Watch U2 Close Sphere Residency With Daniel Lanois And A Pre-Recorded Neil Finn
Last night, U2 played the final show in their residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas. The band opened the venue in September and have played 40 shows there since then. Appropriately, they ended the night by playing the War track “40” for the first time since 2016.
As Rolling Stone points out, Bono told the audience: “It’s been 40 days and 40 nights in the desert. What’s a fellow with a messianic complex going to do? Here’s a song we wrote in 40 minutes. I opened up the sacred text of the Psalm of David. I just kind of read it out. That was the lyric.”
The band had a few additional surprises in store at their final Sphere show. They brought out their close collaborator Daniel Lanois to perform “One.” And Bono and the Edge sang along with a pre-recorded Neil Finn, who emailed audio of him doing “Don’t Dream It’s Over” to play at the show — the band has been covering the Crowded House track for the last couple weeks.
“The other day we got a beautiful e-mail from Neil Finn, who wrote this bewilderingly beautiful song,” Bono said. “Attached to the e-mail was a version of the song he said we could play whenever we wanted. It’s a new version that he did, and we’re going to try and record it.”
Watch video from the night below.