American Haj

U2-UV at the Sphere, Las Vegas

I was on my way home from Vegas when I overheard the man across the aisle say to the woman next to him, "Did I just hear you say you saw U2? Just how awesome was it?" No kidding, that's what he said, and the lady he said it to just lit up. She whipped out her phone: "I have been dying to show my pictures to someone!"

Then the plane began to taxi, and I turned back to my phone to look at my own shots of the same event. But they weren't stellar, to be honest, at least, not in a way that I think could really convey the majesty of the images that surrounded the band at their recent residency at Las Vegas' newest venue, the Sphere. In fact, words themselves may actually fail to convey that: the show had moments which were so evocative and gorgeous that it's really hard to know where to begin.

For those who haven’t heard, the Sphere is an enormous orb-shaped building which broadcasts an ever-shifting panorama of video on its outside, while on the inside there is a similarly shaped (i.e. globular) arena. According to an article I read in Fast Magazine, the screen is 160,000 square feet,i.e.  four football fields long, and uses 268 million pixels and 300 gigabytes per minute.  Enveloped by 27 floors of video, the experience of seeing U2 in the Sphere is as the article says, “a new benchmark in live performance.”   It holds 18,000 people – roughly same amount as the Chase Center -- but it's differently configured. These seats are steeply tiered and the ceiling arches above you, such that it is like a vast, 21st century cathedral, only crossed with the Death Star.

Please enjoy Lady Gagas shoes.

And yes, the video I experienced was truly extraordinary. It really was, but even so, being inside the Death Star is not an entirely comfortable sensation. I thought it was a cold space, in every sense of the word, cold and a bit crass, since it is styled so that it is deliberately dark and foreboding. It goes without saying that drinks - from the 36 ounce-self serve cans of beers to the mixed drinks in the bar -- were outrageously expensive, and that the bar decor was inspired by sci-fi films about space travel, i.e. not exactly the height of artistic sophistication.

In other words, this is not an encomium, at least not for the Sphere.

As for U2: what you take into that show, in terms of your feelings for them, is what you will walk away with. This was the 7th time I've seen U2 (at least, that I can remember: I am pretty sure it's more like the 9th), and it was the most expensive and most elaborate appearance yet. The first time I saw them they were opening for the J. Geils Band at the San Francisco Civic Center, if you can believe it; the last time (prior to this) was at the Seattle Seahawks Stadium in 2017. Many of those times they were shockingly good, and always they've been visually absorbing, and even breathtaking in ways that were extra-musical. I remember last time I saw them at the football stadium, watching the black and white Joshua Tree videos that flanked them on either side underneath a gray and black field that exactly matched the night sky around us, and it was awesome in the strictest sense of the word So the fact that U2 were able to use the Sphere to its best advantage was unsurprising; I can't think of any band that is as much in control of their aesthetics, except maybe the Talking Heads or Nick Cave, and they couldn't fill the Sphere for the 36 nights that makes this tour worthwhile to stage.

Anyway, whatever you think of U2's lyrical content, Bono is a great singer, and Edge is an inventive guitarist, and when they walked on stage, I was happily reminded of the power of a band qua band: four men in that configuration is just...a devout thing to me. This concert was no different than any other U2 concert in that way: for all the special effects -- and U2 gives new meaning to the word ‘special’ -- this was just a U2 concert, (with a special guest, Lady Gaga). To their enormous credit, the show would have been the same amount of absorbing even if you took away the lights and the films and the majesty of it all: they don't need the Sphere as much as the Sphere needs them.

But without a fantastically confident band with a gloriously distinctive sound, a ton of hits, and a singer who's extreme solemnity creates its own weighty instrument that he carries with him on every song, I just don’t think it’s necessary.

                                      OUTSIDE ITS AMERICANA

U2 is as U2 does but that's not why I flew to Vegas or why people in that arena were paying upwards of $500 (in some cases alot upwards) to see them there either: they were paying to experience the Sphere. Certainly, that's what I myself went for, but while I am happy that I was able to see it because it truly was something else, I left the city feeling a little bit tawdry for having bought into it all, and with pretty negative feelings about that arena, especially since my last sight of it, as the plane was lifting off and the lady next to me was enthusing to her seatmate over the showers of video pixels that had fallen on her the night before, was of it covered in a giant picture of some WWE wrestler in a particularly hideous ad for that event.

Honestly, can we all agree that the fact that Vegas has a gigantic billboard that flashes advertisements that can be seen from outer space isn't a GOOD thing? I hate being a bummer, but as much as I like going to Vegas (as long as I stay for less than 24 hours) and as many cool things as there are to do there, the overall vibe of it is increasingly vulgar, anger-making, and even in these times, really sinister. Right now the streets are a mess because they are about to have a Formula One race through it, so they have had to build these giant hamster tracks for the cameras which mess up the traffic flow, thus enraging pretty much everyone. Vans with pictures of scantily clad ladies charge around delivering said ladies to your hotel room, so you feel like you're never more than 50 feet away from actual human trafficking, and there was an ad at the airport for a mobile IV unit, which comes round to your hotel room to take medically remove your hangover.  

Meanwhile, the strip is awash with these giant hotels that are simulations of Venice, or Ancient Rome, or Treasure Island, inside of which money is literally whipped out of your ATM as if you were in a tornado; you might as well just turn all your assets to cash and toss it into the wind. My friends kept telling me about buildings that were about to be knocked down to build other buildings - the Tropicana, for instance, is going to become the space for the new A's stadium, while simultaneously telling us about hotels that were half empty because they have failed. And all the while the Sphere was beaming its light down on us, no doubt using the same amount of energy as a small West African country.  I bet we could solve the climate crisis just by leveling Las Vegas.

The Sphere may be deploying some very cutting edge technology for our entertainment pleasure, and it is designed to make us feel like we are walking straight into the future, but as I left it I was reminded of the other uses of the same technologies…of aerial drones operated by young men a thousand miles from their targets, of heat-seeking cameras searching for frightened human bodies as they stumble through the forest, and of darkened tunnels with robots running amok inside them, and I just wanted to go back in time.

It turns out I’m actually fine with concerts in gross nightclubs, thank you very much.