I sort of feel like you should be gently strumming the chords to I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For as we're driving down Las Vegas and by suggesting that I'm gently asking if you wouldn't mind playing of course too much [Music] um well there it is wow wow wow it's bigger than I even remembered look at the size of it yeah you two don't do things by halves
as we talked about in our last conversation even as that Young Band kicking a can down the road in Dublin they had Big Dreams and they fulfilled those dreams and now they find themselves asking what next so what next you looking at it the newest largest freestanding structure on the Las Vegas Strip and very soon U2's new church in a place
where faith and luck coexist we catch up with Bono and Edge who somehow still haven't found what they're looking for oh my gosh how cool is that I doubt you're even gonna be out I don't even think you're going to be able to actually capture the scale of this through that lens I don't we talk about the wonders of the world and I mean it's hard not to look at this
and yeah yeah think of it as not to put in the pantheon of the 8th 9th or 10th or wherever at now but it's from a modern achievement point of view from technology and and an events based environment I haven't seen anything like this before in my life there's nothing like it it's light years ahead of everything that's out there this is the team hi guys hi
guys trust these men I'm just hitching a ride amazing just exciting what's up really good Zane what's up hi it's looking amazing age just wants to check a few joints he's going around with this level making sure everything's exactly where it needs to be okay wow so I mean obviously um I've sort of put my jaw back toward my mouth area and I'm able to conjure it's
something resembling a question rather than just staring at this thing um what did it look like when you first saw it oh yeah it was a building site yeah it's not a line we just throw out but the idea of behind you two is always the worst thing that has the best seat of the house this changes the whole dynamic on that most music over playing a theater most music venues
are sports venues they're stadiums they're Arenas they're built for sports they're not built for music they're not built for art so this building was built for immersive experiences in cinema and performance it was not built for you can't come here and see a nice hockey game so the sound has been asking about the sound designed as a priority from
the beginning best sound I'm sure we'll ever hear I know that means a lot to the whole band but I also know the other one that sits up two or four in the morning trying to get the sound right so for you there must be something that is really exciting essentially important wow so there are no speakers the entire building is a speaker so wherever you are you have perfect sand
is the plan I mean immediately I'm obviously completely overwhelmed by the scale of it but I've been in places that are big big on scale before of course what I'm really trying to get my head around is the fact that this by Design is for watching and listening and experiencing art yes yes too there's nothing else like it in the world and won't be for many many years the last
sort of innovation in theater was the proscenium arch about A Thousand Years BC the entire building it's transmitting an an image at the highest resolution that has ever been seen on Earth so meaning if you look at it it's photo real it's at a level of resolution that you will not even detect the shape of the sphere we can make the shape of the sphere go away
so much of the YouTube experience has been about reaching out to touch people to take those places that were built for ice hockey and basketball and stadiums for Bart for baseball and whatever make them small make them communal and it's made you one of the best performance bands on the planet now all your dreams have come true you could stand perfectly still and
this thing will work for you so how are you going to factor this into the hot and soul of the band yeah I don't know I mean that's a really good question um but we can achieve intimacy at a level that we could never was playing to 10 000 or 18 000 people we work very hard to achieve that Intimacy in arenas we get there we worked very hard to achieve that in
stadium we get there or a festival but here the buildings made to work for the audience to make to work for us yeah so you're right where's where's the reach yeah I think the truth is that depending on where you are in the venue you will get your own very unique show but even I have to say for the scale of it I'm standing I have no idea where the
stage is in relation to where we are right now on the stage okay maybe a little bit ahead it actually feels intimate even without all of the screens and the audio and the sound and the immersion yeah it feels intimate it's a lot more important than a than a basketball arena I can't wait to get up on stage here yeah I'm I'm surprised I am not feeling
anxious normally when I walk into a venue I can feel that sort of anxiety but I haven't had it here I'm just I'm just very excited I was going to say isn't that just the scope of possibility is probably shrouding that anxiety yeah yeah I mean it's possible things when the Beatles came to the US so they had a tiny little system they played in Shea Stadium in New York
nobody could hear them it's just the sound of the crowd and they they invented Stadium Rock if you like and then it it took you know every decade every generation we became more able to perform and the people you know could hear our music um and and and see the bands yeah this is the next I suppose level the next evolution in that that started with the Beatles in
Shea Stadium maybe I should talk about the sound for a second please yes so what this has been designed to achieve is completely immersive sound so you've got the main array of speakers is above our heads but throughout the entire building our speakers that are focused so that you have the capability of placing the audience inside a whole 360 degree Sonic Spectrum so in the way that
Atmos I don't know if you've been listening to Atmos mixes now they're really we're deep in the atmos game yeah apple big big big breakthrough in audio in terms of the dimension well this can do that kind of Atmos mixing in a live context which has never ever been possible before so not only is the visual side of it groundbreaking but the audio side of
it is again Cutting Edge what do you think about when you start putting that in the context of zoo station which to me in a stadium in 1993 sounded like you were trying to reach people in that way you were trying to build something wider than the two channels that it created was created in our canvas is now no longer a kind of yeah 180 degree canvas it's a 360 canvas
so we can basically place any instrument in any part of that location so huge opportunities but yeah I mean one of the problems we may encounter which would be a nice problem to encounter is that you're used to a certain amount of compression and Distortion when you listen to rock and roll if the sound system is too good you might hear the
the Frailty that's such a good point because I I was watching old footage of again the zoo TV tour recently just playing catch-up getting excited about today and it was a performance of you doing uh into the world and it sounds like you're about to spiral off into outer space right this this you know this bull is Bucking right and you're in a place that's designed to create
intimacy with intimacy comes attention to detail and that's not very rock and roll exactly right Distortion is part of the language of rock and roll and so when you take away Distortion do you take away rock and roll so in that sense the acoustic when we play acoustically here it should feel like if God was good to us like Neil Young playing is it
messy Hall and yeah or like Yeah The Carnegie Hall shows when it was just so you know you hear you heard everything so when we want to turn up to 11 we want to be want to be distorting yeah this gives us ultimate control over all that spectacle is one thing we will do some of that but the greater emotions are bigger than spectacle you bring people to their
knees bring yourself to your knees it's actually the more the point what an adventure we're all on okay so Zayn this is your seat this is the mix test I'll take it this is where we'll be mixing from this is wild and this is all screen everything you're seeing there is the screen all the way above all the way left all the way right I
had to put into words what it feels like in this room it's almost terrifying the scope of possibility I yeah I think the reason why you're not feeling nervous right now is you're in denial cut action October October yeah how long we don't know I mean we'll let's we have to see if we like this we have to see if our audience love this I think it's going to be hard
to get us out of here what does that mean for touring now okay well we we don't know we're not we're not we're not touring acting baby anyway so that it is this is with the Joshua Tree we took that album around the world this will only be here yes but touring itself is not over yes I'm speaking on behalf of a lot of fans when I ask that question yeah because I'm standing in
the middle of this incredible feat of architecture and design and Technology talking to a band you get to kick it off without any end date in sight you know sure there'd be like if it's selling tickets and people are loving it and it's groundbreaking and you're having a good time let's just keep the chain on the road don't forget it's 18
000 to 20 000 people a night so it's in here it feels like it's five it feels so it's amazing so you're not going to be doing 100 shows yeah yeah it's impossible yeah well he just said you have ads I'm getting them out and you just said I'm ready to hit the road I love the wrestle of this band you know and I I get it like I mean I'm seeing people come to the strip and have
great experiences and they get to fly home whether it's really you know it's like it's a really cool thing to control your environment even though you're U2 you're still walking into a stadium somewhere and things can happen between there and here you just don't know this is about as close to owning the shop as you can get it's kind of amazing but
look it all has to work who do we blame if it doesn't work [Laughter] all right let's go wow I keep looking up yeah that's the problem you're going to have for the first few minutes when people are here I mean to be able to get to a point in your life where you can do something entirely new again that's it that's it again again this is the tough dreams are
made of yeah yeah think about this if you wanted to and I wouldn't see the edge his head at that level you'd be looking straight across and his eyes will be as wide as that I mean there's no movie screen with that Dimension there's no iMac screen with that dimension so whether we choose to do that or not we haven't just we haven't decided but
I'm just saying you can see a human or four humans the size of each of them the size of the Statue of Liberty so but but just in terms of intimacy so you're sitting here it feels a long way down except you could basically examine Bono's dental work like incredibly which I think would be good because it's been expensive and I wouldn't mind some people noticing by the getting a few
tweets sure you know so let's build this for a few tweets yeah where do the where do the where do those gold fillings go yes you know it's been awesome I have to say and I I was going to say this in the Airstream but yours was the first album I ever bought wow with my pocket money whoa so the Journey of Independence started with you I chose you too wow and
uh since then you know I guess through pure force of willingness and annoyance and manifestation I just keep showing up so today in the desert to here and to I guess get as close to tracing the journey to a point now where I see where it can go has been really special so thank you thank you for your generosity of time and letting us come in here thank you Jim Dolan for letting
us come in here and see this at this point next time anybody else comes in here with the camera you'll be promoting it and tickets will be on sale and let's get it going yeah so this is a different thing this is like you're in the belly of the Beast what was the album your first the first album was war so I knew the songs but the one I got to buy with
my own money was War I Was A Hard Day's Night you're a little bit just a little bit older it wasn't a recent release it was already it had been out a good number of years when I bought it but keep keep with that story yeah you know what we're still here isn't that amazing yeah we're still here and I uh that's true I remember seeing that video for the first
time I was in New Zealand and I remember feeling like oh I'm gonna follow that as well I'm gonna keep following them just like the people on the street did all right and I feel like that video in that moment in Las Vegas that single night that you shot that video right was really impactful for the band because you broke the fourth wall better than
anyone had in pop music you took it to the streets and people came and it was natural and authentic and people joined you on the they joined you they wanted to follow you yeah what's your memory of that night what's your memory of that mate it was chaos meaning there was things involved we just had like a camera crew the audio system was in a shopping cart
and we were just wandering through the streets of Las Vegas what we got was what we what you see and it was literally we didn't have a script we didn't have a plan we just went out there and yeah it was I mean a huge risk but again put yourself out of your comfort zone sometimes great things for that did it feel like a stage to you that night is
that how you approached it remember the the excitement and fun and frolics of Las Vegas and I loved that playful aspect but then I also remember somewhat the peaked feeling of people playing the the one arm Bandits and maybe they should have stopped an hour ago and right you know and and I think that our song are still haven't found what I'm looking for some
sort of captured both of those you know that you know I'm searching for a miracle like I'm I'm yeah exactly I'm walking into this town with some Faith but I'm down on my luck yes so when I was growing up Las Vegas looked like it was on another planet because of all of what we're being surrounded with here all the neon signs and everything just felt like I'd never
seen so much electricity fried electricity in my entire life it took me years to come here you were here long before me what was your first impression of Las Vegas when you arrived here for the first time it was mind-blowing I mean we're from Ireland yeah I mean there was nothing remotely like this yeah in Ireland yeah I've had this thing about you know luck
and I'm not sure where to put look you know because we're the luckiest people in the world on so many levels and yet and I don't believe in destiny right uh and that's a whole other conversation so but I do believe in in Good Fortune we have a rule in our house Edge and I when people come stay with us and they want to go gamble we'll only we'll give them a brown paper bag
with a hundred euros in it and that's it and so we've been to casinos with some of the you know some very uh including you you gave me a brown paper bag with a hundred euros right did you with me to the tables did you win though it was downstairs once you realize no one ever wins then it's it's you're paying for the entertainment value and that's fine
that's a good deal yeah we've had this kind of tussle between faith and luck for for since that time on the streets when Andrew's boasting I still haven't found what I'm looking for and there's another reason which we're not really talking about which connects Las Vegas to zoo TV an acting baby which is 1968 Elvis Comeback Special the flight
right so the fly character was based a lot on that and Las Vegas and Elvis have this kind of synonymous uh thing and if you grew up in Ireland on rock and roll that would explain it but it goes deeper than that you have Sinatra you have Bing Crosby The Rat Pack the rat the original Rat Pack so all of this is is in the background and and I at the time at the end of the 80s
people were thinking well this just it's so on you too what were you doing and we said we went to Las Vegas we went to a big fight and we went to meet Frank Sinatra so here in this city we met Frank Sinatra You Shook Sinatra's hand we should we hung out of them for like a good 45 minutes after the show and he asked us all these questions and he
seemed interested in our answers and we were there for a while and there was people knocking on the door and he wasn't answering he wanted to talk to the to the kids and that was us and eventually when we got out there was all these people that was you know very famous people and we weren't at all and they were all wait wondering why he spent so much he had spent so much time
with us and so then people thinking we must be really important so some guy from new comes up and he goes I I own my New Jersey race uh track you want a horse named after you I'm like wow because you should have said after his name because he shook Sinatra's hands but he actually wanted to talk to us because we were musicians yeah and he was talking about
the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and sharing her with Buddy Rich and all this stuff that you know but he reaches the drummer so Larry was fixed yeah and then he said you know these we just throw each other's um suitcase out the window we share a room they'd have fights and then Larry would say I used to pack his suitcase and he said you can't pack your own
suitcase I said no but I I you know I'm very untidy and yeah he takes his moments Larry right when he does it he does it so the The Last Vegas moment is it's been Hollywood too but it's so we got into to Sinatra and people were paying a thousand dollars a table or whatever maybe more we're in there free we were kind of dressed as you two whatever that was in
the 80s so Sinatra walks to the front of the stage and he's just there and if you're a singer sashes are on different levels and you say Jose goes yeah there's who else is here there's like Elizabeth Taylor's there such and such over here Gregory I mean just it's just it's just Stars everywhere and he does the thing of well tonight we have uh the number one
in the United States they're on the cover a Time Magazine these people they're from Ireland they call you too and they're here and so the spotlight comes on us and so I guess we've seen it in the movies so we all stand up and we wave because that's what you're supposed to do in that situation Frank just pulls right he goes you did not spend a dime on your clothes
it gave you that classic little uh build them up knock him down that'd be great it's so funny most people didn't know why we would be interested it's not exactly Indie right it was a rock and roll band wanting to hang out with a crooner so why was it he's the chairman of the board and we knew something in US knew that's something we need to understand I also
think that you know coming here and especially standing in this kind of um place where the neon of the past comes to rest makes way for new more modern signs different messages in some cases it really brings to the surface this idea of Pop Culture which is something that you 100 brought to life with to pop out the pubmar tour and from Zoo TV on I
feel like you've also been obsessed with Club yeah the only problem was when we decided we were going to open that tour in Las Vegas yeah we thought we were being really really clever because we were again playing with pop art this is the Citadel pop art in Vegas we hadn't factored in the fact that it's the only place in the world where that show would look normal
I know look at this what you're seeing is the fact that Vegas has always moving always changing Reinventing itself this is kind of it was the golden color we met him just so you know yes that was it yeah there you go there it is that yeah and that's gone now wow yeah yeah you know Frank Sinatra said to me that I was the only guy you would ever like who would who wore an earring
yeah he's just kid you are the only person I am ever gonna like wears an earring so you got a second one so I got a second one I was reminded driving here we went past Fremont we went past the Ulster where the Golden Nugget is the hotel still exists you're right that sign's gone it's maintained its position on the old strip along with Circus
Circus and all these old places and a lot of those casinos have survived the developments that have occurred further down the road but it does keep regenerating and it keeps looking for ways to go long or go up in your case definitely up yeah definitely there's something great about a band who doesn't believe in luck coming to Las Vegas I think you make
your own look is what I think you know there's room for emotion in a place like this I was at the Adele show I saw it I saw people crying I saw people having a moment Vegas entertainment has had for the longest time this reputation of the glitz and glamor and expensive drinks and VIP tables and the idea of it being a night out and what I saw in your problem is
not so much a problem or an expectation of a different experience can exist yeah Adele brought that to the table but she also bought a real emotion to it so it is growing it is changing and I think that's why a band like U2 in a place like that in the sphere it's ready for you well let's see I don't know if 10 years ago it could have been your true selves
here I know it's just I don't we still don't know you know so that's the challenge we're still on keeping it real but I mean if it is ever if we fail right you'll just be coming here in 10 years and there'll be a big sign up saying The Edge right that little waspark electronic beanie yeah bonus glasses like that and this is I'm a big and waving wow oh look that's a beautiful
sight the full moon yeah beautiful I thought we should uh Sarah goodbyes for now beneath the Lady Luck sign given your relationship with luck oh wow right maybe this might look be a lady tonight um I've thoroughly enjoyed our day hey thank you thank you thank you thank you always a pleasure thank you sir entertaining Us in the desert and
driving into town and taking it all in and perhaps we'll meet again at sphere and be able to take a look at that we'll see where this goes from now but for now it's really lovely to have you with songs of surrender and know that it's created a space for new yeah you know yeah yeah and that's just being psychologically yeah tidying your room all right okay let's rock