Saturdays 

It's U2 this and U2 that as U2 promotes its latest CD, "No Line on the Horizon." And, so, its is only natural - and good marketing - for the New England Aquairium IMAX Theatre to bring back last year's hit concert movie, "U23D."  (They did it before the Jonas Brothers!) Does it re-define the concert movie? Yes and no. The 85-minute film is up at the New England Aquarium's IMAX Theatre and it does look and sound spectacular. It had me more a part of the "real" audience than any concert film I've seen and may well rank with "The Last Waltz" and "Gimme Shelter" in its potency.  There is an astonishing blend of the live and movie audience, where it appears to be almost seamless and the way it's shot really does put Bono in your face and puts you as close to the band as you're ever going to get. There are some of us - yes, me - who remember the U2 club days when you could be right there in front. But that was a long while ago, a couple of decades before superstardom and world statesman status for Bono.

That was when U2 was part of the UK's smart post-punk wave that included Joy Division, the Psychedelic Furs and Teardrop Explodes.) U2 is the rare band that's aged well, which is to say they both look and sound very good. Not fat and indulgent, nor falsely pumped up and irrelevent. They mattered then; they matter still. "U23D" is the band in concert - no backstage stuff, no interviews, no Bono yak from the stage, even - as filmed during stops on the South American leg of the "Vertigo" tour.

The songs plucked come from several gigs, but the film appears to be from one concert. It quickly transcends the obvious initial roadblock - gimmick rock! not the earnest, righteous U2 we know and love! - vis-a-vis about the 3D technology. You know it's a trick, but you rather like the hovering close-ups and the way the U2 makes its large-but-lean sound work in this massively huge setting. It reminds me of the way the band took its club style to the arenas in the '80s: It learned to be large - and they made it work, taking cues from the likes of Bruce Springsteen. In that context, "U23D" seems like simply a next step. And at $12.95 a ticket a cheaper and more-realistically achieved ticket to the show - if you accept the idea that it's a movie and not a concert per se. That's always been our barrier with concert films - there's just too wide a gap between what happened on stage and what's happening in the cinema. This is as close as I've seen to a band (and its production team) narrowing that gap. And by keeping it to a strict concert film, U2 made a wise choice. There are the songs you know - "Bullet the Blue Sky," "With or Without You," "Where the Streets Have No Name," "Pride (In the Name of Love), "Sunday Bloody Sunday" etc. - without much filler and delivered with a sense of purpose. U2 has never mailed it in, and don't here. They leave you wanting more, which is what a great live band does ... as long as the show is. I have some quibbling with the editing. Because of the multiple camera angles and the possibilities of 3D - yes, you get to wear those Devo-esque handout glasses - there is too much camera movement; you don't get to linger on anything too long, as you would naturally do at a show. You're always being shown something new - look, the neck of Adam Clayton's bass! The Edge looking down from above as he tinkles the keyboard!, a shot from behind Larry Mullen Jr., revealing he doesn't use a drum stool, but a backed-chair!. In a way, this is tiring and sadly reflects the attention-span deficit of what is presumed to be today's pop audience. But, really, the power of the music - and this movie is played at full concert volume - and the kick of feeling like you're almost inside the machine is well worth it. There's a rush of immediacy and passion that's rare to the genre.

Among the group of people I went with was a video producer and friend, Richard Tilkin. He offered not exactly a contrasting view but a  producer's view. He said that he enjoyed seeing "U2 in 3D shot from interesting angles with sweeping movement and a stellar song selection. (But) I found the half-dissolves of images and superimposition of the beaded light backdrop, (which was not done justice by the resolution of the film for some reason), to be gratuitous, unnecessary and distracting. I really just wanted to enjoy my favorite band in 3D without editing gimmicks."

The New England Aquarium has "U2 3D" up Saturdays in March at 7 p.,. and Saturdays in April at 8 p.m. Tickets: $12.95.

Central Wharf, Boston,  617-973-5206 www.neaq.org