The rule used to be What Happens In Vegas...Stays In Vegas.
Then Knicks owner James Dolan built a $2.3 billion massive spherical venue, standing 366 feet (111 meters) high.
U2 were the inaugural act booked for a 25 show residency starting on September 29, 2023. (Technically the band have referred to it as a "venue launch." How often do you get to consecrate a brand new music venue?)
And now…nothing that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
If there’s One constant in Vegas it’s change…progress and evolution are synonymous in…The Meadows. (Las Vegas in English is not as cool as Los Angeles.)
“Well, it’s too late tonight To drag the past out into the light” ~ One
On Thursday October 5th I attended one of the U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere shows.
The size and scope of the spectacle defy easy comparison or glib expression.
Inside the 516-foot-wide (157-meter-wide) Sphere, a high-resolution LED screen wraps halfway around the 17,500-seat audience.
The venue is equipped with thousands of speakers that deliver a crystal-clear, multi-layered experience.
I quote those meaningless stats from the Sphere’s media release but it’s one of those you need to see it and experience it to understand it type of deals.
Otherwise it’s like trying to describe Niagara Falls to a blind man.
I’ve been to big shows before...I’ve seen Bruce Springsteen close out the old Giants Stadium before it was demolished.
Coldplay gave everyone in the audience xylobands basically Lite-Brites for fans.
Radiohead is between Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay...some lights, some screens but the musicians and their sonic craft are (mostly) front and central.
These U2 Sphere shows don’t fit into neat categories. I’ve been struggling to articulate it...
These Sphere shows are a trailer for the future...they’re a bridge between live rock shows and the classic cinematic experience. I didn’t know we "needed" that bridge but now that it’s here...yo: what else can do with it?
With that in mind I’ll start at the end of the show…
This is Es Devlin’s Nevada Ark which is a comment on climate change and its detrimental effects to the planet. It’s a collage of 26 endangered species specific to the state of Nevada. (Hence Nevada Ark.) (Shockingly, the list of endangered species in the state is 152 animals long. 153 if you count the missing lucky rabbit’s foot I coulda used at the slots.)
This is what we saw to close out the Sphere show as the band played Beautiful Day. (We were exiting to Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World.)
(It’s a startling moment to see thousands of humans slowly vanish under the gaze of an endangered species image like this. It’s a meta experience I suppose…a disturbing accounting of the cost of our environmental sins. We’re gonna lose a lot of humans and a lot of animals before we fix this and get it right. Hopefully the house…our house Mother Earth wins big.)
“See the world in green and blue See the canyons broken by cloud See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth After the flood all the colours came out.” ~ Beautiful Day
Running through the entire show/setlist was this environmental theme.
Yes…there was a wonderful celebration of all things Vegas from Frank Sinatra to Elvis.
And much praise to Achtung Baby their reinventive album from 1991.
(Achtung Baby is a miracle. A miracle. Go back and listen to Boy or even War. There’s nothing in those albums that even hints that band can deliver an Achtung Baby. That rarely happens.
Most bands like Rolling Stones and Coldplay get better at refining and defining their textures…overtime they make better layered sandwiches, you know? But to terraform an entirely different sonic landscape that’s…a miracle. U2 did that with Achtung Baby. That’s no longer just a sandwich; that’s a full meal with appetizers and desserts and everything.)
And yet lacing all of that together was this persistent and hopeful environmental theme…a clear calling for renewal with a call/invitation to the come to the table.
In music…what’s more fun than a call and response?
“Come all you stars falling out of the sky Come all you angels forgetting to fly Come all who feel we’re not on our own Come all who serve above and below Come all believers and all who don’t know.” ~ Atomic City
Grace doesn’t exactly glitter like Vegas neon signs.
It’s a fight for the light...s. That dark Vegas light that seduces by whispering false yet appealing promises vs the light of hope. But that’s the thing…if you can find Grace in Vegas…of all places…Sin City…you can find it anywhere.
There’s no better place for someone to start over than in a place where everyone is screwed up. If you wanna hang out with saints invite sinners into your life.
(This image is still inside the Sphere! We’re inside and outside at the same time!!)
It’s weird but most people forget how fun freedom can be. That’s why they come to Vegas, right? To remember freedom? Or to enjoy freedom.
Sam Shepard writes that the middle of the contradiction is the place to be. Contradiction and hypocrisy are 2 different things. To be a contradiction is to be fearless and bold in some areas of your life…shy and risk-averse in others.
We demand independence, yet desire love. We hunger for fame, yet cherish privacy. We benefit from responsibility, yet celebrate our liberty. We show strength, yet need to be vulnerable.
We long to be tidy but we’re messy…
We’re messy people who make a mess of things. From relationships to the environment. We take things for granted, we overlook worth and each other.
Mavericks are lionized; heretics are demonized. Why?
Sometimes they’re the same person.
Freedom is always way more fun than fundamentalism.
“No, nothing makes sense Nothing seems to fit I know you’d hit out If you only knew who to hit And I’d join the movement If there was one I could believe in Yeah, I’d break bread and wine If there was a church I could receive in ’Cause I need it now I must be an acrobat To talk like this and act like that And you can dream, so dream out loud And don’t let the bastards grind you down.” ~ Acrobat
I might be wrong about all of this. So Be it.
Maybe it was just a classic rock band commemorating the 30th anniversary of one of their best albums.
Maybe I was seduced by Nighttown.
There’s always gonna be a maybe. Either way?
Go. If you can...go.
You may not be a U2 fan anyways...that’s fine Go anyways. The Sphere shows are wild fun and breathtaking in their ambition.
Since it’s Friday The 13th…in October.
Do you have SiriusXM? One of my favourite happy Halloween horror traditions just started yesterday. SCREAM Radio...channel 107 is an annual tradition providing a frightfully fun soundtrack of creepy sound effects, traditional Halloween tunes, ghost stories, bone-chilling music from classic horror films, and more. It’s really well done. When Christmas comes around all they do is 24/7 Christmas music crap. No holiday sounds, no skits or happy messages for the kids. Halloween is inspiring and this channel which is way more than just music is fantastic. Well...unless I’m driving home late one night and the actual Halloween theme song comes on, that’s a hell-no!
Just Missed The Train At Zoo Station… Sammy Younan -28-
Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
Thanks for reading My Pal Sammy! Please subscribe I figured we’re all polarized and operating only among our respective tribes. If I can provide an oasis of sarcasm for all of us to gather around then perhaps there’s hope for all of us. Because the only one who benefits from the gnashing of teeth are the dentists.
