U2 Get Drenched, Tap Into Classic, Soaring Sound in Video For Funky ‘Street of Dreams’ Single

U2 stormed back with a classic single on Tuesday (July 7), accompanied by a video that also tapped into vibes from the group’s late 1980s-early 1990s peak. The soaring, triumphal “Street of Dreams” arrived with no notice as the first salvo from the band’s as-yet-unannounced next studio album, which will be their first full studio LP since 2017’s Songs of Experience.

Anchored, as always, by singer Bono’s uplifting rhetoric and vocals and guitarist The Edge’s shimmery, reverb-drenched strumming, the song’s accompanying video opens with Bono introducing the band, including drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who is back in the performance fold after taking a medical break due to neck surgery during the band’s 2023-2024 Sphere residency in Las Vegas.

Filmed in Mexico City near the Plaza Santo Domingo, the visual opens with the singer chanting the song’s title in Spanish (“La Calle De Los Suenos”), followed by the optimistic line “all the doors are open on the street of dreams.” Wearing a black cowboy hat and an all-black outfit, Bono croons from atop a spray-painted bus, sending a prayer to the heavens as he sings, “Be here/ Be Free/ Be yourself/ And then free me,” before gliding into a kind of call-and-response over bassist Adam Clayton’s plucked rhythms, singing, “Your fate? (Gonna fight it)/ Your trust? (Won’t be denied)/ This bus? (Gonna ride it)/ To the street of dreams.”

According to a release, the video was shot while the band was in Mexico City in May for the 2026 Street Child World Cup Finals Tournament international youth soccer championship, with the shoot drawing a massive crowd despite the threat of storms. When the thunder and rain caused a generator fueling the shoot to crash — as seen in the clip helmed by Mexican American directing duo Cliqua (Pasqual Gutiérrez and Raúl “RJ” Sanchez) — the band took refuge on the balcony of a local family to finish the video.

After ghost riding on the roof of the bus through the streets of the city and jamming out in the square, with the Edge’s signature chiming guitar bouncing all around, the band pack things up as the skies open up and rain pours down. An off-camera voice assures Bono that they don’t want the band, or the fans, to get struck by lightning, with Bono suggesting they decamp across the street to finish the shoot on the balcony of a nearby apartment.

The clip ends with the quartet crammed onto the balcony as their poncho-wearing fans chant “U2! U2!,” with the final shot catching them from behind, walking down a lonely road under the caption “Gracias a la gente de Mexico” (thank you to the people of Mexico).

The untitled album due out later this year featuring “Street of Dreams” — which was produced by frequent collaborator Jackknife Lee — is the direct follow-up to this April’s surprise Good Friday-timed six-track EP Easter Lily, itself a follow to the Ash Wednesday-adjacent February EP Days of Ash. The song’s lyrics, video and groove are reminiscent of the sound and vision of such peak-period LPs as 1987’s The Joshua Tree and 1988’s Rattle and Hum.

Bono hinted at such a return to form around the release of Easter Lily, saying in a statement at the time the band was “still working toward a noise, messy, ‘unreasonably colorful’ album to play LIVE … which is where U2 lives … we still look to vivid rock & roll as an act of resistance against all this awfulness on our small screens.” At press time no new tour dates have been announced.

Watch the “Street of Dreams” video below.