If you haven’t got tickets yet, just forgedaboutit. In a few hours from now more than 40,000 people are expected to jam Sam Boyd Stadium for their 360 Tour until it probably bursts wide open, surely setting a record for the largest concert ever held at the venue.
It took 135 trucks to haul in the 500,000-plus pounds of equipment used to construct the foreboding claw-like structure that will surround the band. The massive stage will stand more than 150 feet tall. And, if that’s not enough, they’ll show off a new cylindrical video display of connected LED panels held high by a 150-foot steel frame.
Compared to their November 2001 show during their Elevation Tour, only 18,000 people came. But that was a memorabable event nonetheless, as No Doubt opened for them and rocked out for 30 minute. Not to be outdone, freelance photographer Denise Truscello, who still photographs in Las Vegas, got an impromptu makeout session with Bono when he ducked his head into the photographers’ pit.
But what everyone remembered was not Truscello, but when the glowing LED screen behind the stage rolled with the name of every person killed in the attacks of Sept. 11 as Bono sang out “One.” A band capable of evoking any emotions onstage reduced 18,000 fans to tears.
U2 always does something unpredictable when they perform in Las Vegas during their 16-city U.S. tour.
Vegas Backstage Access (VBA) 