When my editor asked me to go and review the U2 laser light show at the LASM Planetarium, I was a bit skeptical. The last time I had seen one of these shows, I had been forced to attend by my elementary school teacher, and even at that tender age, I had been unimpressed and bored. Watching various geometric and astronomical shapes move around a wall, changing colors and spinning, is not my idea of a good time, then or now. But I agreed to go because (a) from previous visits, I knew the planetarium air conditioner is set cold enough to rival temperatures at the Arctic Circle, and most concerts during the summer are miserably hot; and (b) it has stadium seating, so I did not have to stand for hours while watching the band roadies set up, making perverse jokes and rhymes beginning with the letter “P.”

The first thing that I would like to stress is that you should NOT be under the influence of ANYTHING when you go to see this show. Although I am never a proponent of illegal substances, laser light shows of the past almost screamed, “The only way to have a good time watching this is if you’re wasted!” and it’s become sort of modern-day common knowledge that you go to these shows with some chemical assistance already in your system. Being a responsible citizen and reviewer, I went to see the show completely sober, and so did my date. At the end of the show, we were both extremely glad that we had. This show is amazing enough without your mind playing tricks on you; on drugs, you could harm yourself and other audience members as you freak out.

If you must do a drug, my advice would be weed. It mellows you out, so all you would do while crazy scenery and imagery is whirling around your entire body is just comment, “Wow.” Acid would be a big no: some of these images already seem like an acid trip by themselves – to add acid would just make a good trip go bad. Ecstasy would be out, as well. You would strip naked to try to soar with the flying dolphin, and that would be embarrassing for you and the other audience members. Hallucinogens like mushrooms would also just freak you out, and going drunk would make you barf. So take my advice and go sober.

This particular show uses the entire 60-foot dome theater, so you are immersed in the scenery projected on the screen. The graphics are three-dimensional computer imagery, so even though you are not wearing 3-D glasses, it still looks and feels like you are there. The first song starts out with an alien landscape, reminiscent of the prints of snow leopards on the moon or Mars that were so popular in the early ’90s. Then you start to soar over the landscape. Because the show uses the entire projector, you have images behind, beside, and in front of you, creating a unique experience for the viewer, which makes me wonder if this will be the future of movies. Because I was completely in the dark, I was unable to take any detailed notes, so I only have memory to go by.

The second song to play was “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” The scene opens up with a dark and dreary-looking play fort with two children, whose opposing sides are represented with red and blue armies, and then the camera swoops down from the children to the toy armies, and the armies become really mean, and you see the travesties of war and battle. The band is U2; they’re not going to let you be entertained without a message.

Most of the songs/movies/videos do have a message. There is another video where you are part of a beautiful bucolic scene of nature and living in harmony with one another, and you back up to get the big picture, and the “planet” is the back of a woman – a mother earth. The camera zooms back to a close-up of her back, and the inhabitants of her planet are slowly starting to destroy her with pollution and war. They don’t go subtle with the symbolism on that one.

One of my favorites was one of the videos that did not have a message, but it did have a flying dolphin that had wings in place of fins and flew over a beautiful landscape of an alternate world. I do want to warn you about what I started to dub “spinning space”: It causes vertigo. The best solution that I found was to close your eyes and breathe deeply for a few seconds.

The U2 show is presented on Saturdays at 7 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults. After U2, there is a show for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I have yet to see it, but after watching the U2 show and thoroughly enjoying it, I definitely plan on making a second trip. You can also check out other movies and times for the planetarium by going to http://www.lasm.org/stage/html/mn_planetarium.html.