U23D at IMAX

"----------------------!!!!!"
Spoiler Alert
I went this afternoon to the IMAX in Sydney though most local cinemas are offering their version of this amazing cinematic achievement!! It's been a while since I went to a 3D film but this was certainly something else... of course I'm biased about U2 but while this was not "even better than the real thing" it was amazing!
Although I enjoyed the second of the two Vertigo Tour concerts I went to I still missed something of the experience because of the immense challenges of a Stadium show and I now feel like I experienced something I missed that Friday night in the rain at Homebush.
The visual 3D effect brings the screen right off the wall and the four band members remind me of those brass tribute statues of sports people where they are usually 2/3s bigger than real life.
There are many highlights including:

• Bono & Adam look straight at the camera & you feel they are about to speak to you
  
• Bono reaches out and you feel like you could touch his hand
• The crescendo of the second half of songs including a brilliant rendition of "With or Without You" and "Where the Streets Have No Name"
• The overhead and close shots of Larry drumming are amazing
• During "The Fly" when the ZOO TV wordings come off screen and fly out to you in your seat
• The Buenos Aires crowd... I'm sure I nearly got my eye poked out, got sprayed when a water bottle is thrown
• Not to mention the idiots who left as the credits rolled... missing the unplugged gem "Yahweh" just into said credits
• Besides my favourite song "Pride [In the Name of Love]" was also BRILLIANT!!
  

I hope they do a Shrek with this and sell the DVD complete with cardboard 3D glasses. I have the data projector booked!! But for now I will be back a few times just to marvel at what the film makers have achieved... the first live action 3D film in history spread across about 7 or 8 South American concerts and some sound check run through close ups so the cameras weren't an issue for paying punters at every show and every time.
Bono's moments of excess and indulgence are largely not included so this is a sharp version of the essential messages from the concert, less preaching more an experience of music with hints thrown in.

1. "Vertigo"
2. "Beautiful Day"
3. "New Year's Day"
4. "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own"
5. "Love and Peace or Else"
6. "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
7. "Bullet the Blue Sky"
8. "Miss Sarajevo" / Reading of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
9. "Pride (In the Name of Love)"
10. "Where the Streets Have No Name"
11. "One"

First encore

12. "The Fly"
13. "With or Without You"

End credits

"Yahweh"