The Fat Angel Sings

While it may not quite be even better than the real thing, “V-U2 An Immersive Concert Film at Sphere Las Vegas” is a dazzling presentation of the Irish bands recent run at the state-of-the-art facility. V-U2 is the first film ever to be shot entirely with Big Sky, the ground breaking ultra-high-resolution camera system developed by Sphere Entertainment. V-U2 does not just capture U2’s epic run at Sphere, it allows audiences to feel like they are at the live shows.

Currently part of Sphere’s programming, this “immersive concert film” is precisely that: A roughly 70-minute pre-recorded performance by Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and drummer Bram van den Berg (who filled in at the Sphere shows for Larry Mullen Jr. as he battled his health issues). The concert footage itself was presented masterfully, a rendered visualization of the band’s turntable stage setup for the V-U2 residency more or less making it look like the musicians were actually in the building. The recorded footage incorporated crowd noise, the frame of the projected stage also capturing the fans up close, which added to the realism of what was essentially a live concert video.

Given the technical capabilities of Sphere venue though, this felt like so much more than a mere concert film. While not every song on the set list — which touched on key U2 classics including “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “One,” “With Or Without You,” “Vertigo” and some of the “Achtung Baby” songs that were the basis of the residency gigs utilized the awe-inspiring visual capabilities that Sphere has become known for, those that did elicited gasps from the crowd.