Fifty years in, most bands would be happy to dust off the hits for one last lap of honour. U2, it seems, would rather pick a fight with their own legend. The tour is called Carnaval De Luz presents: The Greatest Show On Earth, a title that dares anyone, the band included, to prove it wrong. Today they’ve announced the UK and European leg for 2027, alongside the album’s third single, which shares the tour’s title.

One of the few bands that I can think of, other than New Zealand’s The Bats, that have maintained the same line up since forming in the seventies.

It has been quite a year for Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. There were the two surprise six-track EPs timed to the church calendar: the politically charged ‘Days of Ash’ on Ash Wednesday and the more inward-looking ‘Easter Lily’ on Good Friday. As well as releasing ‘Silencio‘ in September, they marked their 50th anniversary with a lunchtime set for the students and teachers of their old school, Mount Temple Comprehensive, followed by a surprise performance on Dublin’s Grafton Street. By the time ‘Carnaval De Luz’ lands on 13 November via Island Records, they will have released 24 new songs in their 50th year.

The new album is their 16th studio record and their first full album of new material in nine years. It’s produced by Jacknife Lee and was recorded in a range of locations. The album is conceived as the prequel to those EPs: carnival, the celebration of the flesh, comes before the reflection of Lent and the renewal of Easter. The 12 tracks reportedly reach back to the band’s experimental streak while keeping a tight grip on songcraft. There’s even a two-and-a-half-minute surf-punk blast called ‘Silencio’. The guest list is impressive:

• Brian Eno co-writes and plays synths on three songs.
• Martin Garrix co-writes ‘Glorify’.
• Rosalía is credited on ‘The Mirror Maker’.
• Daniel Lanois adds pedal steel to the closing track.

That closer, ‘Torn’, is a duet with the late Dolly Parton and turned out to be her final recorded vocal. It’s a tender country song about fractured family ties, which lends the album a poignant full stop.

‘The Greatest Show On Earth’ was co-written with Eno and is the third single after ‘Street of Dreams’ and ‘Silencio’. It’s a story of two lovers struggling to keep faith in each other, and in faith itself.

The trademark Edge scything guitars are there – harking back to the unique sounds of ‘The Joshua Tree’ with Bono’s vocal as enigmatic and melodic as ever, and a chorus as epic and cinematic as the skies over the desert.

The accompanying video was directed by long-time visual collaborator Anton Corbijn and shot in the Californian desert. It wryly casts the band as the leaders of a religious cult in which the women do all the heavy lifting, a knowing wink from a group never shy of poking at its own messianic reputation.

The band explain the title:

“The Greatest Show on Earth”? Now that’s a throwdown. It’s a dare, to ourselves as much as anyone, to try and have the best night of anybody’s life.

These will be U2’s first stadium shows since The Joshua Tree Tour wrapped in Mumbai in December 2019. In the meantime came the jaw-dropping 40-night residency at Sphere in Las Vegas, which reset expectations of what a U2 production can be. The European leg opens in Stockholm on 26 April with Wolf Alice in support. The Latin American run, with Beck opening, has already sold out its first shows, prompting extra dates in Mexico City, São Paulo and Buenos Aires. Spain and North America are still to be announced.

There’s a 2028 leg in the works too, and the band are clear about where it will end. The Edge says:

We can’t say too much about the next leg of The Greatest Show On Earth – we’re still figuring it out – but what we can say is, we’ll be wrapping it up in Ireland. There’s nowhere else we’d want to be for that party.

Carnaval De Luz presents: The Greatest Show On Earth – UK and Europe 2027 (all with Wolf Alice)

• 26 April – Stockholm, Sweden – Strawberry Arena
• 28 April – Stockholm, Sweden – Strawberry Arena
• 5 May – Paris, France – Stade de France
• 8 May – Paris, France – Stade de France
• 27 May – Lisbon, Portugal – Estádio da Luz
• 5 June – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Johan Cruijff ArenA
• 6 June – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Johan Cruijff ArenA
• 18 June – London, UK – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
• 19 June – London, UK – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
• 30 June – Berlin, Germany – Olympiastadion
• 5 July – Milan, Italy – Stadio San Siro
• 6 July – Milan, Italy – Stadio San Siro

Latin America 2027 (all with Beck)

• 23, 26 and 28 February – Mexico City, Mexico – Estadio GNP Seguros (sold out)
• 2 March – Mexico City, Mexico – Estadio GNP Seguros (new date)
• 10, 12 and 14 March – São Paulo, Brazil – Estádio MorumBIS (sold out)
• 16 March – São Paulo, Brazil – Estádio MorumBIS (new date)
• 23 and 25 March – Buenos Aires, Argentina – Estadio River Plate (sold out)
• 27 March – Buenos Aires, Argentina – Estadio River Plate (new date)

Tickets for the UK and European dates (all times local)

• U2.com subscriber presale: Monday 2 November, 10am.
• Visa cardholder presale: Wednesday 4 November, 10am to 10pm, at visa.com/u2.
• Artist presale: Thursday 5 November, 10am. You must sign up by Sunday 1 November at 10:59pm GMT (11:59pm CET). The Lisbon show isn’t included.
• General sale: Friday 6 November, 10am, at U2.com.

Feature Photograph: Vivane Sassen

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