U2 Share Video for New Single ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ – Irish Concert Dates to Follow
A track from their forthcoming album Carnaval De Luz, due 13 November, is given a new visual by Anton Corbijn.
U2 have released the third single from their forthcoming 16th studio album Carnaval De Luz and confirmed the opening Latin American dates of a major 2027 stadium tour. The announcement arrives in the band’s 50th year and follows two earlier singles from the record, ‘Silencio’ and ‘Street Of Dreams’.
‘The Greatest Show On Earth’, co-written by U2 and Brian Eno, is out now with an official video directed by longtime collaborator Anton Corbijn. Shot in the California desert, the black-and-white film presents the band as a masked religious cult in which the women carry out most of the practical work. The track itself is framed as a story of lovers trying to hold onto faith in each other and in something larger. Bono sings of the cost of that struggle near the end: “Love is a business that works at night / I sold myself for less than was right / You taught me what I was worth / In the greatest show on earth.” Later lines turn the same language inward: “Made a profession out of breaking your heart / You call it lies, I call it art / I was some of your best work / We were once the greatest show on earth.” Edge’s guitar work rises through the arrangement, matching the band’s description of the live shows to come as “a riot of colour, unreasonable guitar, bass and drums, and tunes you can hold onto.”
Carnaval De Luz is scheduled for release on 13 November 2026. The album includes co-writes and contributions from Brian Eno (on several tracks including ‘Go (Carnaval De Luz)’, ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’ and ‘Can’t Stop Us Now’), Martin Garrix (on ‘Glorify’), and Daniel Lanois (pedal steel on the closing track). Additional production comes from Ryan Tedder on ‘Silencio’. The record also features two notable collaborations: Rosalía appears on ‘The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)’, after Bono approached her for help with lyrics, while Dolly Parton guests on ‘Torn’, identified by the band as her final recorded performance.
The full track listing for Carnaval De Luz is:
- Go (Carnaval De Luz)
- La Reina
- Street Of Dreams
- The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)
- Superficiality
- If The World Is At War We Better Not Be
- Silencio
- The Greatest Show On Earth
- Glorify
- Midnight Sunshine
- Can’t Stop Us Now
- Torn (Feat. Dolly Parton)
The Greatest Show On Earth World Tour, in support of the album, opens with two nights at Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City on 23 and 26 February 2027, followed by two shows at Estádio MorumBIS in São Paulo on 10 and 12 March, and two nights at Estadio River Plate in Buenos Aires on 23 and 25 March. Beck will support. These are the only Latin American cities confirmed for next year. Further 2027 dates across Europe and North America are due in the coming weeks, and plans for an Irish return are already in discussion. The run will be the band’s first full-scale stadium dates since the close of The Joshua Tree Tour in Mumbai in December 2019, and their first major outdoor concerts since the Sphere residency in Las Vegas that finished in early 2024. Larry Mullen Jr. is set to return fully after surgery.
In a statement the band described the tour title as a challenge: “‘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. A bit of showman, a bit of shaman, a riot of colour, unreasonable guitar, bass and drums, and tunes you can hold onto. Because if people are gonna show up, we certainly are.”
U2.com subscriber pre-sales begin on Monday 19 October at 10am local time. General on-sale follows on Thursday 22 October for São Paulo and Buenos Aires, and on Friday 23 October for Mexico City. The set is expected to draw from across the band’s full catalogue.
