This Tuesday's post about U2 inspired Christina to surprise me with tickets to the IMAX theater at the Smithsonian to see the new U23D, a movie about Bono and his many sweaty jackets.

I went in not expecting much -- I wasn't highly impressed with the Elevation Tour concert DVD -- but this really was an awesome show. The 3D was brilliant and it was a great concert to make into a film, the last one of the tour in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I believe.

Watching U2 perform is a lot like watching the Stockton-to-Malone Jazz perform: they've been doing it so long together that they instinctively know what the others are doing before they do it. And like Stockton and Malone, it just wouldn't be right to see them playing without each other. If they were ever to separate, say if The Edge left to play guitar for the Shins, he'd probably break his hand and never really make it, kind of like Karl Malone with the Lakers. It's just not meant to be any other way.

The highlight of the show for me was when they played Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own. As they played the song a sort of faceless cartoon man in a suit was shown on the giant screen behind the stage walking toward Bono (shown on another screen) to the beat of the music. It helps to know that he wrote the song for his father and even sang it at his funeral. It was pretty cool.

There's a lot to say about this movie but I'll just keep this short. If you're a U2 fan you'll probably love the movie. If you're not a fan you'll probably still appreciate it and at least enjoy feeling like you're in the the stadium at the show. Like most of what U2 does it was a bit pretentious and preachy and probably too melodramatic at times but it was easy to look past that.