Utah Tourism ~ 2002 Olympic Winter Games Closing Ceremony

VZ actually just took his son, Indy, to “The Joshua Tree” 30th Anniversary Tour and here’s the video for your enjoyment ~

Van Zandt was with Reister when he wrote this spot for UTAH Tourism to run during the Closing Ceremony of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

Van Zandt and his team had access to NBC’s Olympic footage, and Van Zandt thought – This awesome state needs a phenomenal anthem.

The streets in Salt Lake City are all actual numbers on a grid – based on their location distance-wise from the Mormon Temple. So literally, this is “Where the streets have no name”. Van Zandt is a huge U2 fan and he knew this song was perfect!

Now it was just a matter of getting the rights to one of the best songs from one of the best bands of all time. At first, U2’s manager said “NO!”, because he personally wasn’t a fan of Utah’s drinking laws, but when BONO read the script, he said “YES!” because he thought UTAH was a beautiful state, and he loved that the Olympics were bringing the entire world together.

All these years later, Van Zandt still loves that he got this epic band to play for this epic state that epic night.