IT’S EVEN BETTER THAN THE REAL KING
» Rockers’ Elvis tribute » Irish superstars to in first night at Vegas... rake in €1m per show
U2 debuted the next generation of live entertainment with their first performance in the jawdropping $2billion Sphere in Las Vegas on Friday night.
The immersive high-tech assault on all the senses included an array of Ai-generated holograms of Elvis Presley on the world’s largest and highest resolution LED display.
The U2: UV opening night celebrated the Achtung Baby album playing every track with a healthy sprinkling of the band’s back catalogue. It also featured their new single Atomic City which was released to coincide with the opening of the Vegas residency.
It was the first time the band performed without founding member Larry Mullen, 61, who is recovering from back surgery.
Instead, Bono, The Edge and Adam Clayton, 63, were joined by 41-yearold Bram van den Berg in a stunning high-tech show which utilised the world’s largest 16K resolution screen inside the Sphere to the max.
DRUMMER
The band saluted their stageabsent drummer Mullen dedicating All I Want Is You to him. Desire was dedicated to Paul Mccartney and the acoustic Love Rescue Me to the late singer songwriter Jimmy Buffett.
Bono, 63, had promised the gigantic display was a new canvas for the band to paint on and that’s exactly what fans are treated to in a spectacular directed by Willie Williams, who has led U2’s live show design for 40 years.
Fans were dazzled by the colour of the stage and the next level lighting, some of which is controlled by a generative algorithm created by Brian Eno. The result is a totally unique colour palette for each one of the 25 Vegas shows.
One of the centrepieces of the performance was Marco Brambilla’s video sequence for Even Better Than the Real Thing which features Ai-generated versions of Elvis.
The unique tribute to the King of Rock and Roll veers between his persona and image and Vegas, an upward scrolling video-montage that is a collision of reality and illusion.
Its creator Marco Brambilian explained: “Elvis Presley’s death marked the end of an era in American culture. In Vegas, Elvis embodied both the American Dream and was its ultimate victim.” The wonderful stage design by Stufish, Es Devlin & Willie Williams is based on Achtung Baby co-producer Eno’s turntable. He said he chose a turntable because the 45rpm single was “the heart of popular music from the 50s to the 90s, and seemingly back with a vengeance”. Such incredible lighting and visuals are almost essential for anyone who performs at what is live entertainment’s most one-of-a-kind venue, Sphere. The giant orb is the world’s largest spherical structure, measuring 516ft wide and 366ft tall and 5.7 million cubic feet in the main atrium. Sphere boasts 4D technology that enhances events such as U2: UV and makes audiences “feel” the experience with changing temperatures, familiar scents and crystal-clear 360-degree spatial audio.
The immersive display plane wraps up, over and around the audience, with a 16K x 16K resolution – the highest resolution LED screen on earth, comprising 268,435,456 video pixels. This ground-breaking resolu
tion is the equivalent of 72 HD televisions combined. This means that every one minute of content produced for Sphere is the equivalent of one hour of streaming television.
Fans can’t mistake the largely solar-powered venue just off the Las Vegas Strip – its exterior sports a 580,000sqft fully programmable LED display in 2K resolution.
Insiders told the Irish Sunday Mirror that because the building was under construction during the U2: UV design process, the entire show was created in virtual reality first.
Fans who visit the nearby Venetian Hotel Resort will getting an extra bonus thanks to a special Zoo Station:
A U2: UV Experience that allows them to explore U2’s revered Achtung Baby album through interactive experiences.
The exhibition area also houses a
Zoo TV Cinema with movies and rare footage personally chosen by The Edge, 62. And there is a gallery of work by the band’s award-winning photographer Anton Corbijn.
Celebs in attendance at Sphere included Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, Matt Damon, Snoop Dogg, Sting, Paul Mccartney, Maria Sharapova, Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos and members of the late Jimmy Buffet’s family.