The combination of power chords, beer, and devil horns 🤘 never gets old (even if the audience does). The Sphere will experience heavy metal for the first time with the debut of a new Metallica residency Thursday night. Can the band live up to the Sphere’s best moments so far?
🌵 U2 Goes Outdoors
U2 had one chance to get it right when opening the Sphere exactly three years ago today. The band showcased their best album (“Achtung Baby”) and fully maximized the Sphere’s shape-shifting superpowers. But there was something about “Where the Streets Have No Name” that added emotional resonance to the night (and finally got the VIPs and old, rich ticketbuyers out of their seats), bringing the audience outdoors, “high on a desert plain,” in a crystal-clear Nevada landscape.
✨ Dead & Company Takes Flight
Between John Mayer’s guitar licks and Bob Weir’s final shows before passing in January, there’s a lot to appreciate about Dead & Company’s run at the Sphere. The setlists changed frequently with one constant: In a special effect produced by Industrial Light & Magic, the Sphere took the audience to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood before rising up over the city and into the cosmos for a “long, strange trip” that plays out before landing back in the Bay Area hours later.
- John Mayer is returning to the Sphere — this time as a solo act — in 2027. [KSNV]
🌪️ ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Goes for a Spin
Personally, I preferred "Postcard from Earth” (filmed with the Sphere’s own patented camera system) as a movie showcase, but “The Wizard of Oz” proved the venue could adapt older, established media for new cinematic experiences. When the tornado hits Kansas — with wind, fog, and a rumble felt in the seats — it not only delivers on wow factor, but sets the audience up for a hard landing (apologies to the Wicked Witch of the East) as the screen shifts from sepia to Technicolor.
- Read more about our first impressions in Munchkinland. [City Cast Las Vegas ✍️]
🚀 The Backstreet Boys Travel to Space
The Sphere seemed ripe for a NSYNC reunion — no dice — but the Backstreet Boys seized the opportunity to show what a boyband could do with all those special effects, putting together a show with an intergalactic sci-fi setting. It’s definitely the most “digital” of the Sphere’s concerts without a backing band or even a real instrument anywhere in sight. So when the act took flight with the help of a practical effect — a levitating stage — for “I Want It That Way,” it gave the audience a genuine, climatic surprise.
🛎️ The Eagles Check In to the Hotel California
The Eagles chose to give away their best moment early, opening with “Hotel California” while the screen transforms from sunny Los Angeles to a “dark desert highway” and spooky hotel corridors with a gathering of ghouls joining in on the chorus. It’s a testament to the band’s deep catalog that the show never lulls from there — and an on-screen sequence during “In the City,” in which the audience rises above an urban dystopia is another moment that perfectly blends music with special effects.
