u2 live 360 tour

U2, Live From Outer Space: Launching the Biggest Tour of All Time

By Brian Hiatt

Brian Hiatt

A n Irish spaceship has landed in a Chicago football stadium, and its pilot is standing under a starless sky, barking mad orders into a microphone. “Take the astronauts’ voices out,” says Bono , his brogue echoing through 61,000 empty seats. “And if you could take Sinéad out of the first verse … the sonic boom needs to fade three times faster — it’s not a subtle thing, it’s a big change.”

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It’s less than 24 hours before the kickoff of U2 ‘s first U.S. stadium tour since 1997 — and as far as Bono is concerned, a perfectly good time to tear apart a section of the show. He’s fixated on an obscure song: “Your Blue Room,” a languid, atmospheric track from the band’s 1995 Passengers collaboration with Brian Eno. U2 have never even played it live, but tonight they’re trying to transform the tune into an elaborate production number, with newly recorded vocals from Sinéad O’Connor and video and audio shot aboard the International Space Station.

“We’re lucky,” says U2’s manager, Paul McGuinness, watching the expensive effort unfold from a chair in front of the midfield production tent, “that they’re not doing it live from space.”

The actual setting is exotic enough: a four-clawed metal sci-fi cathedral that’s the biggest stage in rock & roll history — large enough to be seen from planes approaching the city. It’s almost a living thing, with moving ramps, constant exhalations of smoke and a constellation’s worth of rotating lighting rigs. Even the video screen performs tricks, stretching up and down like a Slinky — when Bono asks for it to retract, it does so instantly, rustling with the hum of a thousand bees.

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Up until now, the dress rehearsal had been going well, as the band tore through the first half of a two-hour set, playing to vacant cheap seats. The show — already polished in 24 European dates — begins with four songs in a row from the band’s latest album, No Line on the Horizon , before diving into the back catalog. But “Your Blue Room” is a mess, the song’s essence buried in astronaut chatter and other sound effects. What should be a haunting moment — a Belgian astronaut named Frank De Winne appears on the vast cylindrical video screen above the stage, reciting a spoken-word verse as he floats in zero gravity — isn’t registering. “That was not a pleasant experience,” Bono says, before hijacking the rehearsal to play the song again and again. His bandmates and the production team already spent an hour on the song the night before, and they know they’re in for the long haul when the singer asks for coffee from the stage. Even as they reshape the sound effects and video, Bono is writing a new bridge on the spot for the 14-year-old tune, improvising lyrics and melodies each time they run through it.

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Bono’s relentlessness has helped get U2 this far — while leading them off a PopMart-size cliff or two along the way. “Bono has to be Father Christmas for 70,000 people every night,” says longtime show director Willie Williams, “so it’s absolutely fair enough for him to lead the charge.” The rest of U2 roll with their singer’s tenacity with varying degrees of good humor. After they conclude a lengthy onstage huddle with Williams, drummer Larry Mullen Jr. cracks, “If it ain’t broke, break it.”

At stake is the biggest rock show of all time — and U2 seem entirely comfortable working at this scale. The monster stage is their workplace, as unremarkable to them as an office cubicle. But there’s no denying it: Thirty-three years after four Dublin teenagers first came together in Mullen’s parents’ kitchen, they have reached their summit. “We’re actually at the limit, the absolute limit, when you consider the economics and the practicality of transportation,” says the Edge . “We’re really as big as we could ever get.”

The size of the tour, in some ways, is the point — an argument for the value of rock megastardom itself. In a culture as divided musically as it is politically, U2 are offering themselves up as one thing to agree upon.

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“Your Blue Room” is meant to “tie the show together,” as Tom Krueger, who directs the show’s video content, puts it. The celestial imagery offers a reminder of the optimism about the future that the space program once represented — and the shots of Earth from space match the global perspective of a show that addresses AIDS in Africa and politics in Myanmar and Iran. (And the stage does look an awful lot like a spaceship — David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” even plays each night as the lights dim.) “Your Blue Room” is far from a hit, though, and hardly anyone’s idea of stadium rock — in each subsequent version, the band keeps trying to make it quieter, more seductive. “It’s a delicate thing,” Bono says. “The problem is, the song could sink a whole section of the set if it doesn’t work.” He’s ready to gamble and do it opening night, but the rest of the band is pushing for night two in Chicago. (The song ends up premiering on the second night — Bono, who watched the crowd closely, says he saw faces that were “rapt and a little mystified.”)

The goal, as usual, is elevation. U2 are trying to make art in football stadiums — to achieve what Bono calls “intimacy on a grand scale” — even if getting there takes $750,000 a day of overhead: a 170-ton stage, 200 trucks and the corresponding carbon offsets, nearly 400 tour employees, more than 250 speakers, 13 video cameras, Sinéad O’Connor and various astronauts. (Red guitar, three chords and the truth sold separately.)

The tour is also the latest skirmish in U2’s battle to prove that the biggest band in the world can also be the best — and that, despite relatively weak sales for No Line on the Horizon , their new material can stand up next to the old stuff. “What do you do if you’re in a band?” the Edge says. “Do you just keep your head down and sell loads of tickets and CDs around the world? Or do you try and engage and try and do something different?”

The band takes one last shot at “Your Blue Room,” and it’s all starting to click: churchy washes of organ, the Edge’s melancholy piano chords, spotlights on top of the stage converging in a pyramid in the sky, the closing image of the sun rising over Earth, which leads directly into “Unknown Caller,” with its opening lines “Sunshine, sunshine.” Bono is relieved, and the rehearsal moves on. “One giant step,” he says, “for a little man.”

O n their way to Chicago, U2 almost run into Lil Wayne. Five minutes before the band drives up to a private airport in Newark, New Jersey — it’s using New York as a home base for this leg — a shades-wearing Wayne and a small entourage walk along the tarmac to their own private plane, unaware that they’re missing a chance at a superstar summit.

The jet that U2 are using today is a loaner, while their usual one is being prepped — and it’s so opulent that even Wayne might find it gauche, with couches instead of chairs, dark, polished wood walls and a private anteroom or two. I’m sitting alone in one of those cabins, waiting for takeoff, when a figure appears in the doorway. “Tickets, please,” Bono says. He’s wearing a denim-on-denim outfit and gray shades slightly larger than his usual model. His hair is shorn brutally short on the sides — it looks like he has it trimmed every day, and he probably does.

As he straps himself into one of the plush seats, Bono is fascinated to learn of Lil Wayne’s proximity, and laughs when he’s reminded of a nine-year-old U2 lyric: “The last of the rock stars/When hip-hop drove the big cars.”

“We should buzz the plane by him,” Bono muses, “And yell, ‘We were only kidding.'”

The truth is, Bono — who is friends with Jay-Z and enlisted Will.i.am to do production work on No Line — relates to the bigger-is-better ethos of mainstream hip-hop a lot better than he does rock’s increasing tendency toward self-ghettoization. “I love the idea of what you might call a more porous culture, where there’s much more crosstown traffic,” Bono says. “Jay-Z is a pioneer. He’ll work with an indie band. He likes to be in places no one else has been.

“In this age of celebrity and pop stardom, maybe it’s a sensible thing to question the values of being a pop star,” Bono continues. “Radiohead, Pearl Jam, a lot of people, who maybe had much more sense than us, rejected it. But the thing that’s suffered from that stance was that precious, pure thing, what they used to call the 45. That new Pearl Jam song [“The Fixer”] — it’s brilliant. It’s got that attitude, like, ‘We want it.'”

The U2360° Tour makes a case for the idea of a vital mainstream, for the power of a stadium full of people taking off their earbuds to sing together. “How long can it last? I don’t know,” Bono says, pondering his band’s increasingly singular superstar status. “Most people are content in their ghetto, and their ghettos are big. I still hold on to this old-fashioned idea of the meta-event — meta goes across, it becomes more than it is.”

The show is an unlikely fusion of the two extremes of U2’s tours — the technological overload of 1992-93’s Zoo TV and the no-frills, bare-stage Elevation Tour. “This is our masterpiece,” says Williams, who’s been planning this tour since 2006, and comes along on every date to tweak the show as it goes. “It’s sort of the culmination of everything I’ve done with U2.” On the band’s plane one afternoon, he opens his MacBook and shows off iteration after iteration of architect Mark Fisher’s potential designs for the stage (which was known as the Claw until the spaceship idea settled in). One file has a “wheel of style,” with adjectives next to corresponding pictures of possible shapes: “domed, kinetic, spiky, pointy, archy, skeletal, wrapped.”

But the real point is that from the band’s perspective — which I get to see one day when I climb onstage during a soundcheck — the design elements of the stage all but disappear. What the musicians perceive instead is its openness, the in-the-round trick that gives the tour its “360” name — you can spin around and see every seat in the house. The sound system, lifted out of the crowd’s way thanks to the four-­pillared design, is the largest ever built for a tour — and four separate sets of speakers allow for the live equivalent of surround sound: Sound engineer Joe O’Herlihy gives Mullen’s drums and Adam Clayton’s bass an entire speaker column of their own, for instance.

Not incidentally, the design also means that, unlike any other stadium tour, every seat in the house can be filled — which is one reason why McGuinness says the tour is on track to be the highest-grossing of all time.

“Somebody asked us last night, ‘Do you need this stuff?'” says Clayton. “And the truth is, you don’t really need this stuff. But part of show business is you have to change people’s perceptions, you have to find ways to make the songs touch people more, to disorientate people so they’re more open to being touched.”

On the Elevation Tour, one month after September 11th, 2001, U2 played three of the most emotional shows of their career at Madison Square Garden, with the audience all around them. It’s that experience the band is trying to replicate, on a larger scale. “What happened was that the audience were looking at each other,” Bono says. “Saying, ‘We’ve come through this.’ That’s the magic trick. The rabbit out of the hat is to make the audience the star of the show.”

A month before Chicago, U2 are 17 dates deep into their European tour, and the Edge has exactly 10 minutes to play tourist in its most exotic port of call. He climbs into the back of a van outside his hotel for a drive through Croatia’s capital, Zagreb, to Maksimir Stadium, home of the nation’s greatest soccer team, and of tonight’s U2 concert. “This will be my Zagreb experience,” says the Edge, a smile crinkling the corners of his goatee. “It’s the one thing that’s strange about touring — you don’t get to see things.” As usual, he’s dressed in black — T-shirt with a geometric pattern on it, jeans, leather Converse, head-covering cap. On a silver chain around his neck hangs a razor blade with the words “Don’t Mess” carved into it.

It’s U2’s first-ever show in Zagreb, and the first time they’ve played in the once war-ravaged region since a dramatic Sarajevo show in 1997. Edge settles into his black leather seat and begins snapping pictures out the window. The sights of the now-flourishing city rush by: a statue of medieval king Tomislav on a horse; posters for recent concerts by Patti Smith and Dale Watson; clotheslines between buildings (they remind Edge of his Dublin childhood: “I remember clothespegs. Who buys clothespegs anymore?”); streetcars; and, to his amusement, a vast metal structure poking past the top of a dowdy sports stadium. “The view I got, it looks like just another building,” Edge says.

The van pulls into the venue’s loading dock, beside giant white tents set up for production offices and catering — it looks like a good-size festival is in town. Shaking hands as he goes, Edge walks through a concrete corridor, steps over thick, bound electrical cords and climbs the clanking steel stairs that lead to the top of U2’s stage, which looks almost comically garish in the daylight. He greets Dallas Schoo, his genial guitar tech, straps on the first of a series of guitars and begins a one-man soundcheck.

Schoo hands Edge a Rickenbacker, and he plays the intro of “Mysterious Ways” — which, upon close observation, consists merely of one seventh-fret barre chord, a couple of rhythmic scratches and two notes — but it’s enough to induce goose bumps when you hear that exact squelchy, sexy sound from Achtung Baby come directly out of Edge’s four modest amplifiers. As Edge begins adjusting his guitar’s settings and punching the 36 buttons on the pedal board at his feet, Schoo whips out a digital camera and photographs the positions of the knobs and switches on the guitar.

To give him freedom to roam the vast expanse of the stage, Edge is using a Garth Brooks-style headset mike for his backing vocals and also allowing Schoo to control his guitar effects — the tech has a duplicate of Edge’s board under the stage.

But Edge keeps wandering back to his own board at stage right, tweaking settings. It’s not unusual, Schoo says with some awe, for Edge to create new combinations of effects midsong in front of a full stadium, and then hit “save” to create a preset. “I’m so particular about guitar sounds, because it is the identity of the song in many cases,” Edge says. He half-grins, half-winces at this uncharacteristic moment of immodesty, and revises himself: “a large part of the identity of the song.”

W hether it’s Zagreb, London or Chicago, every show begins roughly the same way: a segment of “Kingdom of Your Love” — an unreleased U2 song with a pulsing beat and choral vocals — blares over the PA, and Mullen struts out onstage alone. A single spotlight shines on the drummer while he plays an extended whirl of tom-toms, snare and cymbal that serves as an intro to the No Line track “Breathe,” a sort of power waltz with Dylanesque verses and a chorus that’s as U2-anthemic as it gets. Mullen’s bandmates join him one by one — Bono pops up last, yanking his mike stand back as if it’s a crank that makes the band go.

“It’s amazing to walk out when the audience is expecting Bono,” says Mullen, over a dinner of rice and vegetables at a picnic table outside the catering tent before one of the Zagreb shows. “I’ve been waiting 35 years for the drum solo. Wouldn’t want to be holding my breath, but this is the closest thing.”

It’s not the guy that fans expect to see first onstage — and not the song they might be waiting for, either. After “Breathe,” there are three songs in a row from No Line (the title track, “Get On Your Boots” and “Magnificent”) — and three more tunes from the album show up, including the epic ballad “Moment of Surrender” as a show-closer. The emphasis on the new stuff is all the more brave when you consider that No Line on the Horizon has barely moved a million copies in the U.S. — placing it among the lowest-selling U2 albums — and that the album has thus far failed to produce a hit single. “I walk out and sing ‘Breathe’ every night to a lot of people who don’t know it,” says Bono. “I’m a performer — I’m not going to hang on to a song that doesn’t communicate and add up to something. They’re great songs live, and I think it’s a great album. I think it will be seen as ‘Gosh, one of their more challenging albums.'”

On the way to Chicago, though, Clayton worries that Americans might be more impatient than Europeans: “I’m a little concerned about whether or not we can open with four new songs,” he says. “That might be tricky.” And after the second show in Chicago, Bono notes that the show “still needs a little more toasting.” So by the second week of the U.S. leg, U2 try taking “Breathe” out of the set list, kicking off with “Magnificent” instead and reducing the number of new songs at the beginning of the show to three. (“What strikes me about them is they’ll hold on to an idea,” says video director Krueger, “until they find a better one.”)

The one new song every crowd knows is No Line ‘s first single, “Get On Your Boots” — which the band plays in a more straightforward, harder-rocking arrangement live, stripping it of its electronic elements. U2 love playing the song, but three out of four members now acknowledge that it was the wrong choice for a first single (Edge continues to defend it). “Interestingly, it’s going off live,” says Clayton. “But I think probably what happened was it’s a common U2 problem. I think we probably worked on it and worked on it and worked on it, and instead of executing one idea well, I think we had probably five ideas in the song, and it just confused people. They weren’t sure what they were hearing.”

Bono has his own ideas. “Look, sometimes our audience isn’t as groovy as we’d like,” he says with a smile. “ ’Get On Your Boots,’ as it was released, is a sort of crossover, half-club, half-indie-rock record. People are not sure about the club side of U2. They want ‘Vertigo.’ And when we did this the last time — with ‘Discothèque,’ from Pop , they didn’t like it either.”

But in what must be considered an act of defiance, the band is including one of its clubbiest moments ever in the current show — playing its recent single, the midtempo pop tune “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight,” in a nearly unrecognizable LCD Soundsystem-style remix, complete with whimsical video of the band members bopping their heads to the beat. Bono had decided the show needed the song during rehearsals in Barcelona, after walking to the top of the stadium and deciding that there had to be a musical moment as futuristic as the stage. Even Mullen, traditionally resistant to such moves, enjoys the remix — not least because it gives him a chance to roam the stage with a hand drum while an electronic beat takes over. And Clayton particularly loves it, because it’s based around a sample of a piece of his bass part that his bandmates had almost vetoed as too “twiddly.”

The band was apprehensive about debuting this version in front of its less groovy American fans. On the plane from Zagreb, Mullen and Bono discuss the possibility of starting with the standard arrangement of the song and then moving to the remix, before the drummer turns to me. “It would really help,” Mullen says, “if you wrote that it’s one of the highlights of the show.” They end up not changing a thing for the U.S., and in Chicago, the “Crazy Tonight” remix is, in fact, one of the highlights of the show, with the Edge wildly pogoing and Bono singing snippets of Sly Stone.

In the most jarring transition of the night, “Crazy Tonight” moves directly into “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” which the group has effectively re-contextualized by adding footage from this summer’s Iranian protests. (“We tried just using green backgrounds,” says the Edge, “but it was too subtle. People thought, ‘Ireland.'”) Images from Iran begin to appear on the screen as Bono sings the final chorus of “Crazy”: “It’s not a hill/It’s a mountain/As we start out the climb.”

At that point, as Bono sees it, the second and more political section of the show begins. “The first act is a sort of personal narrative, about overcoming obstacles,” he says. “Suddenly, from this song about hedonism and self-destruction …  you’re on the streets of Tehran. ‘It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain/As we start out the climb’ — your personal odyssey is thrown into harsh relief with what’s going on in the outside world. Maybe this is how I’ve sorted my life — all the saddest people I knew were people focused on their own well-being. ‘I, I, I, I, I, me, me, me, me.’ The way I found a route out of depression, the way I found a route out of idiocy, has been the harsh juxtaposition of other lives, be they around me or in the wider world. I love that moment in the show — I really understand that feeling.”

T he 360° tour’s sound system may be the loudest ever built — but in a surge of voices tonight in Zagreb, the crowd is somehow almost drowning it out. “Love is a temple,” they sing, latching on to the line as if it’s from their national anthem, “love the higher law.” Standing at center stage, holding a green guitar, Bono repeats the line, his own voice shaking with sudden emotion. “We get to carry each other,” he sings, tweaking the lyrics slightly to lend the lines some more syncopation: “Whether you’re my sister, or whether you’re my brother.”

Moments later, as the Edge turns the chord progression into a keening cry and the rhythm section churns the song into something too propulsive to be a ballad, Bono has the house lights turned out and asks the crowd to take out their cellphones — a concert cliché that becomes something much larger: “Turn this place into a bigger universe,” he says, and then, maybe surprising himself, starts to yell, “Turn on your own light! Your own light!” The lights blaze, a miniature galaxy of souls. The show achieves liftoff.

Bono had carefully introduced “One”: “This next song means a lot of different things to a lot of different people,” he said, as a Croatian translation appeared on the video screen. “Tonight we want to play it for everyone in this region who’s had their warm hearts broken by cold ideas.” There was a hush as the crowd took in the words, then an explosion of applause.

The next night, Bono is still thinking about those moments. “The Balkans invented a certain doggedness, a certain stubbornness,” he says. “And so it would take a bitter and twisted love song like that for them to really relate to: ‘Did I disappoint you?’ The anger, the bile, the spleen of that song makes it OK. We’re not one. We’re one, but we’re not the same. We are not the same. These people gave up everything over a difference. I think everybody has a different take on that song, and on a nightly basis it changes for me. I can hardly breathe when I’m singing it. I can hardly get the words out.”

For the first time in my half-dozen encounters with Bono, his sunglasses are pushed up on his forehead, and his naked blue eyes are blazing with intensity — either he’s still adrenalized from the shows, or that’s just what they look like without the shades. He’s sitting in the band’s leased jet as it heads back to U2’s touring home base in the South of France. This one is almost disappointingly unflashy — the back, where the band’s touring staff sits, looks like a first-class section of a commercial airliner, while the front, for the band members and their families, is something like first-class-plus, with tables to sit around.

Across the aisle sits Bono’s wife, Ali Hewson — striking, dark-haired, with the brown eyes that he’s never stopped singing about — who is reading newspapers and eating dinner, and their two young sons, who are both curled up for naps after sprinting about backstage for most of the night while their dad did the same onstage.

“Love is a big word to be throwing around in these parts,” Bono continues, building up steam, talking over the engine noise. “Carrying the badge of nonviolence, at first glance, looks well on an Irishman, but we lived 100 miles from troubles. So in a way, it was no great act of courage for us to drain the flag of color and preach nonviolence.

“It’s a completely different thing if you live in Croatia or if you live in the western Balkans. These people have, within recent memory, seen just what a thin skin of civilization we had in the late 20th century. We had just made Achtung Baby and Zooropa — and people weren’t only not loving their neighbors, they were torturing their neighbors. They were attaching electrical cables to their private parts and making them squeal. I would not be at all offended if somebody were to say, ‘How the fuck dare you come and speak about love?'”

Bono is wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, and he’s at peak tour fitness, looking a few pounds lighter than he did in January. He doesn’t drink much on the road anymore, but he’s not exactly an ascetic. (Later, he sheepishly admits to “an Elvis moment”: stopping a motorcade rushing out of Chicago so he could get a Big Mac.) Underneath the table, his pale feet are bare — he’s kicked off an extremely un-rock & roll pair of sandals.

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He reaches an unexpected conclusion, making the case that his band, among the few rock superstars without Woodstock-era roots, is still driven by the best ideas of that time. In the end, maybe the spaceship is a time machine — and the destination is 1967. “You think of the Beatles and you think of ‘All You Need Is Love,’ and that burst of ideas, that renaissance that was the Sixties,” he says. “The core of it was this idea of love, out of which came the women’s movement, gay movement, anti-war movement. It was all based on this simple Judeo-Christian idea, the philosophy of having to love your neighbor, it not being advice, it being an order, an edict: ‘Love your neighbor.'”

Bono smiles for the first time since he started talking about torture and hate. “It’s a strange thing,” he says, “when you come out with this stuff at a rock show.”

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U2360° Tour

U2360°: leg one [europe].

• 2009-06-30: Camp Nou, Barcelona, Spain
• 2009-07-02: Camp Nou, Barcelona, Spain
• 2009-07-07: San Siro, Milan, Italy
• 2009-07-08: San Siro, Milan, Italy
• 2009-07-11: Stade de France, Paris, France
• 2009-07-12: Stade de France, Paris, France
• 2009-07-15: Parc des Sports Charles Ehrmann, Nice, France
• 2009-07-18: Olympiastadion Berlin, Berlin, Germany
• 2009-07-20: Amsterdam ArenA, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• 2009-07-21: Amsterdam ArenA, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• 2009-07-24: Croke Park, Dublin, Ireland
• 2009-07-25: Croke Park, Dublin, Ireland
• 2009-07-27: Croke Park, Dublin, Ireland
• 2009-07-31: Ullevi, Gothenburg, Sweden
• 2009-08-01: Ullevi, Gothenburg, Sweden
• 2009-08-03: Veltins Arena, Gelsenkirchen, Germany
• 2009-08-06: Stadion Śląski, Katowice, Poland
• 2009-08-09: Maksimir Stadium, Zagreb, Croatia
• 2009-08-10: Maksimir Stadium, Zagreb, Croatia
• 2009-08-14: Wembley Stadium, London, England
• 2009-08-15: Wembley Stadium, London, England
• 2009-08-18: Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
• 2009-08-20: Don Valley Stadium, Sheffield, England
• 2009-08-22: Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, Wales

U2360°: Leg Two [North America]

• 2009-09-12: Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois
• 2009-09-13: Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois
• 2009-09-16: Rogers Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2009-09-17: Rogers Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2009-09-20: Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA, USA
• 2009-09-21: Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA, USA
• 2009-09-23: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ, USA
• 2009-09-24: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ, USA
• 2009-09-29: FedEx Field, Landover, MD, USA
• 2009-10-01: Scott Stadium, Charlottesville, VA, USA
• 2009-10-03: Carter-Finley Stadium, Raleigh, NC, USA
• 2009-10-06: Georgia Dome, Atlanta, GA, USA
• 2009-10-09: Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL, USA
• 2009-10-12: Cowboys Stadium, Dallas, TX, USA
• 2009-10-14: Reliant Stadium, Houston, TX, USA
• 2009-10-18: Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, Norman, OK, USA
• 2009-10-20: University of Phoenix Stadium, Phoenix, AZ, USA
• 2009-10-23: Sam Boyd Stadium, Las Vegas, NV, USA
• 2009-10-25: Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA, USA
• 2009-10-28: BC Place, Vancouver, BC, Canada

U2360°: Leg Three [Europe]

• 2010-08-06: Stadio Olimpico di Torino, Turin, Italy
• 2010-08-10: Commerzbank Arena, Frankfurt, Germany
• 2010-08-12: AWD Arena, Hanover, Germany
• 2010-08-15: CASA Arena, Horsens, Denmark
• 2010-08-16: CASA Arena, Horsens, Denmark
• 2010-08-20: Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland
• 2010-08-21: Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland
• 2010-08-25: Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow, Russia
• 2010-08-30: Ernst Happel Stadium, Vienna, Austria
• 2010-09-03: Olympic Stadium, Athens, Greece
• 2010-09-06: Ataturk Stadium, Istanbul, Turkey
• 2010-09-11: Letzigrund Stadium, Zurich, Switzerland
• 2010-09-12: Letzigrund Stadium, Zurich, Switzerland
• 2010-09-15: Olympiastadion, Munich, Germany
• 2010-09-18: Stade de France, Paris, France
• 2010-09-22: King Baudouin Stadium, Brussels, Belgium
• 2010-09-23: King Baudouin Stadium, Brussels, Belgium
• 2010-09-26: Anoeta Stadium, San Sebastian, Spain
• 2010-09-30: Olympic Stadium, Seville, Spain
• 2010-10-02: City of Coimbra Stadium, Coimbra, Portugal
• 2010-10-03: City of Coimbra Stadium, Coimbra, Portugal
• 2010-10-08: Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Italy

U2360°: Leg Four [Australia and New Zealand]

• 2010-11-25: Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland, New Zealand
• 2010-11-26: Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland, New Zealand
• 2010-12-01: Etihad Stadium, Melbourne, Australia
• 2010-12-03: Etihad Stadium, Melbourne, Australia
• 2010-12-08: Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, Australia
• 2010-12-09: Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, Australia
• 2010-12-13: ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Australia
• 2010-12-14: ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Australia
• 2010-12-18: Patersons Stadium, Subiaco, Australia
• 2010-12-19: Patersons Stadium, Subiaco, Australia

U2360°: Leg Five [South Africa]

• 2011-02-13: FNB Stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa
• 2011-02-18: Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town, South Africa

U2360°: Leg Six [South America]

• 2011-03-25: Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos, Santiago, Chile
• 2011-03-30: Estadio Ciudad de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina
• 2011-04-02: Estadio Ciudad de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina
• 2011-04-03: Estadio Ciudad de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina
• 2011-04-09: Estádio do Morumbi, Sao Paulo, Brazil
• 2011-04-10: Estádio do Morumbi, Sao Paulo, Brazil
• 2011-04-13: Estádio do Morumbi, Sao Paulo, Brazil

U2360°: Leg Seven [North America]

• 2011-05-11: Azteca Stadium, Mexico City, Mexico
• 2011-05-14: Azteca Stadium, Mexico City, Mexico
• 2011-05-15: Azteca Stadium, Mexico City, Mexico
• 2011-05-21: Invesco Field at Mile High, Denver, CO, USA
• 2011-05-24: Rice Eccles Stadium, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
• 2011-05-29: Canad Inns Stadium, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
• 2011-06-01: Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
• 2011-06-04: Qwest Field, Seattle, WA, USA
• 2011-06-07: O.co Coliseum, Oakland, CA, USA
• 2011-06-17: Angel Stadium, Anaheim, CA, USA
• 2011-06-18: Angel Stadium, Anaheim, CA, USA
• 2011-06-22: M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore, MD, USA
• 2011-06-24: Glastonbury (Pilton Farm), Pilton, England, United Kingdom
• 2011-06-26: Spartan Stadium, East Lansing, MI, USA
• 2011-06-29: Sun Life Stadium, Miami, FL, USA
• 2011-07-02: Vanderbilt Stadium, Nashville, TN, USA
• 2011-07-05: Soldier Field, Chicago, IL, USA
• 2011-07-08: Hippodrome, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• 2011-07-09: Hippodrome, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• 2011-07-11: Rogers Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2011-07-14: Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA, USA
• 2011-07-17: Busch Stadium, St. Louis, MO, USA
• 2011-07-20: New Meadowlands Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey, NJ
• 2011-07-23: TCF Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN, USA
• 2011-07-26: Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
• 2011-07-30: Magnetic Hill, Moncton, NB, Canada

Related News: U2360° Tour

• "U2 360 Tour Presented by Blackberry: Fastest Sell Out and Largest Concert Attendance in Rose Bowl Hi" (2009-04-07)
• "U2 360 Tour Presented by Blackberry: Fastest Sell Out & Largest Concert Attendance in Rose Bowl Hist" (2009-04-07)
• "U2360 Tour Pre-Show Music" (2009-07-09)
• "U2’s International Brigade Jet in for World Tour’s ‘Main Event’" (2009-07-24)
• "Flowering Rose of Glastonbury" (2010-08-01)
• "I Can’t Wait Any Longer" (2010-08-02)
• "New Songs in U2360" (2010-08-06)
• "Moment of Surrender from Paris" (2010-10-24)
• "McGuinness says new album out “Before North American Tour Dates”" (2011-02-01)
• "Beyond the Horizon: NLOTH Merchandise 10 Years Later" (2019-02-27)
• "U2’s Claw Stage Being Renamed and Erected" (2019-10-01)
• "Achtung! Achtung! Baby turns 30" (2021-11-19)

U2gigs.com - U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at the Sphere 2023/2024

Showing details for U2's 360° Tour

• 360° Tour 1st leg: Europe (24 shows)
• 360° Tour 2nd leg: North America (20 shows)
• 360° Tour 3rd leg: Europe (22 shows)
• 360° Tour 4th leg: New Zealand and Australia (10 shows)
• 360° Tour 5th leg: South Africa (2 shows)
• 360° Tour 6th leg: South America (7 shows)
• 360° Tour 7th leg: North America (25 shows)
• I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight ( 111 times )
• Beautiful Day ( 110 times )
• City of Blinding Lights ( 110 times )
• Get on Your Boots ( 110 times )
• One ( 110 times )
• Vertigo ( 110 times )
• Walk On ( 110 times )
• Where the Streets Have No Name ( 110 times )
• With or Without You ( 109 times )
• Moment of Surrender ( 108 times )
• Sunday Bloody Sunday ( 108 times )
• I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For ( 96 times )
• Magnificent ( 96 times )
• Elevation ( 94 times )
• Mysterious Ways ( 93 times )
• Until the End of the World ( 82 times )
• Miss Sarajevo ( 66 times )
• Pride (In the Name of Love) ( 65 times )
• Ultraviolet (Light My Way) ( 64 times )
• MLK ( 63 times )
• In a Little While ( 50 times )
• Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me ( 46 times )
• The Unforgettable Fire ( 46 times )
• No Line On The Horizon ( 44 times )
• Scarlet ( 44 times )
• Breathe ( 43 times )
• I Will Follow ( 42 times )
• Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of ( 36 times )
• Unknown Caller ( 34 times )
• Return of the Stingray Guitar ( 33 times )
• Even Better Than The Real Thing ( 31 times )
• New Year's Day ( 29 times )
• Stay (Faraway, So Close!) ( 29 times )
• Zooropa ( 27 times )
• North Star ( 15 times )
• Happy Birthday ( 14 times )
• The Fly ( 14 times )
• Bad ( 13 times )
• All I Want Is You ( 12 times )
• Desire ( 10 times )
• Mercy ( 10 times )
• Angel of Harlem ( 8 times )
• Glastonbury ( 7 times )
• Your Blue Room ( 7 times )
• Out of Control ( 6 times )
• Love Rescue Me ( 4 times )
• One Tree Hill ( 4 times )
• Stand By Me ( 4 times )
• Electrical Storm ( 3 times )
• Every Breaking Wave ( 3 times )
• Mothers Of The Disappeared ( 3 times )
• Party Girl ( 2 times )
• 40 ( 1 time )
• Boy Falls From the Sky ( 1 time )
• Knockin' on Heaven's Door ( 1 time )
• She's The One ( 1 time )
• Sólo Le Pido A Dios ( 1 time )
• Spanish Eyes ( 1 time )
• The Auld Triangle ( 1 time )
• The Model ( 1 time )
• The Wanderer ( 1 time )
• Yiğidim Aslanım Burda Yatıyor ( 1 time )
• You'll Never Walk Alone ( 89 times )
• Amazing Grace ( 55 times )
• All You Need Is Love ( 44 times )
• Discothèque ( 41 times )
• Two Tribes ( 37 times )
• Hear Us Coming ( 35 times )
• Relax ( 25 times )
• Anthem ( 24 times )
• Blackbird ( 24 times )
• Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough ( 22 times )
• Stand By Me ( 22 times )
• Singin' In The Rain ( 21 times )
• Life During Wartime ( 20 times )
• Movin' On Up ( 20 times )
• Rain ( 19 times )
• Psycho Killer ( 18 times )
• Space Oddity ( 18 times )
• Here Comes The Sun ( 15 times )
• Rock The Casbah ( 15 times )
• Get Up Stand Up ( 12 times )
• My Sweet Lord ( 12 times )
• Miss You ( 11 times )
• Mofo ( 11 times )
• Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) ( 11 times )
• Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow ( 11 times )
• Please ( 10 times )
• Teenage Kicks ( 10 times )
• It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It) ( 9 times )
• The Promised Land ( 9 times )
• 40 ( 8 times )
• Norwegian Wood ( 8 times )
• Reverend Black Grape ( 8 times )
• She Loves You ( 8 times )
• Funky Town ( 7 times )
• Hallelujah ( 7 times )
• Let's Dance ( 7 times )
• Where Have All The Flowers Gone? ( 7 times )
• Oliver's Army ( 6 times )
• Shine Like Stars ( 6 times )
• Billie Jean ( 5 times )
• Can't Stand The Rain ( 5 times )
• Follow the Yellow Brick Road ( 5 times )
• Fool To Cry ( 5 times )
• Jungleland ( 5 times )
• Many Rivers To Cross ( 5 times )
• Never Tear Us Apart ( 5 times )
• Man In The Mirror ( 4 times )
• Mothers Of The Disappeared ( 4 times )
• Need You Tonight ( 4 times )
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ( 4 times )
• Break On Through ( 3 times )
• C Moon ( 3 times )
• Far Far Away ( 3 times )
• Fuck You, It's Over ( 3 times )
• Gracias A La Vida ( 3 times )
• In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning ( 3 times )
• It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) ( 3 times )
• Miami ( 3 times )
• People Get Ready ( 3 times )
• Purple Rain ( 3 times )
• Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) ( 3 times )
• Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World ( 3 times )
• A Day Without Me ( 2 times )
• Acquiesce ( 2 times )
• All I Want Is You ( 2 times )
• Dickes B. ( 2 times )
• Don't Cry For Me Argentina ( 2 times )
• Dubravka ( 2 times )
• God Only Knows ( 2 times )
• Happy Birthday ( 2 times )
• Heart of Gold ( 2 times )
• I Want To Take You Higher ( 2 times )
• I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight ( 2 times )
• In God's Country ( 2 times )
• In My Life ( 2 times )
• Independent Women ( 2 times )
• King Of Pain ( 2 times )
• London Bridge Is Falling Down ( 2 times )
• London Calling ( 2 times )
• Mensch ( 2 times )
• My Kind Of Town ( 2 times )
• Pinhead ( 2 times )
• Rock And Roll ( 2 times )
• Someone Somewhere In Summertime ( 2 times )
• The Hands That Built America ( 2 times )
• The Maker ( 2 times )
• Thunderstruck ( 2 times )
• Unchained Melody ( 2 times )
• Whole Lotta Love ( 2 times )
• You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet ( 2 times )
• Alison ( 1 time )
• Alive ( 1 time )
• All These Things That I've Done ( 1 time )
• Always Forever Now ( 1 time )
• Amsterdam ( 1 time )
• Are You Gonna Go My Way ( 1 time )
• Atomic ( 1 time )
• Birthday ( 1 time )
• Black Is Black ( 1 time )
• Blowin' In The Wind ( 1 time )
• Blue Suede Shoes ( 1 time )
• Brass In Pocket ( 1 time )
• Ca Plane Pour Moi ( 1 time )
• California Soul ( 1 time )
• Creep ( 1 time )
• Dear Prudence ( 1 time )
• Devil Inside ( 1 time )
• Dirty Boulevard ( 1 time )
• Dirty Old Town ( 1 time )
• Do They Know It's Christmas ( 1 time )
• Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio? ( 1 time )
• Don't Dream It's Over ( 1 time )
• Don't Speak ( 1 time )
• Drowning Man ( 1 time )
• Fall At Your Feet ( 1 time )
• Fix You ( 1 time )
• Flower Of Scotland ( 1 time )
• Gloria ( 1 time )
• Happy Xmas (War Is Over) ( 1 time )
• Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow? ( 1 time )
• He's Got The Whole World In His Hands ( 1 time )
• Help ( 1 time )
• Help Me Make It Through The Night ( 1 time )
• Helter Skelter ( 1 time )
• Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau ( 1 time )
• Here Comes The Summer ( 1 time )
• High And Dry ( 1 time )
• Highway To Hell ( 1 time )
• I Gotta Feeling ( 1 time )
• I Predict A Riot ( 1 time )
• I Want To Know What Love Is ( 1 time )
• I'll Stand By You ( 1 time )
• In The Garden ( 1 time )
• Instant Karma! ( 1 time )
• Into My Arms ( 1 time )
• John I'm Only Dancing ( 1 time )
• La Bamba ( 1 time )
• Lady Marmalade ( 1 time )
• Let It Be ( 1 time )
• Like A Hurricane ( 1 time )
• Love and Peace or Else ( 1 time )
• Love Will Tear Us Apart ( 1 time )
• Mazurek Dąbrowskiego ( 1 time )
• Miss Sarajevo ( 1 time )
• New York, New York ( 1 time )
• One Love ( 1 time )
• One Tree Hill ( 1 time )
• Party Girl ( 1 time )
• Perfect Day ( 1 time )
• Play Me ( 1 time )
• Pour Some Sugar On Me ( 1 time )
• Private Dancer ( 1 time )
• Promised You A Miracle ( 1 time )
• Pump It Up ( 1 time )
• Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head ( 1 time )
• Rock 'n' Roll High School ( 1 time )
• Rock 'N' Roll Nigger ( 1 time )
• Rock Me Amadeus ( 1 time )
• Rock You Like A Hurricane ( 1 time )
• Rockaway Beach ( 1 time )
• Rockin' In The Free World ( 1 time )
• Rocks ( 1 time )
• Run ( 1 time )
• Senza Una Donna ( 1 time )
• She's A Mystery To Me ( 1 time )
• She's A Rainbow ( 1 time )
• Show Me The Way ( 1 time )
• Slide Away ( 1 time )
• Springhill Mining Disaster ( 1 time )
• Stories for Boys ( 1 time )
• Strangers In The Night ( 1 time )
• Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of ( 1 time )
• Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down ( 1 time )
• Television Screen ( 1 time )
• Tequila ( 1 time )
• That's The Way (I Like It) ( 1 time )
• The Aaronic Blessing ( 1 time )
• The Battle Hymn Of The Republic ( 1 time )
• The Fixer ( 1 time )
• The Great Curve ( 1 time )
• The Needle and the Damage Done ( 1 time )
• The Times, They Are A-Changin' ( 1 time )
• The Way You Make Me Feel ( 1 time )
• The Whole of the Moon ( 1 time )
• Three Little Birds ( 1 time )
• TV Eye ( 1 time )
• Two Hearts Beat as One ( 1 time )
• United We Stand ( 1 time )
• Up On The Catwalk ( 1 time )
• Viva Las Vegas ( 1 time )
• Walk On The Wild Side ( 1 time )
• We Are Family ( 1 time )
• Where Is The Love? ( 1 time )
• Worried Blues ( 1 time )
• Young Americans ( 1 time )
• Zooropa ( 1 time )
• Cover songs ( 7 songs )
• No Line on the Horizon ( 7 songs )
• Achtung Baby ( 6 songs )
• All That You Can't Leave Behind ( 5 songs )
• The Joshua Tree ( 5 songs )
• Unreleased Songs ( 5 songs )
• Rattle And Hum ( 4 songs )
• The Unforgettable Fire ( 4 songs )
• War ( 3 songs )
• Zooropa ( 3 songs )
• B-Sides ( 2 songs )
• Boy ( 2 songs )
• How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb ( 2 songs )
• Non-album songs ( 2 songs )
• Passengers: Original Soundtracks 1 ( 2 songs )
• October ( 1 song )
• Songs of Innocence ( 1 song )
• Breathe ( 43 )
• Return of the Stingray Guitar ( 33 )
• Even Better Than The Real Thing ( 30 )
• Beautiful Day ( 3 )
• Magnificent ( 1 )
• Moment of Surrender ( 101 )
• With or Without You ( 2 )
• One Tree Hill ( 1 )
• Happy Birthday ( 1 )
• Out of Control ( 1 )
• All I Want Is You ( 1 )

The U2 Setlist Archive

• U2:UV AB Live at Sphere
• Stories of Surrender Tour
• Joshua Tree Tour 2019
• Experience + Innocence
• Joshua Tree Tour 2017
• Innocence + Experience
• SOI Promo Tour
• Leg 1 / Europe
• Leg 2 / North America
• Leg 3 / Europe
• Leg 4 / New Zealand & Australia
• Leg 5 / South Africa
• Leg 6 / South America
• Leg 7 / North America
• NLOTH Promo Tour
• Vertigo Tour
• HTDAAB Promo Tour
• Elevation Tour
• ATYCLB Promo Tour
• Popmart Tour
• Zoo TV Tour
• Lovetown Tour
• Joshua Tree Tour
• Conspiracy Of Hope Tour
• Unforgettable Fire Tour
• October Tour
• Various dates
• All songs U2 played live

360° Tour 2009 Leg II North America

More detailed listings from this tour can be found here .

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Home › Live Sound

U2 360 Tour Profile

SEEKING INTIMACY ON A GRAND SCALE

By By Kevin BeckaPhotos: Steve Jennings

The 170-foot-tall steel structure and stage at University of Phoenix Stadium (Glendale, Ariz.)

The U2 360° tour that recently ended its first leg in the U.S. has taken the stadium show to a new level. The sheer scope of the production is mind-boggling. It took two years to design and develop, travels on 180 trucks, employs more than 400 people — including 12 system engineer/techs — and uses an astounding amount of audio and video gear. The best thing about the show is the communication and contact between the band and the audience provided by the 170-foot-tall steel structure perched over the stage.

Originally inspired by the Theme Building at Los Angeles’ LAX airport, the four-legged “spider” incorporates all of the lighting, some of the 12 manned cameras and spots, massive speaker arrays and a huge 360-degree vertically expandable LED video screen. And as ridiculous as it sounds, once the show starts, you forget it’s there: Instead of being the elephant in the room, the structure focuses attention on the band and how they interact with the crowd, both near and far. The inner ring nearest the main stage gives more than 3,000 fans close proximity to the band, while the outer ring gives the band access to standing and seated concertgoers farther out. At different times during the show, The Edge, Bono, Adam Clayton and even drummer Larry Mullins Jr. use two moving bridges to perform between the areas and are followed by video and audio all the way.

Of course, you’d expect the audio system used for such a massive setup to be huge — and it doesn’t disappoint. The setup comprises the latest in digital tech offered for live sound and, surprisingly, some tried-and-true analog gear. The tour’s look and systems design was a collaboration between the band and audio director/front-of-house Joe O’Herlihy, show designer Willie Williams, production architect/designers Jeremy Lloyd and Mark Fisher, and Clair Global R&D and engineering teams.

Front-of-house engineer Joe O’Herlihy (left) with senior systems engineer Jo Ravitch

The speakers used are all Clair and comprise FOH left/right hangs of 36 i5 and 36 i5B; 24 i5 and 24 i5B rear; 16 i5 and 16 i5B at house left; and 16 i5 and 16 i5B at house right. Main stage front-fills include 24 FF2 and 24 BT218 subs, while the “B” stage area carries 72 S4 subs. There are also two towers carrying 32 iDL delay cabinets. That’s 336 separate enclosures, all powered by Lab.gruppen PLM 10000Q and PLM 14000s and Powersoft K10 amps that are positioned at each leg of the structure and are fed audio from the stage racks. All EQ and control is via Lake/Dolby I/O software Version 5.3, with most of the processing resident in the Lab.gruppen PLM 10000Q and PLM 14000 amplifiers; system tuning is via EAW Smaart software.

Consoles at FOH are redundant DiGiCo SD7s, each running identical shows. Jo Ravitch, senior systems engineer/Clair Global crew chief, says, “There are two main stage racks, one of them distributes AES to each leg and there’s a backup system of analog feeds to each amp, as well. If we have an issue with anything in this setup, I walk over here and switch to analog and Joe [O’Herlihy] walks over to the other board and picks up the mix.”

The front end for Bono and The Edge’s vocals and some of the compression for the guitars called for some unusual gear choices. Ravitch says, “When the tour started, there wasn’t very much [processing] available on the board so we’re using outboard stuff.” For Bono’s vocals, O’Herlihy calls on the Manley Vox Box; The Edge’s vocals take an Avalon 737. Compression for the guitars is on a Summit Audio DCL-200 comp/limiter, with the rest of the limiting provided by the SD7.

In monitor world, from left: Niall Slevin, Alistair McMillan and Dave Skaff

The system was a game-changer for O’Herlihy, who has been with U2 for more than 25 years. “The approach to the mix in the context of the way the sound is distributed has been enlightening, to be perfectly honest,” he says. “The size of the system has created an experience that is incredibly responsive. We now have something that’s almost touch-sensitive. When you make a move, there’s a large physical element of immediately hearing what you do.”

Because of the staging’s scope and design, the textbooks had to be thrown out and a system designed that would cover everyone. O’Herlihy says, “From the mix perspective, you have to get your head around the whole concept of having an inside column and an outside column, and how you distribute your gain structures accordingly.”

The players’ audio experience onstage was an essential element in the system design. “Any time you do things in 360 degrees, the apex of that circle is right where the drummer is,” O’Herlihy continues. “It would normally be a difficult place to perform while being hammered with all that bass.” This is where the use of the 72 Clair S4 cardioid subs around the outer ring comes in. “The cardioid movement works extraordinarily well in nullifying bass, so it’s a clean, clean stage that is a good performance area,” the FOH engineer adds.

O’Herlihy has seen an exponential evolution in tour sound technology. He had his digital education on the DiGiCo D5, which was innovative at the time. On the Vertigo tour, he had the benefit of the D5 being around for a few years before he took it out. He did not have that luxury with the SD7, but trusted that it was the only console that could get the job done. The SD7 was the only solution that let him put each and every individual channel where he wanted it without using external equipment that would have meant another link in the chain that could possibly fail. Still, the SD7 was a leap of faith and trust in DiGiCo. “We’ve had our glitches along the way with software updates, but like everything else, we’re in virgin territory here and we felt that that the SD7 is what made this whole thing work.”

Underneath It All

Monitor mixers Dave Skaff, Alistair McMillan and Niall Slevin make their home under the massive stage, which is also where offstage keyboardist Terry Lawless plays. Because all three mixers don’t have a view of the stage, they watch what’s going on via TV monitors at each station. And as the band is moving around so much, each station gets a four-camera split specially switched for their benefit, resulting in the band being visible at all times.

Skaff mixes for bassist Adam Clayton, drummer Larry Mullins and Lawless on a Digidesign D-Show Profile. The tour’s redundancy mantra carries on below stage with Skaff mixing on one Profile with another right next to it ready to go. “With just a couple of switches hit at the same time, I’m fully up on the second rig,” says Skaff, who worked for Digidesign on the VENUE console project from the beginning. In his mixes, he uses a variety of plug-ins from Waves, McDSP and the Phoenix plug-in from Crane Song, and also records every show to Pro Tools HD.

Using digital consoles has made it easier to provide specific mixes for each bandmember. The Edge has six guitar amps onstage and two under, while Clayton has five bass guitar feeds, and they rely on the team to provide the specific balances they need for each song. Skaff points out the advantage: “Without digital, it would be a madness of markers and 3×5 index cards. At soundcheck, Bono will do half a song, shout out another song, do 12 bars of that song and shout out another. It would be impossible to get all that to come back without the digital consoles.”

Mixers Slevin and McMillan provide audio for The Edge and Bono on two DiGiCo SD7s, each running dual engines fed via MADI. Each desk runs both mixes, the thought being that if one console quits, the engineer can jump to the second engine on the working console and continue to work until the downed desk can be revived. The stage racks and local racks used for processing are also duplicated and can be quickly switched if needed. McMillan is recording the show to Steinberg Cubase on two independent Apple G5s, which top out at 90 tracks, 20 of which are ambience. “I feed [Bono] quite a bit of ambience,” says McMillan. “He enjoys hearing the audience reaction.”

To help with latency, McMillan keeps Bono’s vocal on an analog path by getting a split from the stage, which he sends through a Rupert Neve-designed Amek preamp and then into a channel on a Midas Verona analog console. The rest of the band and effects are sent to a second channel on the Verona, which all go directly to Bono. For the singer’s reverb, he’s using the Bricasti M7, McMillan’s favorite new toy. “It’s more like glue than a reverb,” McMillan says. For Bono’s delays, he uses a TC Electronic 2290 and a variety of verbs from Lexicon and Yamaha across the rest of the band.

McMillan, who has mixed monitors for Van Morrison, came primarily from a studio background, having worked extensively at Windmill Lane in Dublin. “These guys have made me raise the bar within myself,” McMillan says. “After 20 years, you get set in your ways. Here, I had to start again and I love that.”

For The Edge, Niall Slevin runs 40 inputs per engine into his SD7, sharing the same rack feeds with McMillan. He uses an AMS reverb and a Lexicon PCM 80 for his mixes but duplicates his rack effects with onboard equivalents in case of failure. He also has duplicate analog processors in his rack for McMillan’s mixes should Alistair need to jump over to his console. Slevin feels the SD7 is a big sonic improvement over the SD5, but he is realistic about its abilities. “It still has a few reliability issues, but we’re pushing it to the max, especially with the redundancy. Effectively, we’re throwing it out the top floor and seeing if it will fly. At the moment, it’s gliding, but it’s getting there. No one has had these consoles and pushed it as much as we have. When we find things out, DiGiCo has been very good about fixing it. I can’t imagine a situation at the moment in a rock ‘n’ roll theater or any other audio application that this couldn’t deal with.”

The band is using Future Sonics in-ear systems transmitted over newly upgraded Senn- heiser G3 wireless systems, which the crew credits with adding more definition and top end. With this large of a setup, RF is a big challenge and the team has found themselves going back to old-school techniques of placement using line-of-sight and shorter cables. Skaff says, “The wilder it gets, the more we seem to go back to basics to make things happen.”

A show of this scale being launched during tough times is easy to pick on. But it’s hard to argue with its success both in record-breaking attendance and integration of new technology. At a time when album sales are not driving revenues, live performance has stepped into the spotlight and blazed a trail where other methods have failed. Did the band achieve “intimacy on a grand scale” as Bono proposed during the show? Only you can be the judge, but from my seat, it was dazzling.

Kevin Becka is Mix’ s technical editor .

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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - DECEMBER 08: Bono and Adam Clayton of U2 perform on stage during 'U2 The Joshua ... [+] Tree Tour 2019' at the Gocheok Sky Dome on December 08, 2019 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Han Myung-Gu/WireImage)

U2 returned in 2023 with both a new compilation and a new single. The band’s “Atomic City” ended up being a huge and longstanding hit for the band, and it ushered in something of a new era for the troupe. Months after the track arrived, the group has released it again, and longtime lovers of the Irish rockers, or perhaps just the tune, will want to take notice.

A new two-track single of “Atomic City” is out today. The collection features a live recording of the single from U2’s Las Vegas residency at the Sphere on side A. The second side of the same record includes a remix of the cut by famed hip-hop producer Mike-Will-Made-it.

The double-sided single comes in the form of a 10-inch vinyl record. It’s available in a translucent red color, which matches the stylish promotion that “Atomic City” received when it was released in fall 2023.

U2 is releasing this special vinyl single as part of Record Store Day 2024. Every year, the music industry comes together to produce many exciting new offerings from some top-tier names in the business. These CDs and records are only sold in independent record stores around the world, which is meant to bring fans into these brick-and-mortar locations.

“Atomic City” arrived in late September 2023, just as U2 was beginning their concert residency, U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere. The show inaugurated the newest venue in Las Vegas, the Sphere. All the attention surrounding the band, their run of shows, and the tune helped it become another hit on the Billboard charts for the group. It reached at least half a dozen tallies, bringing the rockers back to some for the first time in a while.

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Fans of U2 should be quick to pick up a copy of the “Atomic City” single. Only 3,000 copies have been made, according to Record Store Day , and they’re sure to sell out in no time.

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On The Radio: 'Live At Sphere'

On The Radio... 'Live At Sphere'

The band's final and fortieth show from U2:UV at Sphere in Las Vegas is set for radio broadcast in a dozen countries worldwide beginning tomorrow, Friday and Saturday in the UK, Spain, Netherlands, Japan and Italy.

Further free-to-air broadcasts take place in Japan, Italy, Ireland, Australia, France, Brazil, Mexico and Germany.

The performance from the March 2 show will be joined with an extended  interview with Bram, Edge, Adam and Bono, recorded at Zoo Station in Vegas 

Here's the run-down of countries, radio stations, dates and air times.

U2:UV ACHTUNG BABY LIVE AT SPHERE – CONFIRMED BROADCASTS

Netherlands – Radio Veronica -  Saturday 20 April – 10pm CEST Spain – RockFM  - Friday 19th April – 10.00pm CEST (Coverage from 9:00pm CEST) Netherlands – Radio Veronica -  Saturday 20 April – 10pm CEST Japan – Fm Yokohama “Radio HITS Radio” – Saturday 20th April – 26:00 JP Italy – Virgin Radio – Saturday 20th April – 9pm CEST  Ireland – Today FM – Sunday 21st April – 10pm IST Australia – Triple M  - Monday 22nd April - 7pm AEST France – RTL2 – Wednesday 24th April – 6pm CEST  Brazil - 89FM – Sunday 28th April  - 2pm BR  Mexico – Alfa Radio 91.3   Germany - hr1 – Sunday 5th May – 8pm CEST Germany - NRW Lokalradios – Friday 10th May  Germany - WDR2 – Saturday 25th May – 8pm CEST   UK – Absolute Radio & Absolute Classic Rock: Thursday 18th April at 21:00pm UK and then again on Sat 20th April (21:00 pm UK) UK - Planet Rock – tracks across the weekend of Sat 20th/Sun 21st of April. UK - Greatest Hits Radio: Sunday April 21st at 16:00pm UK (also app & online

(Expecting news in the next few days on a special airing for U2.com subscribers.)

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