U2 lived up to their billing as the world’s greatest rock band tonight in a triumphant return to Australia.

The Irish supergroup blasted more than 45,000 Brisbane fans with a stunning display of stadium rock in their first Australian performance since early 1998.

Fans relished the spirited performance from frontman Bono, guitarist The Edge, bass player Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jnr.

The quartet of 40-somethings have been together in the band since their schooldays in Dublin in the late 1970s and they show no signs of dropping their guard in middle age.

The Queensland Sports and Athletics Centre was transformed with a monstrous stage at its southern end and an enormous backing screen that provided a visual feast.

Since they last toured Australia, U2 have produced two of their most critically acclaimed albums - All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000) and How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (2004).

The concert opened with City of Blinding Lights from their latest album and featured hits from a recording career spanning more than 25 years.

Bono also paid tribute to The Go-Betweens co-founder Grant McLennan - who died in May, aged 48 - by singing a few lines of his Brisbane group’s hit "Streets of Your Town".

The band are back in Australia to finish off the Vertigo world tour which was postponed in March while they were getting ready to perform in Sydney.

U2’s last major concert was at River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires in early March.

They flew on from there to Sydney but headed home without playing a show after a band member’s relative became ill.

U2 play at Sydney’s Telstra Stadium on Friday and Saturday nights before heading to Adelaide, Melbourne and then New Zealand.

They are being supported on tour by Grammy Award- winning Hip Hop artist Kanye West.

- AAP

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