From Boston to Sin City: My Front-Row Experience at a U2 Show
One could make the argument that WBCN 104.1 FM “The Rock of Boston” brought the sounds of U2 from Ireland to America back in the 80s.
One could make the argument that WBCN 104.1 FM “The Rock of Boston” brought the sounds of U2 from Ireland to America back in the 80s. One of their first 8 shows in America was in Boston at the Paradise Rock Club in 1980 where they were the opening band that fans couldn’t get enough of. Nearly forty-three years after (whoa!) that first American tour. Fast forward to Super Bowl 2023, there was an announcement that a new venue in Las Vegas called Sphere was opening and the first band to be playing was U2 for their first live performances in 4 years.
To put it bluntly, as a whole, U2 at the new Sphere venue in Las Vegas was spectacular. It is a show that was made for Sin City. We lined up at 6:30am on show day to get the closest spot we could. We ended up being about 3-4 people back from the stage rail and even being that close, the screens were fully visible and successfully engulfed everyone. Being in Sphere is like an imax concert. U2’s somewhat small stage is in the form of a turntable with a revolving plate that the band would slowly spin around on, but that was barely noticeable.
Of course there were people who cared a little less about watching the screen material and just cared about connecting with the band. In an interview I had seen before, one of their creative people said that if people got bored from the screen they could watch the band. Or maybe it was vice versa. Ha.
I thought the band sounded incredible, Bono’s voice was spot on. The fill-in drummer Bram van den Berg was great, and had a great sense of humor, being the youngest at 41. (U2 Co-founder Larry Mullen Jr is recovering from surgery.) The Edge and Adam Clayton were also in fine form. They used the screens to their advantage, sometimes only displaying band members but other times full landscapes. During “Atomic City”, their newest song about Sin City, they simulated Vegas being dismantled. My favorite song was “Where the Streets Have No Name.”
Before U2 took the stage, London, UK born, Pauli “The PSM” Lovejoy played a DJ set while he got pushed around in a car throughout the general admission area. It was a full on dance party full of UK centric mostly 80s music, from Human League to Amy Winehouse, he was a good hype man for what was to come.
