U2's Grandiose Performance at the Sphere at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas

Key Highlights :

1. U2 have never been a band noted for their love of shy understatement, but even by their standards, their arrival in Las Vegas represents a hitherto-unimagined degree of grandiosity.

2. They unveil not just an entire venue – the 18,000 seat Sphere, its exterior completely covered in LED screens that turn it different colours, flash up QR codes and occasionally transform it into a giant emoji face, leering over the Las Vegas strip – but also a vast overhead walkway that links it to the Venetian Resort (hotels are tireless in their efforts to stop patrons going outside, an activity that carries with it the danger you might spend your money somewhere else).

3. The interior of the concert hall is completely covered in LED screens, too.

4. They stretch out far above the band and over the audience’s heads, the better to provide a sequence of genuinely astonishing visual effects.

5. Outside the Sphere on opening night. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

6. Some big, rather arty names have been involved in the visuals, among them Es Devlin and Brian Eno, and there’s a moment early on when the screens flash up a preponderance of aphorisms that recall Jenny Holzer’s text-based installations – WORK IS THE BLACKMAIL OF SURVIVAL, TASTE IS THE ENEMY OF ART, ENJOY THE SURFACE – but ultimately, it’s all about spectacle, which it provides in jaw-dropping spades.

7. During The Fly, the visuals appear to descend from the roof of the auditorium, creating a fake ceiling made of pulsing numbers. During Even Better Than the Real Thing, they give the disorientating impression that the stage and the standing audience around it are slowly moving upwards: an amazing bit of visual sleight of hand that leaves you slightly queasy.

8. Bono casts his eyes around the venue. “Look at all this … stuff.”

9. Of course, there are dangers inherent in all this stuff. On the most prosaic level, there’s the section in the show when what appears to be a giant rope made of knotted sheets ascends to the roof and transforms itself into a swing. Bono selects a fan from the front row in an echo of U2’s fabled Live Aid performance, seats them in the swing and pushes them out over the audience: with the best will in the world, this seems less like stagecraft than an injury lawsuit waiting to happen.

10. But there’s also the risk that U2 themselves will be not just literally be dwarfed by the visuals, which they obviously are, but overshadowed by them, the music merely an accompaniment to a vastly expensive and impressive light show.

11. The immersive screen in the Sphere.

     U2 have never been a band known for their shyness, but even by their standards their arrival in Las Vegas was something to behold. Not only did they unveil an entire venue – the 18,000 seat Sphere, its exterior completely covered in LED screens that turn it different colours, flash up QR codes and occasionally transform it into a giant emoji face – but also a vast overhead walkway that links it to the Venetian Resort. The interior of the concert hall is also completely covered in LED screens, providing a sequence of genuinely astonishing visual effects.

     Some big, rather arty names have been involved in the visuals, among them Es Devlin and Brian Eno, and there’s a moment early on when the screens flash up a preponderance of aphorisms that recall Jenny Holzer’s text-based installations. Ultimately, however, it’s all about spectacle, which it provides in jaw-dropping spades. During The Fly, the visuals appear to descend from the roof of the auditorium, creating a fake ceiling made of pulsing numbers. During Even Better Than the Real Thing, they give the disorientating impression that the stage and the standing audience around it are slowly moving upwards.

     Playing Achtung Baby interspersed with other hits, the band use slick LED displays to eye-popping effect while remaining unpredictable. There’s a section in the show when what appears to be a giant rope made of knotted sheets ascends to the roof and transforms itself into a swing, and Bono selects a fan from the front row in an echo of U2’s fabled Live Aid performance. But there’s also the risk that U2 themselves will be not just literally be dwarfed by the visuals, but overshadowed by them, the music merely an accompaniment to a vastly expensive and impressive light show.

     Smart song selection – billed as a performance of their 1991 album Achtung Baby in full, it’s actually slightly more complicated than that – and the appealingly ramshackle nature of their performance means this doesn’t happen. U2 manage to disrupt the show’s hi-tech gloss with a degree of unpredictability, wresting attention away from the visuals and underlining that theirs is not a choreographed, by-numbers performance. Indeed, U2’s grandiose performance at the Sphere at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas works so well that, like Abba’s Voyage show, it’s likely to be copied by other rock bands in the future.

Continue Reading at Source : theguardian