U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere was a concert residency by the Irish rock band U2 that took place at Sphere in Paradise, Nevada, in the Las Vegas Valley. Consisting of 40 concerts, the residency inaugurated the venue, with each show featuring a full performance of the group’s 1991 album Achtung Baby along with a mix of other songs from their catalogue. The shows leveraged Sphere’s immersive video and sound capabilities, which include a 16K resolution wraparound LED video screen measuring 160,000 square feet (15,000 m2), and speakers with beamforming and wave field synthesis technologies.
The show was conceptualised over 18 months by U2’s long-time production designer Willie Williams, in collaboration with artist and designer Es Devlin and architect Ric Lipson. Several artists were commissioned to provide video artwork for the concerts, including Devlin, Marco Brambilla, John Gerrard, and the effects studio Industrial Light & Magic. The stage featured a minimalist design in the shape of a record player, borrowed from Brian Eno’s art piece “Turntable”. The band’s creative team faced numerous challenges while developing the show, which included tailoring it to a venue with brand-new technology while it was still being built, designing a video playback system suitable for the high-resolution screen, and sharing the space with the crew for Darren Aronofsky’s film Postcard from Earth.
First rumoured in July 2022, the residency was announced in a Super Bowl LVII television advertisement in February 2023, followed by date confirmations and ticket sales in April and May. To promote the residency, U2 released a Las Vegas-themed single on opening night called “Atomic City”, and a temporary interactive exhibit was created for fans to visit at the Venetian resort that adjoins Sphere. U2’s drummer Larry Mullen Jr. did not participate in the residency in order to recuperate from surgery, marking the first time since 1978 that the group performed without him; Dutch drummer Bram van den Berg from the band Krezip filled in.
U2:UV Achtung Baby Live received wide critical acclaim. Many reviews highlighted the successful fusion of U2’s anthemic music with the spectacle of the venue, while commenting on the show’s potential impact on live entertainment as a whole. Initially scheduled to run until December 2023 for 25 shows, the residency was extended into March 2024 with 15 additional concerts due to high demand. The residency grossed $244.5 million from 663,000 tickets sold, making it the fourth-highest-grossing concert residency of all time. Wikipedia