New searchable Windows in the Skies video

Remember the all star Window in the skies promo? We had a go at listing all the artists featured in it, but for a definitive answer you can now find out from the video’s creators, Boston’s Modernista agency, themselves.

U2.com have posted (subscribers only) a version of the Windows in the Skies video that is searchable on subtitles and lyrics. This way you can search on performer and be taken to his or hers cameo in the clip, or type in part of the lyric and be shown the artist that goes with it. Cool!

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You’ll also see this searchable version is different from the one we posted about back when it was first released. It’s got different Bowie footage.

PopMart DVD details unveiled

Thanks to U2 Sweden for alerting us to information on the DVD we’ve all been waiting for. Some of us, anyway. The greatest show on earth to some, the tour from hell for others, PopMart – the Mexican branch – is coming out ‘late June’ in two versions, a single and a double DVD. U2 Sweden has the skinny, or you can hop over to U2.com for the official, official announcement. Soon, very soon, you will be able to relive those memories of when the ‘net was young, the tour’s official site was all MSN, silvery and orange and completely inaccessible to anyone not on a fat T1 pipe. Those were the days. Cloggies especially have something to look forward to: four PopMart Rotterdam tracks in glorious DVD quality. You might even spot some U2log.com editors pushed up against the barrier.

The Edge’s biggest solo gig?

As some of you may remember, The Edge visited Russia on behalf of Greenpeace back in March of 1989. This was chronicled by Bill Graham in Propaganda issue number 11. What that story didn’t reveal was the following happening that we recently found in our u2log vault.

“We come to the studio, with all these musicians, and we’re hustled into a little room, down the hall, and we’re all cramped in, and there’s wires knocking over coffee cups, and I think that the result of it all was the fact that it put everyone very much at ease.
“It was very informal, but very sincere. The production level was not what you would find in the States for example. We didn’t have cue cards. We didn’t overproduce. People didn’t get pancake makeup. We were just there.
“And they’re asking questions and having people sing songs, and the tea cups were flying all over the place, and out there somewhere were 150 million viewers watching this whole thing happen, with the wires flying and the microphones in the way and everything else, and there’s a sincerity in all that. It’s not overproduced.
“All of this is new for people in the Soviet Union and I think it’s like the cork coming off a bottle of champagne; there has been a big release. Sure, let’s do a television show with these musicians. Let’s all get them in a room. Hey, here’s a camera, you know. Let’s take their photos and put it up and see what happens. It’s great. It’s all very experimental.
“At one point the interviewer asked The Edge from U2 to sing a song from U2’s album, of course, just sitting here on a couch with a cup of coffee in front of him was just mind boggling. It was… it’d never been done before and could never be done in the west I don’t think. The result of that was that he actually sat for a minute, I think stunned a bit. And then he said ‘Well, do you know the song “It’s a long way to Tipperary“?’ And he actually, on television, in front of 150 million people started singing the song.”
– Peter Bahout, describing a live performance that will never see the light of day on a U2 album.

Download the audio

It’s a musical journey: Edge and Bono team up for Spider-Man

Move over Sir Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. While we were away (celebrating a birthday among other things), the first bit of real news in a while popped up on the newswires. It appears The Bono and The Edge are keen to conquer Broadway. They are writing music and lyrics for a Spider-Man musical, Marvel Studios announced on Friday.

The show will be directed by Julie Taymor (The Lion King, Titus). Auditions are already taking place, and a reading is scheduled for July.

It’ll be interesting to see how Team The Fly tackles this one!