I think it is a hangover from the sixties, the obsession with youth. Some people die at seventeen and put their funeral off until they’re seventy-seven. And I see a lot of dead young people, I see a lot of alive old people.
My wife and I saw this a while back, but I forgot to post on it. The U2 3D movie is awesome. Even if you don’t really like U2, the 3D technology is so realistic. I’m not talking the red and blues glasses of a few decades back, or even the funky plastic cheap-o Disney ride glasses of the last decade. you still have to wear funky glasses, but the advances in 3D film are really noticeable. The shots that look over the massive crowd in the soccer stadium make you feel like you are really there looking out over the crowd. The drum set also looks incredibly real in 3d. On top of all of this, they also added some graphics to a few scenes – basically, they took what was showing on the screen behind the band and made it float transparently in front of the band. Neat effect.
We saw it an I-MAX, which really added to the realism. I recommend taking this route if you can.
I am a big U2 fan. Before you read what I have to say, you need to know that. I’m not afraid of their spiritual side, and I’m not offended by their honest examinations of reality. It seems like people that have a problem with U2 seem to have a problem with one of those two issues. they are either too religious for the secular world or too worldly for the Christian world.
My wife is a big U2 fan, too. But when she gets into something, she will play it over and over again, daily, for about a year, and then she’ll move on to something else. So, I can now say I have listened to How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb at least a hundred times now.
Everything I have read about Atomic Bomb has compared it to the reviewer’s favorite U2 album. I have given up trying to find a favorite U2 album. What I tend to ask myself now is “What U2 am I in the mood for now?” Because here’s the shocker – I even like Pop and Zooropa.
Blasphemy, yes, I know. I have to admit that if I had to rate U2’s music, these two albums would be somewhere at the bottom of the list. But that would still put them way above most an other album that I like. With the exception of Michael Knott, but that’s another story.
So, I find myself in the mood for Atomic Bomb U2 a lot. How can you not like the song “Vertigo” if you like guitar? It’s just what rock should be, pure and simple. If it wasn’t U2 and the music buying world wasn’t so snobbish, it would have been the biggest smash hit of the decade. Even though so many people did turn their nose up at it because it was U2, it still made a huge splash. A splash that most bands only dream of.
The next song on the disc comes as a bit of a shocker. U2 rocks you like a hurricane, and then downshifts about 8 or 9 gears into “Miracle Drug.” That’s about my only gripe with this album – I would switch this song with a slightly faster song like “Love and Peace or Else” to make the album flow better, but that’s what the programming function on the ole’ CD player is for. “City of Blinding Lights,” “All Because of You,” and “Yahweh” are some of the other songs I find myself singing over and over again as I go throughout the day.
And for all those who say that U2 has turned their backs on God, check out “Yahweh” for heaven\s sake.
Something to point out is that there is a really cool bonus track that is only available on the Japanese version called “Fast Cars.” Why the Japanese always get the bonus tracks, I’ll never know. Yeah, yeah, something about CD’s being more expensive over there. But if you have iTunes, find the song and fork over the extra 99 cents for it.
And I know that some people find Bono a bit egotistical. But think about this: Do you think anyone would care about the AIDS crisis in Africa (or any other cause he has championed) if he wasn’t that way?