Eddie Vedder watched U2 at the Sphere
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder was greatly influenced by seeing U2 perform at the Sphere in Las Vegas during their historic residency. Vedder told visual artist Rob Sheridan, who previously worked with Nine Inch Nails, that he appreciated the moments when U2 ‘pulled back’ to connect with the audience.
“From what I’ve heard, creating a show for The Sphere is a MASSIVE undertaking with its own software/systems, not at all a plug-and-play situation. I’ve not heard any rumblings of PJ at The Sphere. When I first started talking with Ed about visuals for the Dark Matter tour, he’d just seen the U2 show The Sphere and was inspired by it, but a lot of what we talked about were the moments in U2’s Sphere show where they pulled back a bit from the overwhelming visual spectacle to reconnect band and audience,” Sheridan said in a Reddit AMA.
Will Pearl Jam perform at the Sphere?
Sheridan added, “It was important to all of us that the PJ tour stay grounded and not become a visual spectacle that put a wedge between the audience/band connection (which PJ is particularly famous for), and through the course of working on that tour I wondered if PJ would even fit or feel comfortable in The Sphere; if maybe the sweet spot we hit on Dark Matter was the most visual PJ would ever want to be (or need to be). But who knows!”
Sheridan later stated that he would love to work with Pearl Jam or another artist on doing a show at Sphere, like many rock acts have done, with No Doubt announcing 2026 Sphere concerts.
“I would love the challenge of working on a show at The Sphere with an artist who was really committed to making it something special. I’ve heard it’s very intensive, but the possibilities are wild and of course I think about what I could do there that would use the space in an unconventional or unintended way.”
