The Edge joined Martin Garrix on stage at Tomorrowland last night to premiere their new U2 collaboration ‘Fireflies’ – watch footage below.
The Dutch DJ and producer closed the opening day of the Belgian festival yesterday (July 17), playing a headline set on the main stage at the De Schorre recreational park in Boom.
For the final track of the set, Garrix welcomed The Edge to the stage, with the U2 guitarist playing live as the previously unheard collaboration was unveiled for the first time.
The song features Bono on vocals and builds towards a repeated chorus of: “Fireflies, you and I are fireflies.”
Confirming the collaboration after the performance, Garrix shared a clip on Instagram and wrote: “‘Fireflies’ with @u2 out soon… premiered at @tomorrowland.”
Check out footage from the performance below.
‘Fireflies’ is credited to Martin Garrix and U2 and is set to be released next Friday (July 24), although it has not yet been confirmed whether the track will feature on either Garrix or U2’s forthcoming albums. You can pre-order/pre-save it here.
The collaboration follows Garrix’s work with Bono and The Edge on ‘We Are The People’, which was released in 2021 as the official song of UEFA Euro 2020.
Garrix also produced U2’s ‘Your Song Saved My Life’, which appeared on the soundtrack to the animated film Sing 2, and he was also among the writers credited on ‘Scars’, which appeared on U2’s surprise ‘Easter Lily’ EP earlier this year.
U2 recently shared ‘Street Of Dreams’, the first preview of their forthcoming 15th studio album. Produced by Jacknife Lee, the track features The Edge’s trademark guitar sound alongside Spanish lyrics from Bono. Its accompanying video was filmed on the roof of a bus in Mexico City, before heavy rain forced the band to continue the performance from a local resident’s balcony.
The clip also features drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who missed the band’s Las Vegas Sphere residency in 2023 and 2024 after undergoing surgery.
U2 have already released two EPs of new material this year – the politically focused ‘Days Of Ash’ arrived in February, before the more “personal, private and reflective” ‘Easter Lily’ followed on Good Friday.
Speaking about the forthcoming full-length album when ‘Easter Lily’ was released, Bono said: “We are in the studio, still working towards a noisy, messy, ‘unreasonably colour xerox’ album to play LIVE… which is where U2 lives. We still look to vivid rock’n’roll as an act of resistance against all this awfulness on our small screens.”
The as-yet-untitled record will be U2’s first full album of newly written material since 2017’s ‘Songs Of Experience’. They also released ‘Songs Of Surrender’, a collection of re-recorded songs from their back catalogue, in 2023.
