They endured unpredictable weather on a Spanish plain for their “Vertigo” video and traffic on the streets of New York for “All Because of You,” so U2 thought they were keeping it simple by shooting their next clip in a Dublin, Ireland, theater.
That is, until they were put at the mercy of the venue’s Christmas production of “Jack and the Beanstalk.”
The group shot the video for the track “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own” on Monday at the Gaiety Theater, according to a band spokesperson. The theater, which is currently housing the children’s story production, gave the hometown boys just one day to shoot the clip; by 11 a.m. the next morning Jack was taking back the stage.
Luckily for the band and its crew of 60, director Phil Joanou, who recently helmed the clip for “All Because of You”, provided a relatively simple treatment. The video will feature U2 performing on the venue stage, awash with purple-red lights. As the song reaches a climax, a curtain will rise to reveal the theater’s gold balconies and burgundy décor.
“There’s something great about four guys just playing their instruments,” Joanou said in a post on the band’s Web site.
“Looks beautiful with that backdrop,” Bono added. “There’s something about that purple that feels right with the song.”
Since Bono dedicates the track to his late father, a venue with particular sentimental value was chosen for the video. Bono’s dad, Bob Hewson, was a member of “The Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society,” a group which used to perform at the theater; posters advertising their performances still line the walls.
The song “is a portrait of him,” Bono said on the site. “He was a great singer, a tenor, a working-class Dublin guy who listened to the opera and conducted the stereo with my mother’s knitting needles. He just loved opera, so in the song, I hit one of those big tenor notes that he would have loved so much. I think he would have loved it, I hope so.”
The video takes on an operatic tone as a troupe of actors mime traditional operatic gestures while their shadows are enlarged and cast upon a huge white curtain that separates the stage from the seating area.
U.S. audiences won’t see this clip for some time, as “All Because of You” will be released Stateside as the second single, while “Sometimes” will be released simultaneously in the rest of the world.
The band will embark on a world tour in support of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in the spring, and recently announced that it would play 115 shows between March and the end of 2005, kicking things off March 1 in Florida. The group, set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 14 in New York, will hit Europe by June, North America again in the fall, and Japan and Australia in November and December.
Dates and venues will be announced in early 2005.
