U2 (3D)

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By ROGER MOORE / The Orlando Sentinel

It’s fitting that National Geographic is behind the glorious new concert film “U2 (3D).”

The film, which transforms a great rock spectacle into something intimate, is a cultural artifact of an era when we could label a rock group “the only band that matters” and have it mean something.

In the age of Hannah Montana body doubles, “concerts” that are routinely lip-synced shows, musicians without musicianship and steroid-addled rappers (50 Cent, take a bow!), an ‘80s band that plays its own instruments, writes songs of heart, protest and revolution, that puts on an epic show in which the spectacle never eclipses the grandeur of the music can seem a little quaint.

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"U2 3D," a 3D movie about the longtime rock band's Vertigo tour, opens Friday at the Lincoln's Grand. (Courtesy photo)

"U2 3D," a 3D movie about the longtime rock band's Vertigo tour, opens Friday at the Lincoln's Grand. (Courtesy photo)

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But here they are, up close and three-dimensionally personal, with all their passion, professionalism and cool intact, captured for all time in a concert so real it’s like you were yelling, “Down in front!” at the screaming masses in Buenos Aires.

Seven shows from their 2005-06 “Vertigo” tour were filmed in 3D and edited into a crisp 85-minute set.

None of the offstage visits to Memphis of “Rattle and Hum,” nothing that suggests the band's offstage persona. There’s little stage patter, either. Bono leaves his sermonizing to the songs and the gigantic Big Brother-ish video screens, which pump out messages calling for human rights and the like.

He dons a “Coexista” headband. It becomes a blindfold as he sings “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” He still belts out “In the Name of Love” as if the future of humanity depends on it. The martial beat of “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” is still there, but it feels triumphant, the way they do it now. The song has outlasted Northern Ireland’s long “troubles.”

The 3D puts us in the kit with drummer Larry Mullen Jr., on the catwalk as bassist Adam Clayton plays to the crowd, on the riser as guitarist The Edge (David Howell Evans) changes guitars with each tune, or rattles off the piano riff that is the trademark of their first international hit, “New Year's Day.”

Mostly, though, that camera stays with Bono (Paul David Hewson), the singer-songwriter who has taken on the mantle of musical messiah, the leader of a movement that pushes for peace, human rights, environmental activism and assorted other causes.

That he’s able to bring the same level of energy and commitment to his stage performances after more than 25 years, too many tours to count, too many concert films to remember (“Under a Blood Red Sky,” “Rattle and Hum,” “Wide Awake in Dublin” and others) is every bit as awe-inspiring as the musical marathons of Bruce Springsteen.

And the 3D is the novelty here — cell phone lights in your face, swooning young women on their boyfriends’ shoulders (it's not a diverse crowd), a sea of people bouncing in perfect time to “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

But that, and the oldies plus more recent tunes, makes “U2 (3D)” a definitive time capsule, a band at its peak, too young to be an “oldies” act, music that continues to ride out whatever the pop culture tide washes in.