October 14, 2023 - Las Vegas, Nevada, USA - Sphere at The Venetian Resort

Photograph: Ross Stewart

Opening Act(s): Pauli "The PSM" Lovejoy

Setlist:

1. Zoo Station
2. The Fly
3. Even Better Than the Real Thing
4. Mysterious Ways
5. One - Love Me Tender
6. Until the End of the World - Two Tribes
7. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
8. Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World
9. All I Want Is You - Walk on the Wild Side
10. Desire - Not Fade Away
11. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - Movin' On Up
12. Love Rescue Me
13. Acrobat
14. So Cruel
15. Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
16. Love Is Blindness - Viva Las Vegas
Encore(s):
17. Elevation - My Way
18. Atomic City
19. Vertigo
20. Moment of Surrender - Where the Streets Have No Name - All You Need Is Love
21. With or Without You
22. Beautiful Day - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Blackbird

Remarks:

U2 perform the eighth of forty shows at the Sphere at The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. Attendance is 18,600; a sellout. Tickets range from $140 to $500 (for presale ticket prices) but many sell at resale prices of $400 to $1,450. The opening music act is Pauli "The PSM" Lovejoy, who is the official Atomic MC / DJ host of the UV Dance Party opening each U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere concert.

Prior to "Desire", Bono introduces the band: "This is Bram van den Berg! Last night I asked him to stand up, I'm not ever doing that again. Ya' know, he's sitting in for Larry Mullen Jr! It's a sitting situation. We want to send a message of love out to our bandmate and our brother who is injured: Larry Mullen... Junior.". Bono continues: "Now, I just want to say, this is the man with the dirtiest mind and the cleanest hands: Lord Adam Clayton on the bass!" Introducing The Edge, Bono announces: "To my right, a man whose first name is a definite article, and whose second name has been ruined by razor blade advertisements. On guitar and so much more: The Edge!" Bono finally introduces himself: "Now, I'd like to introduce you to one of the humblest people I know. Very thoughtful, kind to his friends, children, animals... and a positive danger to himself. My name is Bono."

Bono makes a prayer during the intro to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", in reference to the 10/7 Hamas attacks in Israel: "So... I'm not gonna talk, we're not gonna talk, about the awfulness that's on peoples minds. Just, just... I don't want to talk about what our friends are going through. But I do want to say that the next song was inspired by Psalms of David and the poetry of Allen Ginsberg and his poem Kaddish. Inspired by the great brains..."

After the song concludes, Bono reveals some of the backstory behind Rattle and Hum before the band perform "Love Rescue Me": "You see, Rattle and Hum was an album we made as fanboys, ya know. There was so much we didn't know about American music and roots music in particular. We came out of punk rock. It was like year zero. Even Irish traditions we didn't know. We came out of the suburbs. It was a strange time. But in one sense, it was great, it was all fresh for us. When we came here, we toured in the United States. We're like: 'Wow, wow, look at this place, oh my god Johnny Cash, he lives there. Oh god, Billie Holiday, we just heard on the radio. Stevie Wonder... fuck!' Ya know, it was like that. And there was some people who went across all of these categories. The one of them was of course Bob Dylan, another Jewish mystic. And we wrote this song with him." Noel Gallagher from Oasis and producer Jacknife Lee are in attendance for this show.