On Friday, American DJ Anyma became the fifth-ever artist and first electronic act to perform at Las Vegas’ state-of-the-art Sphere. Anyma—born Matteo Milleri—kicked off an eight-show New Year’s residency at Sphere, and the videos flooding social media show that the bar of excellence has certainly been raised.

From the beginning, Anyma was a project tailor-made for Sphere. Beyond a blend of melodic house and techno, Milleri (one-half of EDM duo Tale Of Us) created Anyma as an immersive audiovisual experience. Combining computer-generated environments with real-world elements, Anyma’s live performances are “a 360-degree digital art and music experience,” per a 2021 interview with nasty. Even before coming to Sphere, Anyma’s concerts were a feat of live concert production as attendees were transported to lifelike digital realities, shepherded by a giant human-like android. As opposed to previous Sphere performers U2, Phish, Dead & Company, and Eagles where the visuals are an accompaniment and enhancement to the music, for Anyma the visual elements are just as much the art as the music itself.

Interestingly, the End of Genesys residency begins with a visual motif reminiscent of Dead & Company’s Dead Forever run—only in reverse. At the start of the shows by the post-Jerry Garcia offshoot of the Grateful Dead, viewers were taken to the Dead’s former home at 710 Ashbury in San Francisco before taking off and rising above California, the United States, and ultimately the entire Earth and floating into space. At the start of Anyma’s show, the familiar robot stands on the precipice of a chasm before plunging down the hole through space and rocketing toward Earth.

Beyond that similarity, the visuals for Anyma at Sphere are in a league of their own. He even has actual robot cellists playing onstage. Check out some clips below. Tickets for Anyma’s New Year’s run are sold out, but tickets are still available for additional shows on January 10th and 11th. Find tickets on Ticketmaster or try the secondary market.

Anyma — Sphere — Las Vegas, NV — 12/27/24 — Highlights

[Video: StraightToTheTee]