For the record, what U2 is doing at the Sphere with their Achtung Baby residency is nearly perfect, for my money.
However, there is always room for improvement. And there’s one aspect of the show that could be reworked.
And no, it’s not the acoustic mini-segment in the middle. The show I saw featured the Rattle and Hum segment which was great. During recent shows, U2 has somewhat changed it up a bit, playing some deep cuts from War, but I actually enjoy the part of the show.
It’s what comes after that could use some work. And truthfully, it’s not the songs themselves. It’s the order of them. Yes, there could be some better selections, like a proper closer, but the order of the songs is interesting, to say the least.
The band has almost a month off before there next shows due to the F1 races taking over Las Vegas. We’ll see if they come back with any new ideas.
A greatest hits segment
U2 shows are a cathartic experience. There’s nothing like them. But after the experience of a heavy album such as Achtung Baby, the levity of their 2000s hits is much needed.
After “Love Is Blindness,” the band comes back out for a six-song encore. All six songs are some of U2’s most well-known hits that even the most casual of casual fans would know.
First up is the trio of “Elevation,” “Atomic City,” and “Vertigo.” If you read my setlist prediction before the Sphere shows commenced, I figured “Elevation” and “Vertigo” would be there. While some older U2 fans are surely sick of them, they are live staples that get radio play. Personally, I enjoy hearing them as they do get the crowd moving.
At the time of the prediction article, “Atomic City” wasn’t even a thought in the minds of U2 fans. Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr., and Bram van den Berg were the only ones who knew about it. But given its post-punk Blondie roots and the Las Vegas theme, it’s a no-brainer. And truthfully, it fits really well into this segment of songs.
And starting off fast after the brooding “Love Is Blindness” makes sense. Bono takes the stage in purple “Fly” sunglasses and a white jacket (perhaps an homage to Elvis Presley?) that marks his first deviation from black denim jackets in years.
The next three songs are where U2 run into some issues.
Building the Joshua Tree back up
If Achtung Baby chopped down the Joshua Tree, U2’s Sphere encore builds it back up. After the up-beat trio of “Elevation,” “Atomic City,” and “Vertigo,” the band is given a breather. Not a long one, of course, but the iconic organ begins to rise at the start of “Where the Streets Have No Name.”
There is nearly a full minute of organ before The Edge’s iconic riff comes in. The Nevada desert appears in the background as the white flag, which was seen burning earlier, is standing in the sun. This is when the crowd finally got out of their seats in my section — “Streets” is an irresistible song, to be fair. The visuals engulf you as Bono sings his Songs of Surrender version of the lyrics (which causes some confusion amongst audience members).
“Streets” is followed by another Joshua Tree classic, “With or Without You.” Once again paired with gorgeous visuals — an earth in the middle of water slowly approaches the screen before exploding into different creatures during the song’s crescendo — the song is another big winner for U2.
But we all know that “With or Without You” is a slow song. Its 110 beats per minute are a soothing desert to the much higher-tempo “Streets.” The energy is once again picked up directly after, though, as U2 plays the show’s final song, “Beautiful Day.”
Mother Nature
Speaking to Gavin Friday, the “fifth member” of U2, he explained the show’s themes. He described the Sphere shows as “a poetic poem to Mother Earth.”
This was a drastic shift in focus from U2’s “ZooTV” tour, which the support tour for Achtung Baby that went from 1992-93. As Friday puts it, “The ‘ZooTV’ tour 30 years ago was all almost a premonition of what we’re living in, like mass information, fake information, where the phone is God, news is God, and who the hell is God?”
The band didn’t want to retread familiar themes. They opted to instead look at Mother Nature.
And to be fair, the Sphere show does get in touch with nature throughout. During “Until the End of the World,” the aforementioned white flag is seen burning in the desert. Right after that song, “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” sees ashes of the fire projected onto the screen.
That’s why U2 ends on “Beautiful Day.” All of the endangered species residing in Nevada are shown on the screen during the song. And “Beautiful Day” is an uplifting anthem to end on. It’s not the sing-along “40” is or as rousing as “One,” but it’s an energetic crescendo.
My suggestion
I’ll give them that, not that my opinion matters. Preferably, “Beautiful Day” would be played somewhere in the “Elevation”-“Atomic City”-“Vertigo” segment. Perhaps U2 didn’t want to retread familiar encores, their 2017 Joshua Tree tour usually kicked off their encores with a segment of “Beautiful Day”-“Elevation”-“Vertigo,” but I think there’s a reason it works.
Perhaps they could play something like “Elevation”-“Vertigo”-“Atomic City”-“Beautiful Day.” Then you could play “With or Without You” to mellow out your audience before ending on “Streets.”
I’m not sure “Streets” has ever closed out a show. But I think it has the same effect that “Beautiful Day” does without the wonkiness of tone. Going from fast to somber and then back to fast just feels weird.
And I get it. U2 was probably trying to get their greatest hits in since Achtung Baby features some album tracks like “So Cruel” or “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World” that casuals may not know. Yes, the middle acoustic session that breaks up the album does usually feature hits like “All I Want Is You” and “Angel of Harlem,” but they aren’t played in their proper full-band form.
U2 wants to send fans home happy, and I think they have the right idea. Honestly, for as good as the endangered species visual is for the show is, wouldn’t it be more fitting to end with the Nevada desert?
But again, my opinion ultimately doesn’t matter. I’d still go back to the Sphere to watch another show in a heartbeat regardless of the encore. They are doing something special with these shows, and that’s all that ultimately matters.
If I can throw in another suggestion or two that aren’t already played, “City of Blinding Lights” or “Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way” would also be awesome closers (for two very different reasons).
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