’m not a super fan by any means.
That said, if you’re a huge fan of them, you need to do whatever it takes to see this show.
They extended their run through December so there’s plenty of time. But it’s really a must do.
Even if you’re a regular fan, I highly recommend catching this show. There’s simply nothing else like it. Or anything that even comes close.
I purposely stayed completely sober for it because I wanted it first experience to be “pure”, but if you took drugs, this would be the craziest experience imaginable. I’ve never done acid but I can imagine tripping felt like seeing the cascading images pour down the screen with everything animated and moving at once. It was WILD.
Elvis, cymbal banging monkeys, babies, Julia Child, more Elvis, on and on and on. It was a mind fuck and a half.
It felt like one of those haunted houses where the tunnel spins and it feels like you’re the one moving. It was crazy.
Rumor is Rolling Stones are next up residency wise, or in the near future. I can only imagine what future acts and some of the really tripped out visual shows will be capable of.
I’ll end with this-
As corny as it sounds, at one point watching and listening to what I was seeing and hearing, this overwhelming feeling of pride swept over me. And gratitude.
Despite all the fucked up shit going on around us in the world and in this country, we are so blessed to be alive at a time where human intelligence and engineering (probably with some help of reverse alien engineering) is capable of not just constructing something this ridiculous, but even thinking it up. And for it to be created and born on this country, and not Japan, or Dubai, or wherever else is truly incredible.
Long story short, The Las Vegas Sphere is a wonder of the world and should definitely be on everybody’s bucket list.
P.s.- as cool as it was being on the floor, I think this is the one venue where the further back you sit, the better the experience is. The 200 level seats were going for crazy money, probably for good reason, it’s like the perfect sweet spot. Not too close, and not too far, Next show I see that’s where I’m going to try to be.