U23D

Winston-Salem, NC – Last week, I saw the incredible “U23D” movie which was basically like having a front row seat to the world’s best live show. In this glossy, 3D movie (yes, you get your own cool Bono-esque 3D shades), U2 performs 14 of their most mainstream songs from their most recent tour, The Vertigo Tour, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The 3D effects place the audience on mobile pedestals built around the stage. During “Love and Peace or Else,” animation facetiously comes into play as Bono mimics turning the volume of a television down. Subsequently, in “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” the audience and the instrumented are phased out as Bono pleads, “No More (war, hunger).”

There was another unique aspect that I caught during the encore. No matter how many shows U2 plays and no matter how many edits take place of the filming itself, there is a major error in “The Fly.” In the opening guitar riff, Edge’s echoic guitar malfunctions. In the background, you can hear The Edge screaming for Dallas (his guitar technician) that the guitar is broken. To buy some time, Bono asks the crowd, “Where is the fly?” I thought that it was pretty cool that U2 intentionally threw that breakdown in the movie. If you were in the crowd, you would have never noticed that there was a technical difficulty.

By memory, here is the set list:

• Vertigo
• Beautiful Day
• New Year’s Day
• Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own
• Love and Peace or Else
• Sunday Bloody Sunday
• Bullet the Blue Sky
• Miss Sarajevo
• Pride (In the Name of Love)
• Where the Streets Have No Name
• One
• The Fly
• With or Without You
• Yahweh

Go check it out; it’s worth the price of admission.