Live shows make the biggest bucks
The $2.3bn Sphere in Vegas, where U2 have just set up a residency of live shows.
In the punk era, The Clash wore their humble garage credentials as a badge of honour and sneered at the prospect of becoming rich superstars removed from their roots. Despite eventually cracking America they remained fairly down to earth until the bitter end, but the Clash didn’t last 10 years and U2 went onto a much bigger, more mainstream level.
Rock ’n’ roll and pop music are idle playgrounds for the ambitious and it’s hard to begrudge how far Usher and Bono have taken things in their careers. Usher, selected to be the next half-time Super Bowl performer, remains criminally underrated by some, despite a hugely successful career. He’s been having hits since he was a teenager, 30 years ago, and he has survived multiple changes in the music industry, while also keeping relevant across the generations. His catalogue is huge and impressive, and I found it bizarre that a music critic on Irish radio last week said he was a B list artist — although it probably said more about his own musical knowledge than anything else. Usher certainly belongs on the Super Bowl stage and I’m sure he will kill it. He may not have been first choice, but he’s a good choice.
The technical expertise involved in making this 15 minutes or so happen is pretty impressive, but Usher and the Super Bowl team will somehow transform a playing pitch into a spectacular gig arena in minutes. In the last few weeks, a number of new music venues have been announced in Dublin and I saw more than one person note that these will probably open before our own Cork events centre is built. At the Super Bowl they create a venue out of nothing in about five minutes but in Cork things tend to take a bit longer. Anyway, what about Las Vegas?
Usher also held court in this city of excess but his shows will not have garnered the same reaction as U2’s.
The Sphere is a purpose built venue that cost $2.3bn to assemble. That’s a good few event centres.
It’s got immersive graphics and luminous 360 degree LED Lights and it’s pretty much the antithesis of the garages and rooms where Bono and other new wave acts first practised in the late 70s and early 80s.
But this is U2. They always pushed the envelope when it came to touring, live performance and technology, and they once made a very unwelcome visit to our phones and laptops with an ill-fated collaboration with Apple that caused a pre GDPR-era backlash which still ripples.
U2 in Vegas was always gonna be limited to a pretty privileged minority, though they have at least managed to book multiple shows (somehow convincing themselves that they are helping save the planet, preventing crucial emissions by sticking to the same venue for this extended run). For the fans who do go, it’s undoubtedly a mind-blowing experience.
The visuals and the experience are said to be amazing, and the band have proudly stated that they are delighted be at the cutting edge of technology that will change gigging forever.
U2 realised earlier than most that live music is where you make the real money. Huge gigs like this will remain popular and in demand.
We saw what happened when Coldplay (the nearest thing to a 21st century U2) announced dates in Dublin next year.
The top echelons of the music industry are in rude health. It’s not Bono’s or Chris Martin’s fault that most young bands can’t find that garage to practice in these days, and it’s disingenuous to blame them for the fact that most music artists can’t turn a dollar or a euro in 2023.
Pop music has eaten itself, and while U2 and Usher and others offer a temporary distraction for some, for others the lights will go out and the band will stop playing.
