When U2 Roamed Las Vegas for ‘I Nonetheless Haven’t Discovered…’ Music Video

“I Nonetheless Haven’t Discovered What I’m Wanting For” was one among 1987’s hottest music movies, incomes heavy rotation on MTV and serving to the U2’s ascent to world superstardom. Not unhealthy for a clip that was shot as an afterthought.

The group was in America on their famed Joshua Tree tour when their document label urged capturing a video for “I Nonetheless Haven’t Discovered What I’m Wanting For,” the album’s highly effective, soul looking monitor that Bono as soon as described as “an anthem of doubt greater than religion.” On the time, the tune had not but been earmarked as a single.

“This was only a facet project that form of got here up final minute as a result of [U2] had been beneath stress to ship a video,” cinematographer Declan Quinn later recalled to the Las Vegas Overview Journal. “So we mentioned, ‘OK, we’ll do this.’”

With no price range to talk of and even fewer concepts, U2 and their touring workforce determined to shoot the video in Las Vegas.

“‘I Nonetheless Haven’t Discovered What I’m Wanting For’ is a really open confession of the way in which someone feels about how his life goes,” Barry Devlin, a buddy of the band and fellow musician who directed the video, defined. “And I assumed, ‘OK, nicely let’s shoot essentially the most honest tune they’ve ever written within the least honest metropolis they’ve ever performed.’ There was an ironic counterpoint to the tune, in a manner, by capturing it in Vegas.”

There was additionally a extra practical cause for capturing in Sin Metropolis.

“I solely had two lights, actually, however Las Vegas has the largest lighting price range in the complete world,” Devlin admitted. “It was so low-tech… however that meant we may get in proper shut.”

U2 was scheduled to carry out on the Thomas and Mack Middle in Las Vegas on April 12, 1987. After the present, the plan was to whisk the band to Fremont Road within the metropolis’s older, Downtown space for the video shoot. Only one drawback: “If the viewers knew that we had been filming on Fremont Road, we might have been overwhelmed,” Devlin recalled.

To get across the potential pandemonium, U2 stole a web page from the Beatles’ playbook. “I received 4 lookalikes dressed up like the blokes to go residence within the limousines, and the group adopted them,” the director revealed. “Then the band got here all the way down to Fremont Road in a laundry van.”

As soon as on web site, the crew rapidly went about their enterprise. The essential idea would have U2 wandering the neon-lit streets whereas singing alongside to the tune. A purchasing cart and wheelchair can be used to push the sound system and digital camera, respectively. In the meantime, the band was given minimal path.

“I mentioned, ‘Edge, you’re a man who’s making an attempt to make a residing busking, there’s this mad man who retains eager to inform you about God, and what you’re making an attempt to do is simply get away from him,’ ” Devlin recalled. “And that’s how they performed it. It’s actually fairly humorous, The Edge making an attempt to disregard this lunatic on his shoulder and Bono retaining after him.”

Watch the Music Video for ‘I Nonetheless Have not Discovered What I am Wanting For’

Everybody within the video exterior of the band turned unwitting individuals. Gamblers had been all of the sudden extras. On line casino staff all of the sudden had an Irish rock star throwing his arms round them and, in a few circumstances, kissing them. At one level, Bono slid onto the hood of a automotive that was stopped at a close-by intersection. Nothing was deliberate.

“All these interactions had been actual,” Devlin famous. “In an odd manner, individuals form of cherished hugging him and vibing with him, however they weren’t essentially followers. They had been guys and women on the road, they had been working individuals in golf equipment, whereas in the event you had his adoring followers there, it might have been fairly completely different and too sycophantic.”

Not everybody was thrilled with the shoot.

“Larry [Mullen Jr., the band’s drummer] was like, ‘I don’t actually have a drum, what am I purported to do? Hit the signal put up with drumsticks or one thing?’” Quinn recalled. “I bear in mind Adam [Clayton, bassist] form of going, ‘OK, that’s sufficient, you bought one refrain out of me, I’m getting in a taxi,’ and he simply took off.”

Regardless of Clayton’s dismissal of the shoot, the video turned massively well-liked. By the point “I Nonetheless Haven’t Discovered What I’m Wanting For” was launched as The Joshua Tree’s second single that Could, U2 had develop into one of many greatest acts on earth. The tune reached No. 1 on the Billboard Scorching 100, whereas its video turned one among MTV’s hottest clips of the yr.

Devlin would go on to forge a formidable profession of his personal, collaborating with U2, whereas additionally writing, producing and directing an extended listing of TV initiatives. Nonetheless, in a 2019 interview, he named the video for “I Nonetheless Haven’t Discovered What I’m Wanting For” as one of many proudest moments of his profession.

“It is an ideal video. And it was made very cheaply,” he defined. “It was made, as a manner artistic issues typically are, not as a result of I had a variety of issues at my disposal, however as a result of I had virtually nothing at my disposal.”