U2 makes a splash at Las Vegas’ Sphere. Is this the future of concert venues?

LAS VEGAS — It took 45 years, an injured drummer and a $2.3 billion high-tech “super arena.” But U2 has finally found itself playing second fiddle.

One of rock’s most charismatic live bands, U2 could play a concert inside an Arby’s and still leave fans in ecstasy. But now the Dublin quartet is at a crossroads.

Six years since its last album of new songs, and four years since its last tour, it faces an uncertain future as Larry Mullen tries to recover from injuries related to beating the tar out of his drum kit for five decades.

Once again, U2 finds itself in Las Vegas, site of its “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” video and launch pad for its gaudy PopMart world tour in 1997. On this trip to Sin City, the group (Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and temporary drummer Bram van den Berg) is inaugurating the Sphere, which looks like a huge technicolor bowling ball dropped from outer space on to the Las Vegas Strip. If U2 — a band never afraid of spectacle ­— was ever going to succumb to the cliché of a Las Vegas residency, this was the time and place to do it.

The Sphere was a viral sensation even before its doors swung open on Sept. 29. With an exterior made up of 1.2 million hockey puck-size LED screens, the orb morphs 24 hours a day, from a basketball into an eyeball into a smiling jack-o’-lantern. Next to it, the fountains at the Bellagio look like a kiddie pool.

But it’s what’s inside that has music-bizzers buzzing. Hyped as the future of live entertainment, the Sphere boasts a 250-foot-high LED wraparound screen with 16,000 speakers, surrounding 17,500 seats.

Oval-shaped sports arenas like the American Airlines Center can hold just as many fans. But the Sphere has a traditional theater layout, bringing the cheapest seats closer to the stage for a better concert experience.

Then again, nobody’s coming just for a concert. They’re coming to be shocked and awed by video screens, which have had an uneasy relationship with live music for decades.

Video became a necessary evil in the ‘80s and ‘90s as more concerts moved to arenas and stadiums. Over time, musicians got savvier with screens, using them not just to give front-row views to fans in the nosebleed seats, but as an extra canvas to add new emotions to the music.

But now we’re in the age of video bombardment, with bigger concert screens and more fans staring at their phones, taking pictures of the pictures on the screen.

The Sphere goes all-in on video, and the results are spectacular. Created by veteran U2 production designer Willie Williams and artist-designer Es Devlin, the band’s show is a surreal blend of art, cinema and trompe l’oeil. On Oct. 11, during the sixth show of the series, I felt a sharp blast of vertigo well before U2 launched into the song of the same name: The ceiling seemed to collapse, the stage appeared to tilt and for a few exhilarating seconds, it felt like riding a rollercoaster through a rainbow of computer code.

At other times, the Sphere turned into the world’s largest snow globe, with insects and butterflies multiplying above and darkening the sky. Two helicopters buzzed overhead and an invisible curtain seemed to open to reveal a hyper-realistic Las Vegas skyline, which vanished into the desert landscape as if millions of years had passed in seconds.

Performing on a stage designed like a turntable, U2 locked into the groove immediately, as Bono repeatedly raved about “this spherical object.”

On past stadium tours, Bono, the Edge and Clayton had a long leash to prowl ramps and strut across stage wings. On this square stage, they were more restrained, but still stunning. Fifty-foot-high images of Bono floated all around the Sphere screen — spiritual apparitions of a singer who likes to joke about his messiah complex.

Officially titled “UV Achtung Baby,” the shows revolve around all 12 songs from the band’s risky 1992 album, a brilliant work fueled by electronic and industrial music. As far as retrospectives go, it’s the perfect choice: Achtung Baby (and the “Zoo TV” tour that followed) were all about sensory overload. Just like the Sphere.

Yet amid all the razzle-dazzle, U2 wisely played long chunks of the two-hour Sphere concert with little or no videos, for example, during stripped-down takes of “Angel of Harlem” and a sublime skiffle version of “Desire.”

“Intimacy is the new punk rock,” Bono quipped during the acoustic set, a palate cleanser between Achtung songs and the show-ending flurry of post-1986 hits like “With or Without You” and “Beautiful Day.”

Indeed, U2′s magic onstage has always centered on its intimate bond with the masses. Bono — in fine vocal form until his voice wavered near show’s end — worked the older, well-heeled crowd beautifully, spinning stories about parenthood and the group’s early trips to America. The rest of the band was as agile as ever, with van den Berg subtly reworking Mullen’s rhythms as Bono improvised snippets of songs by the Beatles, the Police, Sinatra and, of course, Elvis, the subject of one of the show’s most astonishing video murals.

Yet for all U2′s showmanship skills and remarkable rapport with fans, the group was ultimately eclipsed by the spherical object itself.

You could almost feel the crowd collectively holding its breath for the next eye-popping visual: The music faded into an afterthought, as the greatest rock act of its era turned into a pit band for what was essentially an IMAX art show.

Still, there’s no denying the Sphere’s massive initial success. Last week, U2 added 12 new shows, extending its residency into February. The Eagles are reportedly in talks to set up camp at the venue. And tourists are flocking to the Sphere to see director Darren Aronofsky’s 50-minute film Postcard from Earth on days when U2 isn’t performing.

Don’t be surprised if breathtaking films like Postcard, not concerts, wind up being the Sphere’s bread-and-butter in a year or two. Ultimately, pop stars will demand to be the center of attention at their own shows. Especially swaggering old-school rock stars like U2.