U2 Announce 2027 Stadium Tour and New Album “Carnaval De Luz,” Out November 13
U2 Are Going Back to Stadiums: “Carnaval De Luz” Tour Starts February 2027
U2 have announced their first stadium tour since 2019. Carnaval De Luz Presents: The Greatest Show On Earth opens February 23, 2027 in Mexico City, supporting the band’s 16th studio album, Carnaval De Luz, which arrives November 13, 2026. It is U2’s first collection of new songs since 2017’s Songs Of Experience — a nine-year gap that ends during the band’s 50th anniversary year.
Six dates are confirmed so far, all in Latin America, with Beck supporting every show: February 23 and 26 in Mexico City at Estadio GNP Seguros; March 10 and 12 in São Paulo at Estádio MorumBIS; and March 23 and 25 in Buenos Aires at Estadio River Plate. Additional shows in Europe and North America are expected to be announced, with a return to Ireland also being planned.
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The Album: 12 Tracks, Produced by Jacknife Lee
Carnaval De Luz is a 12-track album recorded in multiple locations and produced by Jacknife Lee. Its title refers to carnival as a celebration of the flesh before Lent, reflection, and the renewal associated with Easter — a theme that follows two surprise six-track EPs issued earlier in 2026, Days Of Ash and Easter Lily, whose themes and sequencing were linked to the liturgical calendar.
The tracklist shows the album’s range: “Go (Carnaval De Luz),” “La Reina,” “Street Of Dreams,” “The Mirror Maker” featuring 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,” and the closing “Torn.” Brian Eno co-wrote and played synthesizers on “Go (Carnaval De Luz),” “The Greatest Show On Earth,” and “Can’t Stop Us Now”; Martin Garrix co-wrote “Glorify”; Daniel Lanois plays pedal steel on “Torn”; and Ryan Tedder provided additional production on “Silencio.”
“Torn,” the closer, is a duet between Bono and Dolly Parton, co-written by U2, Parton, and Johnny McDaid — a song about broken family ties that the album announcement identifies as Parton’s final recorded vocal performance. The earlier singles sketch the rest of the record: “Street Of Dreams,” released in July, introduced it, while “Silencio” followed as a two-minute-and-35-second burst of surf-punk energy. The Edge has described the collection as messy, provocative, and sacred, and noted it features the first use of flat-wound strings on a U2 recording.
The Single and the Show
The tour takes its name from “The Greatest Show On Earth,” the album’s third release, co-written with longtime collaborator Brian Eno. The song examines a relationship through the language of performance, deception, and devotion. Its video, directed by Anton Corbijn and filmed in the Californian desert, presents a satirical portrayal of the band as a religious cult in which women do the heavy lifting.
In a statement, Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. described the tour title as a challenge to themselves to create an exceptional live experience, promising colour, guitars, bass, drums, and songs audiences can hold onto. The band has described the stadium production as an attempt to combine spectacle with intimacy, drawing on a catalogue that spans five decades.
For scale context: U2’s last stadium tour, The Joshua Tree Tour, concluded in Mumbai on December 15, 2019, after playing to almost three million people worldwide. Since then the band reworked its catalogue on Songs Of Surrender (2023) and spent 2023–24 in an extended Achtung Baby residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas — a sustained live project, but not a traveling stadium tour. This run is the return to that format.
Fifty Years, Full Circle
The announcement lands in a deliberately full-circle anniversary year. On September 25, 2026, U2 marked five decades since Larry Mullen Jr. posted his school notice seeking musicians, with surprise performances at Mount Temple Comprehensive School and Bewley’s Café on Dublin’s Grafton Street — sets mixing early songs like “I Will Follow” and “Out Of Control” with “Beautiful Day,” “One,” and new material from Carnaval De Luz. With 24 new songs released across the 2026 album and EP projects, it is the band’s most substantial burst of recorded activity in years.
The album is available in standard and deluxe CD and vinyl formats, with limited coloured and special-edition vinyl planned, including a Mirror Maker edition on heavyweight black vinyl with a silver-foil gatefold sleeve and mirror-board finish.
The sequence from here is simple: the album on November 13, then stadiums in February. If you want in on the first six dates, Mexico City, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires are the confirmed map — and with Europe, North America, and Ireland still to be announced, the biggest on-sales of this tour are likely still ahead.
Sources: Noise11, “U2 Carnaval De Luz Album And 2027 World Tour” (October 16, 2026); “U2 Announces 2027 World Tour With New Album and Stadium Shows” (October 17, 2026).
