U2 finished its residency at the Las Vegas venue Sphere over the weekend with a tribute to first lady Jill Biden.
Frontman Bono dedicated the song “All I Want Is You” from the 1988 U2 album “Rattle and Hum” to Mrs. Biden, who was in attendance.
“This song, when we wrote it, I tried to write the lyrics from the point of view of the woman or the bride, in this case, which is pretty arrogant, I suppose. That was a trick for me to get to the lyric I was playing on myself,” Bono said.
“Tonight, I want to dedicate it to all the great women in our lives — our partners, our mothers, our daughters, all the women on the U2 crew, all the great women in our audience that we feel we know, and all the great women in parts of the world going through very difficult circumstances that we could never know. And one woman in particular who is with us tonight, she’s a teacher. She’s your first lady, so this is for Jill Biden.”
At another point in the show, Bono mentioned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which he’s been doing on stage since Navalny’s death was announced last month.
NEWS: Bono announces they will break from Achtung Baby for experiment: Next song will be recorded as they perform new rendition of Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream it’s Over” thanks to Neil Finn who sent in vocals so they could dedicate it to Alexei Navalny widow Yulia. For freedom! pic.twitter.com/kv0Mma41jb
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“This is a tightly constructed show, but as it’s our last night, we wondered if it might be OK to experiment on you a little bit. The idea is to record something special to honor Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia, who is continuing a fight against Vladimir Putin for a free, free Russia, which is what we want for the Russian people,” Bono said before playing “Don’t Dream It’s Over.”
“The other day we got a beautiful email from Neil Finn, who wrote this bewildering beautiful song and he attached to the email a version of this song that he said we could play on or whatever we wanted. It’s a new version that he did, and we thought if we are going to record it, well, maybe if you would be on that recording and we could make that session the last night recording session and dedicating it to Yulia,” he continued, calling the single “a song about freedom.”
The band has played 40 shows at the visually stunning music and entertainment arena beginning in September. U2 was commemorating one of its most successful records, “Achtung Baby” (1991), by playing the album in its entirety along with other selected tracks from the band’s catalog.
During the performance, Bono welcomed the album’s producer, Daniel Lanois, to the stage. He also made mention of drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who was in the audience but unable to play due to his recent neck surgery.
“The rumors that Larry will be playing with us tonight are not true, sadly. But he is here with us,” Bono said of Mullen Jr. “That is the man who pinned the note on the notice board at Mount Temple Comprehensive School all those years ago. We are very grateful that he did, and that he’s here with us tonight. We wish him a speedy, speedy, speedy recovery. We love you, Larry Mullen Jr.”
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Per The Hollywood Reporter, other celebs in attendance at shows over the weekend included Lenny Kravitz, Dave Grohl, and Brett Ratner. Bono wished a happy birthday to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and to Mick Jagger’s daughter, Elizabeth Jagger, who were both born on March 2.