Bono always has a ready quip when contextualising the next great U2 adventure. “First we played clubs, then we played caves and now we play cathedrals,” he said. And right now there is no greater cathedral than the Madison Square Garden Sphere in Las Vegas, which opened on Friday with the first show in U2’s Achtung Baby residency.
Backstage before the show, hugging and high-fiving and generally spreading the love (which he does with more warmth than any other rock star), Bono was full of bonhomie. Because U2, the greatest live act in the world (copyright all newspapers), were about to do what they are best at: convening, entertaining, and giving meaning to the art of performance.
