One week before U2, one of the biggest bands in the world, was set to enter the stage at Sphere, the new 18,000 seat, one-of-a-kind venue in Las Vegas, for a series of shows that celebrate their 1991 record Achtung Baby, show director Willie Williams doesn’t have music on his mind.
He’d rather talk about art.
“No-one ever applauds at an art gallery,” Williams, who has directed U2’s live performances for more than four decades told ARTnews. “That’s one of of the greatest things about these shows. The artists involved, and the band, will have instant feedback. When their installations start moving across the inside of Sphere the audience immediately becomes part of this extraordinary thing.”
Experiential or immersive art isn’t new. But Sphere is. Without being hyperbolic, nothing else like it exists. The closest thing is a mini-Sphere testing site, one quarter of the scale of the modern Las Vegas megalith, that was built in Burbank, California. The smaller version is where the band and the artists that they’ve invited to participate in their 20-day residency—Eno, Marco Brambilla, Es Devlin, John Gerrard, and the company Industrial Light and Magic—could see the futuristic venue they were working with.
