Until The End Of The World - My favourite movie of all time

In my mind, I have a list of my favourite movies. When I see a movie that enters the top 10 this is great news. It means that this movie has affected me in some important way. But the number one movie in this list has remained constant for decades. It's "Until The End Of The World" by Wim Wenders.

It all happened quite by accident. It was on late at night, on a summer's night on a Greek TV channel. I sat down to watch it because I thought "Ah, that's the movie where that U2 song is featured". I had a few doubts at first because it was a Wim Wenders movie and I considered him to be a "difficult" director. Three hours later, as the credits were rolling I was sitting, dumbfounded, on my couch thinking "What the **** has just happened?" I couldn't believe what I had just seen and experienced. I knew right there and then that this was the best movie I had ever seen.

But the question is "why?" Why was this the best movie ever, at least for me? Well, I guess that it has to do with all the travelling done in the movie. Indeed, I love road movies, but this is a road movie whose characters are moving all around the world, a world which comes close to destruction, but in the end, while our heroes have gathered at one of its most remote corners,  (SPOILER ALERT!), it is saved. That the two main characters fall in love during this journey, probably has something to do with it as well. Not to mention that it was set at the turn of the millennium which was then still a few years ahead in the future (This is after all a 1991 movie).

Another reason is the soundtrack. As you probably know well by know, music plays an important role - probably the most important - in my life. And although my decision to watch this movie the first time was because it contained a U2 song, which in fact is its title track ("Until The End Of The World" originally from "Achtung Baby"), it was other songs featured in the movie that made me fall in love with it. My favourites are : "Silent Kisses, Winter Tears" performed by Julee Cruise (but then again, this song was produced by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, a fact which says quite a lot), Nick Cave's "(I'll Love You) Till The End Of The World" (his "thank you girl" line at the beginning of the chorus is just sublime), "Death's Door" by Depeche Mode (all DM songs - at least during that era - sung by Martin Gore tended to be more downtempo and atmospheric and thus, appropriate for a movie), and finally the best one: "Calling All Angels". I love k.d. lang's voice, even though she's just a guest providing additional vocals on a song performed by Jane Siberry. Their combined vocals in the chorus is, in my opinion. the highlight of this soundtrack. There is also "Days", a Kinks cover by Elvis Costello, but no version of this song ever is going to surpass the one sung by Kirsty McCall in 1989.

The connection of Wim Wenders with U2 continued with his next movie "Faraway, So Close" which featured "Stay (Faraway, So Close)" from the "Zooropa" album as its title track. That movie was actually the sequel to his earlier "Wings Of Desire". Because of this fact, I also watched these last two movies and Wim Wenders, whom at first I had thought of as "difficult", became one of my favourite directors. On top of that, I fell in love with Solveig Dommartin who stars in all these three movies I have discussed here and I was deeply saddened, years later, when I learned that she was no longer with us.

"Until The End Of The World" may be my favourite movie of all time, but this isn't a view that is shared by many others. The movie didn't get good reviews and it seems its production was chaotic, mainly due to the fact that it was shot all over the world using different, mainly local, crews. But I love it, and the atmosphere it creates and I find myself watching it again every once in a while. In fact, the reason I'm writing this blog post now, is because a couple of months ago I watched the  4 hour director's cut for the first time from a special 3DVD box set. Meanwhile Wim Wenders had once again collaborated with U2 on "The Million Dollar Hotel" and it wasn't until years later that I finally watched what is considered by critics to be Wim Wenders's finest film, "Paris Texas".

And since I have mentioned my favourite movie list, here is how it currently stands:

01. Until The End Of The World - Wim Wenders (1991)
02. Dark City - Alex Proyas (1998)
03. Pulp Fiction - Quentin Tarantino (1994)
04. Donnie Darko - Richard Kelly (2001)
05. Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson (2012)
06. Loving Vincent - Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman (2017)
07. Bohemian Rhapsody - Bryan Singer (2018)
08. Le Havre - Aki Kaourismaki (2011)
09. The Corporation -  Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott (2003)
10. Casablanca - Michael Curtiz (1942)
11. Before The Rain - Milcho Manchevski (1994)
12. Forrest Gump - Robert Zemeckis (1994)
13. Ghostbusters - Ivan Reitman (1984)
14. The Shining - Stanley Kubrick (1980)
15. Planet Terror - Robert Rodriguez (2007)
16. The Wall - Alan Parker (1982)
17. High Fidelity - Stephen Frears (2000)
18. Three Colours Red - Krzysztof Kieslowski (1994)
19. Mulholland Drive - David Lynch (2001)
20. Summer Lovers - Randal Kleiser (1982)

2017 was brought to you by...

Well I'm not going to say by Sony, but there's been a change of camera as of late last year because  as you can see from the photo above which had to be taken with the old camera (the new one cannot take selfies of itself!) dust had crept inside the lens and nothing could be done about it.

So, I finally said goodbye to the old one which had been with me to all the concerts since 2009.

I had of course a new mobile since late 2015 (which was joined by a similar tablet earlier this year), and the pictures they can take are clearer and sharper than the old camera, but they are not of much use in a concert unless you are close to the stage because of the lack of a significant zoom.

Nevertheless they were both used on the first gig of the year which was in a small venue. Now, I don't normally bring my tablet to gigs, but I went to that one straught after work, so I was carrying it with me and I had the opportunity to test it.

Finally, hoping for more gigs in 2018, I leave you with memories from the two main ones of 2017; this...

...and this!

U2 Live Under A Greek Blue Sky

One year and a couple of weeks after I had seen U2 in Cardiff, they came to Athens in Greece, seven years ago. I wasn't going to miss it of course, and although it was the same tour, the experience proved to be a bit different. This time I was going to be in the pitch, whereas in Cardiff I was in the stands towards the back of the stage so that I could sample this "360 experience" from an unusual point.

A friend who used to live close to the Olympic Stadium told us that she could hear the sound check in the early afternoon.

It was at her place where we gathered at around 6 o clock in the early evening to start the (not so long) walk towards the stadium.

After we went through the first few gates we came head to head with that big unsung hero of the Greek concert organizing industry, the "security guard". At first they were guiding us using loudspeakers ordeing us to hold one of our hands up holding the ticket (seriously!) because they were going to "check the orange" (The orange what?). I've never been treated this way in any of the concerts I have been to in Europe. I understand that it may not be so tiring to do that, but I strongly object to being treated like sheep. Another one informed us smiling malevolently that we should not feel so happy that we finally got in because we had to walk for 30 more minutes (as it turned out it was only 5 minutes). It probably has something to do with the feeling of power this job entails that makes them behave this way. Maybe it acts as an aphrodisiac.

So we finally got into the stadium where people who had already been to other U2 concerts could easily be spotted.

First on stage at 19:15 was Aviv Geffen. Rather boring actually, but the funny thing was that I saw him again a few days later at a Placebo gig. One hour later, at 20:15, it was time for Snow Patrol.

After that, we were left watching the big screen where a clock seemed at first to lag behind, then go forward until we realized that the stroke of midnight would be at 21:45. The time that U2 were due to go onstage.

And that's exactly what happened, at that precise moment, while the stadium lights stayed on, U2 came on stage while David Bowie's Space Oddity was playing from the speakers.

The first proper song was "Beautiful Day" (following the instrumental "Return Of The Stingray Guitar"). This time they only played 4 songs from "No Line On The Horizon" ("Magnificent", "Get On Your Boots" "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" and "Moment Of Surrender").

So, since "Unknown Caller" was not played we didn't have the chance to hear the words we had been waiting for ("Athens, you know your name, so punch it in"), however we did hear something new in the form of "Return Of The Stingray Guitar". Personally, I was happy to hear "Hold, Thrill Me...", "Elevation", "Until The End Of The World" this time around which were not played in Cardiff. But, the highlight for me was "In A Little While", a song I had almost forgotten. The crowd enjoyed it and although we were told that not all tickets had been sold the stadium seemed to have been filled by the time U2 came on stage. I can imagine of course that the VIP seats would have been filled by Greek b-list "celelbrities" who thought that they "rocked" when in fact they actually attended the concert in order to be "seen" by the press and media. The same thing happened at Madonna's concert in 2008 and at The Rolling Stones concert in 1998, both at the same stadium. Another nice thing was that Bono didn't preach. Why am I saying that? Well, back in 2010, it was the beginning of Greece's economic crisis and every artist that came for a concert felt obliged to say something like "Don't worry, it will pass" or "Don't worry, you'll get over it" (It is still going on by the way). Instead Bono said something more original : "The Irish and the Greeks have one thing in common: we are both broke" (I'll take that as a compliment.)

  Setlist
01. Return Of The Stingray Guitar
02. Beautiful Day
03. I Will Follow
04. Get On Your Boots
05. Magnificent
06. Mysterious Ways
07. Elevation
08. Until The End Of The World
09. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / Movin' On Up (snippet)
10. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
11. In A Little While
12. Miss Sarajevo
13. City Of Blinding Lights
14. Vertigo
15. Funky Town (snippet) / I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight / Discothèque (snippet)
16. Sunday Bloody Sunday
17. MLK
18. Walk On / You'll Never Walk Alone (snippet)
Encore
19. One
20. Amazing Grace (snippet) / Where The Streets Have No Name
21. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
22. With Or Without You
23. Moment of Surrender

Another thing I realized now that I had seen the concert from the arena, is that you really enjoy it more when experiencing it from the stands since the stage is rather big and Bono and his friends (yes, even Larry) are moving all over the place. On the other hand, if you are in the arena you are compensated by the on-screen effects.

  We were hoping back then that we would see U2 again soon, but it's been 7 years and we are still waiting...

U2 Live Under A Cardiff Sky

Now that I have seen U2 live in Rome not just once, but twice, I thought it was time to revisit the previous two times I had seen them, first in Cardiff 8 years ago and then in Athens 7 years ago, both times almost to this day. But first a little bit of history.

I first saw the name "U2" back in 1982 in a Greek (short-lived) magazine called "Phenomenon". I thought it was a strange name for a band but I didn't investigate any further. A year and a half later I read in another Greek magazine, POP+ROCK (the best selling music magazine in Greece at that time) this: "Jim Kerr, lead singer of The Simple Minds got on stage at a U2 concert to sing "Gloria" with their lead singer Bono". Simple Minds were one of my favourite bands at that time so I went and bought the U2 live album that had just been released "U2 Live Under A Blood Red Sky" the opening track of which was "Gloria". The rest is, as they say, history...

I managed to see Simple Minds live for the first time in 2006 when they came to Athens. During that gig I was thinking "now I've seen Simple Minds but I haven't seen U2 yet". I finally managed to do that, 3 years later in Cardiff.

On the day of the concert, from early in the morning the city was dancing to the beat of U2.

It took place at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium which was celebrating its 10th anniversary.

They played all those songs I expected to hear, some that I didn't expect ("Mysterious Ways", "Stay" - I thought they wouldn't play anything from Zooropa anymore - Plus their best live track ever "Bad").

There were several songs from their latest - at that time - album "No Line On The Horizon" which I enjoyed since it was the first time I had liked a new U2 album so much since "Achtung Baby".

"Magnificent", "Unknown Caller" and especially the title track "No Line On The Horizon" were my favourites. I didn't think much of "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight", which was the next single, and seemed to have been added to the album at the last minute (I made this assumption based on the fact that it was not featured in the Anton Corbijn film featured on the DVD that is included with some editions of the album). A better choice for a single, in my opinion, would have been "No Line On The Horizon" or "Moment Of Surrender".

The highlights of the night were the Desmond Tutu intro to "One" and the volunteers who walked in front of the stage during "Walk On".

The encore started with "Ultraviolet", and just as we were thinking, during "With Or Without You", that everything was over because they said goodbye and the time was 10:30pm (the curfew), they also played "Moment Of Surrender", one of their best songs of the album.

As can be seen from the photo, the 360 degree stage was not placed exactly at the centre of the stadium.

And although all 4 band members were moving all over its length and width (including the "bridges¨), most of the action was taking place at the front part.

And that's how, with the Cardiff concert, the 2009 European leg of the U2 360 Tour ended.

On another note, Cardiff was a wonderful city, and very easy to move around in, since in a radius of only a few metres the railway station, my hotel and the Millennium Stadium were located.

I was in a very central place, where later at night I could witness all the people coming out of the clubs and pubs. They were mostly eating takeaways and throwing their rubbish on the street. At some point they would go gome and then... that's when the seagulls would appear landing on the high street, walking around it as if they owned it and enjoying all the leftovers that were thrown away. They would only leave in the late morning when the municipal garbage trucks appeared.

So that's what I saw in Cardiff, a year later I would see U2 again in Greece...

CARDIFF Setlist
01. Breathe
02. No Line On The Horizon
03. Get On Your Boots
04. Magnificent
05. Beautiful Day
06. Mysterious Ways
07. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
08. Stay
09. Unknown Caller
10. Unforgettable Fire
11. City Of Blinding Lights
12. Vertigo
13. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (Remix)
14. Sunday Bloody Sunday
15. Pride (In The Name of Love)
16. MLK
17. Walk On
18. Where The Streets Have No Name
19. One
20. Bad
--------
21. Ultraviolet
22. With Or Without You
23. Moment Of Surrender