Big is beautiful

You might think that the last thing the world needs is a three hundred foot tall Bono.

It’s like a vision from some bizarre yet-to-be-made Roland Emmerich movie, where a giant version of the U2 frontman tramples through the world’s great cities forcing us to give up our money for selfless causes. It’s quite a thought, but one that seems not altogether ludicrous after seeing the new movie, U2 3D, at the Imax cinema in London.
Ok, he may not be three hundred feet tall – the screen is merely five double-decker buses high – and on this occasion he’s simply doing his job, which is singing, as opposed to shaking us down for our money, but the vision is there nonetheless.
It’s 24 hours after U2 3D premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah and a huge crowd has gathered at the Imax in Waterloo for the first European screening of the film, which is directed by Catherine Owens, lifelong friend of the band and the woman responsible for the visual content of their live shows for the last 15 years.
The movie itself is quite stunning. From the moment the opening credits emerge from the screen, into the audience and seem to pass just above your head you realise that what you’re about to see is something very special. As the film progresses, you’ll find yourself ducking from mic stands as they’re swung around the stage, and cowering in your seat, in a bid not to get wet as water is thrown into the crowd.
A live performance from the Vertigo tour, U2 3D was shot entirely in South America, where the band felt the passion of the crowd most resembled that of an Irish audience. Fortunately for them, South Americans are also generally better looking than their Irish counterparts. So, in full 3D effect, you feel like you could reach out and touch the bikini clad blonde surfing on her friends shoulders, rather than fearing that some drunk girl staggering to remain balanced on her boyfriends arms is going to spill her pint on you.
Opening with ‘Vertigo’, and moving through ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, ‘Miss Sarajevo’, ’Where the Streets Have No Name’, ‘One’ and ‘The Fly’, among others, the film allows those who’ve never seen a U2 live performance experience what all the fuss is about, and obviously at a fraction of the price. If you have seen a live show, or even the Vertigo tour itself, the film still offers a lot, with insights and perspectives into the on-stage chemistry that you could never gather in person, or even from other DVD recordings.
At Sundance the audience are said to have been dancing in their seats as the show progressed. This didn’t happen in London although one person, who really mustn’t have grasped the concept at all, did shout out a request. The band themselves are uniformly delighted with the finished product and understandably so – although Bono has expressed some concern at seeing his “40ft arse” in 3D. Unfortunately it’s there for all of us to see. The biggest band in the world just got bigger.

U2 3D will open at selected cinemas nationwide on February 22