Photo credit:  GLASGOW, SCOTLAND – NOVEMBER 09: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been converted to black and white) An alternative view of Bono of U2 during the MTV EMA’s at The Hydro on November 9, 2014 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/MTV 2014/Getty Images for MTV)

 

U2 opened its long-awaited U2:UV residence at The Sphere in Las Vegas on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 29 and 30, with a pair of identical two-hour shows that spotlighted the band’s 1991 album Achtung Baby as well as selected favorites from the rest of its catalog. The shows drew particular acclaim for The Sphere’s floor-to-ceiling, 360-degree screen, which Billboard reported as “making it unclear if the floor or the stage might be moving or if your mind was just playing tricks on you” and dubbed U2  “exactly the right band to welcome the mind-blowing space.” Each night opened with the first eight tracks from “Achtung Baby,” then broke for an acoustic set featuring four songs from 1988’s “Rattle and Hum.” U2 then finished with four more “Achtung Baby” songs and encored with six hits — “Elevation,” the new single “Atomic City,” “Vertigo,” “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “With Or Without You” and “Beautiful Day.”

Frontman Bono inserted snippets of other songs into some of the performances and on Friday paid tribute to Elvis Presley’s history of performing in Las Vegas, calling the opulent Sphere “an Elvis  chapel and an Elvis cathedral” and declaring that “Elvis has definitely not left this building.”