U2 to Perform First Concerts at MSG Sphere in Las Vegas

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so i have a hypothesis - which is, of course, an educated guess. but i guess if i get this wrong you can also discount any other hypothesis i might ever have. anyways...

perhaps the band wanted to do a quick little spin around the globe (i.e. US and Europe) in support of Songs of Surrender... nothing serious, a couple of quick stops in the major markets.

but Larry? the band may have plans, but he's not touring this year.

so, welp, that's out then isn't it?

so what do they do? bono adds a few more stops on his reading rainbow tour and news comes out that they might want to add some SOS stuff to the Vegas shows.

so perhaps we misread larry's quotes right from the start. maybe there was something else being bandied around, related specifically to Songs of Surrender, that larry's medical issues put the kybosh on?

just a hunch.
 
I'm still wondering about the F U rock album. Cause Bono was doing an interview about the Sphere shows and said they would have that album out and play some from that as well.

I guess a lot of this hinges on Larry because they may be trading off finishing that record to let him rest with hopes he can play the Vegas shows.

And I just want new music, so there's that.
 
Yeah, that sounds like a solid guess, @headache :up:

There's also the chance that this year was meant to be generally way busier - at one point the timeline was supposedly SoS in November '22, new album March '23, stadium tour summer '23. It could be that they realised new album promotion and a stadium tour were unfeasible with Larry's injuries, so they pushed SoS to the new album's march slot, and the stadium tour back a full year to '24, whilst feeling confident that Vegas was still workable given it was set for later in the year anyway.

I still wouldn't be surprised if SoS' connection to Vegas is primarily focused on promotion. I could see maybe a 'mini set' like the E-stage on the I&E tour, 2 or 3 old war horses that they perhaps feel are getting a little tired in their current form or can afford to drop from the proper set (Pride, WoWY) getting the SoS treatment, whilst the vast majority of the show has the standard full band, stadium rock sound. I also bet they'll play the lead single from the next proper album at the Vegas shows, but that the album itself won't be out until November at the earliest.
 
With the supposed focus on Achtung Baby (and SoS), how do you reckon the setlist for Vegas will look?

Will they start the show playing AB in full?
Do it chronologically like with JT30, starting with the oldest hits before building up to AB?
Scatter AB throughout the show, e.g. opening with Zoo Station or EBTTRT and closing with Love is Blindness?
 
Yeah, that sounds like a solid guess, @headache :up:

There's also the chance that this year was meant to be generally way busier - at one point the timeline was supposedly SoS in November '22, new album March '23, stadium tour summer '23. It could be that they realised new album promotion and a stadium tour were unfeasible with Larry's injuries, so they pushed SoS to the new album's march slot, and the stadium tour back a full year to '24, whilst feeling confident that Vegas was still workable given it was set for later in the year anyway.

I still wouldn't be surprised if SoS' connection to Vegas is primarily focused on promotion. I could see maybe a 'mini set' like the E-stage on the I&E tour, 2 or 3 old war horses that they perhaps feel are getting a little tired in their current form or can afford to drop from the proper set (Pride, WoWY) getting the SoS treatment, whilst the vast majority of the show has the standard full band, stadium rock sound. I also bet they'll play the lead single from the next proper album at the Vegas shows, but that the album itself won't be out until November at the earliest.
Excellent point about the hold up on the release. We did think it was supposed to be out around the time of the book release in November, so yea - maybe they've just delayed everything a bit to let Larry heal up.
 
I think they probably knew all along that it would be out in March because that’s when the LPs and documentary would be ready. The tie-in documentary featuring Bono’s book tour indicates that a November release wasn’t the plan for quite a while. A Letterman-hosted doc isn’t a last minute project and they’d have known that LPs wouldn’t be pressed for November even longer. It also seems like this album isn’t being treated as a tie in to the book - it’s being treated as a celebration of the songs and Bono & Edge’s songwriting partnership (which is kind of a weird thing to do for a band whose songs are credited to all four members and who wrote most of their stuff by jamming, but that’s another issue).
 
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so i have a hypothesis - which is, of course, an educated guess. but i guess if i get this wrong you can also discount any other hypothesis i might ever have. anyways...

perhaps the band wanted to do a quick little spin around the globe (i.e. US and Europe) in support of Songs of Surrender... nothing serious, a couple of quick stops in the major markets.

but Larry? the band may have plans, but he's not touring this year.

so, welp, that's out then isn't it?

so what do they do? bono adds a few more stops on his reading rainbow tour and news comes out that they might want to add some SOS stuff to the Vegas shows.

so perhaps we misread larry's quotes right from the start. maybe there was something else being bandied around, related specifically to Songs of Surrender, that larry's medical issues put the kybosh on?

just a hunch.


I’m not sure I buy this. Had they toured SoS, it would mean that 2 of the last 3 tours would be all old material, and I think that goes against the band’s ethos—and isn’t the conventional wisdom here that JT30 itself only happened because of the post-Trump election SOE delay?

On top of that, I’m having a hard time imagining a concert made up of only/mostly reworked SoS versions; even if they’re not all acoustic, that’s going to rob their usual setlist of many of its crowd-pleasing “big” moments .
 
From the Smartless interview:
Edge showed Sean Hayes venue renderings for Vegas, Bono is officially non-committal but bullish. “You are a news network now, ‘cause that’s breaking news.

We haven’t signed off on it but if we do, if we do sign off on this I will say that if we can pull off what we’re talking about, it’s not like anything we’ve done before. It’s not like anything Las Vegas has ever seen before.

If this happens it will be really extraordinary. And again, I don’t want to… I shouldn’t be…

Blame it on Edge…”

it's live to the unpaying commoner btw

you'd be surprised to find out that america is still an idea.
 
also they should play Discotheque with the Sphere video walls as the inside of the ball
 
U2Songs.com

There is a lot of fuss in the local news in Colombia that U2 were in the South American country to film a video recently. The images accompanying the news show that it wasn’t U2 at all, but rather look-alikes, which are causing most of the fuss. U2 have recently filmed a video in Colombia, and the look-a-likes are part of the video filmed. It’s not the first time the band have used look-a-likes, they famously did that in 1992 with “Even Better than the Real Thing“ as well.

The filming took place in the Carrizal desert between Uribia and Cabo de la Vela. Members of the band are said to have arrived by private plane in these media reports in Colombia, and then spent two days in the desert, which they reached by helicopter. But the film crew was reported to be in place for several weeks, and filmed many others for the video. A spokesperson for U2 stated that U2 had not been in Colombia recently, and that the online images which leaked were of actors dressed as the band.

Well known Bono impersonator Pavel Sfera was the Bono impersonator in question. On social media Sfera posted on January 10, “I’m doing a big project in Bogota, Colombia January 14th – 20th. We are looking for an Edge, Clayton and Mullen Jr look a likes. No performance, just good looks. Doesn’t matter where you are in the world. Just have your availability to fly to Colombia.” It appears to be Sfera in the photographs being shared on social media from the video shoot. Like in real life, photos have been shared of the look-a-like Bono, Edge, and Adam Clayton and the look-a-like Larry Mullen was not spotted.

Its not just look-a-likes that were flown in for the video shoot. A number of U2 fans were also invited to Colombia for the video shoot. This included a number of fans known for dressing up in concert and joining the band on stage, the belly dancers, the Macphisto impersonators, the mirror ball men. The band are also said to have worked with locals from Colombia in additional scenes. It is not clear whether any members of the band were present in Colombia themselves.

José Sierra, the Secretary of Tourism for the La Guajira area where filming took place, shared on Caracol Radio about the video shoot, “The issue of their arrival was handled with a lot of reserve because that’s what they asked for. A very confidential process was developed to be able to respect the development of the recordings.” [Translated]

It is not known what video was being filmed, but is expected to be a video for one of the recreated songs on Songs of Surrender which is out on March 17, 2023. Earlier in the week we also shared that the band have been filming promotional material for their upcoming residency plans in Las Vegas. Keep an eye on our news section for updates on these and other projects.
 
bruh lol

https://twitter.com/marchenajr/status/1617297084004139010

FnHLICYXwAALT7x


FnHLICaWYAMcM0x
 
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