Vertigo

December 13, 2004

Remember that little U2 show last month? Apparently, there were a couple of television cameras around to film. The result was on MTV on Friday. Yes, actual music programming on MTV. Well, nearly 22 minutes worth of music programming. That translates into only four songs (not surprisingly, the same four songs from the Live From the Under Brooklyn Bridge iTunes release): Vertigo, All Because of You, Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own and I Will Follow.

I think I got vertigo from watching MTV's take on the concert. The editing and camera work put TAR's drunken! careening! cameramen! to shame in both the amount and intensity of drunken careening. In about 3 minutes and 10 seconds of Vertigo, I counted 82 cuts.¹ That means that each shot lasted for an average of 2.3 seconds. Most of those shots were pans or zooms. Is this supposed to be edgy? Sweeping cinematography would have captured the views across the East River to the Brooklyn Bridge and lower Manhattan and fit better with the music.

¹Note that MTV used the audio from the band's second performance of Vertigo (released on iTunes), but the video from the first performance (it was still light out.)