On The Rooftop in Japan, tonight

[maycocksean]

Great live performance of Windows...

I was supposed to see these concerts, I'm so depressed

I know. It would have been great to meet you. I'm sorry you weren't able to make it back out there.

Was anyone actually on the ground or otherwise nearby when these songs were played last night?

 

[maycocksean]

Was anyone actually on the ground or otherwise nearby when these songs were played last night?

I'm answering my own question here. I just read on the "Tokyo Tickets" thread in the Tour Dates forum that 4U2Play and Fer Castillo as well as about fifty other fans were on the street below.

 

[phillyfan26]

He's actually playing a Rickenbacker on the rooftop WITS and a Les Paul on Vertigo.

I was only talking about Vertigo, but the Music Rising guitar is a Casino isn't it?

 

[matsimon]

Crazy how the success of Vertigo, HTDAAB, and the Vertigo tour has really come to full circle. From the rooftops in London (right?) to the rooftops of Tokyo. Pretty cool

no...Clarence Hotel, Dublin, in 2000, pre-elevation era!

 

[Lancemc]

I was only talking about Vertigo, but the Music Rising guitar is a Casino isn't it?

The Music Rising guitar is a Les Paul.

 

[Thora]

Thanks for posting the videos!

 

[silvrlvr]

The golden tower in the video that looks like the Eiffel Tower is Tokyo Tower. I used to live about half a mile from there and could see it out my window. I have to say the camera work in these clips is stunning. Even if it ism't a pure live performance, U2 desu! (It's U2!)

 

[LyricalDrug]

Damn. WITS is almost entirely pre-recorded on this clip. There's no real "live" performance. It's obvious - you can hear it.

Plus, there's no WAY the band would be able to improve their ability to play this song, this quickly. They played WITS the other night in Tokyo (there are clips on youtube) and while it sounded promising, it was far from perfect. The timing wasn't quite right, rhythm was off, etc.

Once they figure out how to play it live, this song will turn into a legendary U2 song.

 

[silvrlvr]

IF they learn to play it live and IF they can clean up the arrangement, perhaps shorten it up, this song will be a decent U2 song.

I love Edge's riff at the bridge but the song simply rambles on and on -- the subtitles on this telecast are more evidence of how disjointed this whole thing is. It still sounds like it was slapped together -- like the rhyme "skies" and "rhapsodize" at the end. Who is Bono trying to be, Irving Berlin?

 

[Bono in Melb]

One part Irving Berlin, one part Gandhi, one part Dwight Eisenhower and one part Charlie Chaplin.

Sometimes Bono just becomes a parody of himself and these are the times when the music loses vision and it's ideals. Usually that happens on long tours where even one as verbose as Bono becomes bored with himself.

What is it that Bob Dylan said? When you got nothin, you got nothin to lose.

 

[newworldorder]

The golden tower in the video that looks like the Eiffel Tower is Tokyo Tower. I used to live about half a mile from there and could see it out my window. I have to say the camera work in these clips is stunning. Even if it ism't a pure live performance, U2 desu! (It's U2!)

This was the post I was looking for - I too used to live right there, waaay before they built "the Hills" estate where the Mori Bldg and TV Asahi are located. It breaks my heart to no end that I was not in the city that I used to call home as U2 took over. Ironically, I used to *always* put up U2 stickers on that still-existing clock in front of 'Almond' right in the main intersection there. When the clock struck midnight to mark 1990, I played NewYearsDay on my boombox near the now-defunct HenryAfrica's and original GasPanic near Bikkuri Sushi (with the revolving belt holding different sushi plates); I was not in Tokyo for the Lovetown Tour just weeks earlier.

I had GA tickets to the Japan show in April, and was devastated when they had to cancel; I went forward with my trip to Japan and had one of the times of my life without that show. But the recent Japan shows held a lot of sentiment for me, and I am so happy that they gave the Japanese 3 shows instead of the one. They will need to branch out a lil more next time by hitting Osaka and perhaps one other town like Nagasaki down south; the market for Rock is ofcourse not huge there, but there are so many more inroads the band can take to expose themselves to the Japanese people (...and no, I'm not talking about taking off their pants) and market.

Thanks again for mentioning the Tokyo Tower...so many drunken nights with that city of blinding lights and neon as my backdrop to life!