July
09
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U2 – Where The Streets Have No Name (music video – long version)
The year was 1987, and I had just turned 16. The Joshua Tree was the biggest album in the country, and U2 was the biggest band in the world. “Where The Streets Have No Name” was the third single, released in August. I don’t know exactly when the video came out, but I remember watching it at my parent’s house, on our TV in the “sunroom”. Los Angeles was a world away for me at that time, and I was entranced by the video. Filmed atop a one story building (a liquor store?), with a growing crowd gathering, and an angry LAPD rep telling the U2 crew that “we’re shutting you down.”
It was as rock and roll as MTV got, and obviously drawn from The Beatles rooftop concert from the Let It Be time period. It helped cement U2, for me, as the most important rock and roll band around at that time.
Here’s the video, for your enjoyment. This one is a longer version that I don’t remember seeing on MTV. The song part is the same length, but there are more audio clips of deejays talking about the shoot in L.A., and more audio clips of the LAPD rep talking with the band’s crew. Twenty five years ago, people. Twenty five years!
MVP Presents 
This was truly epic. I know U2 got a lot of crap from some for doing this and covering Helter Skelter on Rattle and Hum, but as a non-Beatles fan, I was all over the notion that U2 was “our generation’s Beatles.”
I remember this too. Takes me right back. Definitely a great period for U2