U2 Get Official Invite to Play Mexico City’s Zócalo After Filming ‘Street of Dreams’

U2’s long-awaited return to Mexico City has already produced one headline: an official invitation from Clara Brugada to bring the band to the Zócalo, the capital’s massive central square, and do it for free.

The invite came on Tuesday, May 13, while the Irish quartet were in the city shooting the video for “Street of Dreams” in the Historic Center. Brugada, the head of government of Mexico City, met the band during the shoot and handed Bono a written invitation on camera, as seen in a video posted to her social media accounts. “This is an invitation for you to play in our wonderful square, which is the Zócalo,” she said in Spanish. “You are welcome, and we would love it very much.”

Bono, who was speaking with Brugada about the group’s next world tour, didn’t exactly shut the door. “We’re working on that,” he said in English. “In our dreams, we could begin our tour here.” Then came the line that will no doubt travel fast among fans in Mexico: “We love the city.”

The meeting took place at the Casino Metropolitano in the Historic Center, according to a spokesperson for the city government who confirmed the location to Billboard Español. Brugada also presented each member of the band with an axolotl figure, nodding to the amphibian native to central Mexico, as shown in the video.

Later, Brugada posted photos with the band and cast the visit as something bigger than a routine celebrity stop. “Welcoming U2 to our capital is a celebration of music, connection and the excitement that is felt in every corner of this city,” she wrote in her post. “We are a city open to the world, vibrant and full of stories that are shared from the stage to the streets.”

The band’s time in the city this week also marked the second day of filming for “Street of Dreams,” a song that will appear on their upcoming album, due later this year. A day earlier, U2 had performed the track from the roof of a school bus decorated with graffiti by artist Chavis Mármol, with a crowd gathered around them in the Historic Center. The song includes choruses in Spanish, and the scene carried extra weight because it was the first time Larry Mullen Jr. had appeared alongside the rest of the band after years away from the stage while recovering from neck and back surgeries.

Mexico has long mattered to U2, who have played some of their most celebrated shows there, including the 1997 performance documented on Popmart: Live From Mexico City. Their last Mexico City concert came on the Joshua Tree 30th-anniversary tour in October 2017, just three weeks after the devastating earthquake that struck central Mexico.

The Zócalo itself carries the kind of symbolic weight that makes this invitation feel larger than a standard gig offer. The plaza, officially named the Plaza de la Constitución, is a site where politics, social movements, culture and religion all collide, and it remains the second-largest public square in the world, behind only Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In March, Shakira set a new record there, drawing 400,000 people to the free concert that became the biggest audience ever gathered at the space.

For U2, the timing could hardly be more pointed: a new song, a new album on the way, Larry Mullen Jr. back with the band, and now a public invitation to kick off the next tour in one of the cities that clearly still means something to them. Fans will be watching closely to see whether that dream turns into a real date on the calendar.