U2

U2 - Vertigo 2005 - Live From Chicago

When he isn't rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kofi Annan and George W. Bush, the activist Bono has a side project he likes to call "U2." U2: Vertigo - Live From Chicago captures the band on two nights during their tour to support How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Once known for taking the most technologically extravagant shows on the road, the boys from Dublin have settled into a comfortable role of rock elder statesmen, placing emphasis on the anthems and weepers of their considerable body of work rather than gigantic lemons that descend from the rafters. Always a band that reflects the zeitgeist, this concert film finds them at their earnest best, with comparatively stripped-down stage production and superbly recorded sound. To call U2's more rocking songs "anthems" borders on understatement, and it is their anthems that ring most exuberantly in Chicago's United Center. Bono understandably looks heavier and wearier than in days past, perhaps due to the weight of the world he has hoisted onto his shoulders. While the icon roams the circular stage around the Metallica-style "snakepit," The Edge, drummer Larry Mullen Jr., and bassist Adam Clayton pin the songs to the floorboards and take them to the heavens. How can these guys not play fantastically together? Standouts include hits both classic and newly minted, among them "Beautiful Day," "New Year's Day," "Pride (In the Name of Love)," and "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Late in the concert Bono makes his appeal to the leaders of the world to end extreme poverty, invoking the imagination of a country that put a man on the moon. Ingeniously, he asks the crowd to take out their cell phones and text-message an account that operates as a petition to end world hunger. With the stadium aglow in LED screens, the band smoothly glides into "One." Elsewhere, Bono invokes religion, donning a headband decorated with Islamic, Jewish, and Christian symbols, assuming the appearance of a grizzled No Nukes protester circa 1975. (Perhaps this is a new persona akin to The Fly?) Kidding aside, these may be days in which we need the uplift and passion of U2 more than the 1990s, when they dressed up as the Village People and occasionally performed at K-Mart. Not suitable for those who don't wish to save the world. --Ryan Boudinot

"U2 Vertigo//2005" is without doubt the hottest tour of the year!! Ticket demand has been phenomenal and by the end of 2005 U2 will have played to 3.25 million people! "Vertigo//2005, U2 Live From Chicago" the DVD captures this unique experience.

The DVD features 23 electric performances, with songs drawn from across the bands entire career - from first album fan favorites such as "Electric Co," through U2 classics such as "Pride...," "New Years Day" and "Where the Streets Have No Name" and right up to date with "Vertigo" the smash hit that launched this years #1 studio album "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb."

Directed by Hamish Hamilton

DVD TRACK LISTING
1. City of Blinding Lights
2. Vertigo
3. Elevation
4. Cry/Electric Co.
5. An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart
6. Beautiful Day
7. New Year's Day
8. Miracle Drug
9. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
10. Love and Peace or Else
11. Sunday Bloody Sunday
12. Bullet The Blue Sky
13. Running To Standstill
14. Pride In The Name Of Love
15. Where The Streets Have No Name
16. One
17. Zoo Station
18. The Fly
19. Mysterious Ways
20. All Because Of You
21. Original Of The Species
22. Yahweh
23. 40

U2 Go Home - Live From Slane Castle (Limited Edition Packaging)

U2 - PopMart Live from Mexico City (Limited Edition)

This stunning concert documentary sheds fresh light on U2's controversial 1997 Popmart tour, the Irish rockers' gaudy, epic trek in support of their electronica-edged Pop album. Mixed reactions to the pulsing, dance friendly music on Pop and disappointing ticket sales to stateside Popmart shows were interpreted as evidence that the band's new sound and look were merely opportunistic.

Yet one need only view Popmart Live alongside the Rolling Stones' contemporaneous Bridges to Babylon 1998 long-form video to grasp U2's underlying passion and conviction. While Popmart trumps the Stones (ringmasters of the original rock & roll circus and among the principal inventors of stadium rock) in terms of sheer scale, U2's presentation still strikes thematic sparks missing from the Stones' more conservative designs for the Bridges stage.

With its vast, ramped stage and enveloping video backdrop, the Popmart set serves the band's posttechno impulses, yet the music remains rooted in U2's passionate, high-flying rock style, using its skittering dance rhythms and garish pop-art motifs to support the band's underlying themes, not replace them. Filmed in Mexico City before a huge reverent crowd, the concert balances close-ups against the quartet's often mesmerizing staging effects; the camera work sustains a sense of the show's outsized physical setting, while expertly closing the distance between us and the band.

The band also shrewdly integrates older songs into the pumped up, burnished arranging style heard on Pop while stripping down newer material in less varnished, more vulnerable settings. A series of duets with just Bono and the Edge on acoustic guitars underscores that strategy. --Sam Sutherland

U2's PopMart Live from Mexico City is released on DVD for the first time on September 18th in two formats, a Special Limited Edition 2-DVD Deluxe Packaging version and a single disc, Standard version. Described as a sci-fi disco supermarket, the PopMart Tour opened in its "spiritual home", Las Vegas on April 25, 1997. All trash and kitsch, PopMart introduced a giant mirrorball lemon, a 100 foot cocktail stick - complete with olive, and the works of Lichtenstein, Warhol and Haring, to a live rock audience: a production experience never quite seen before. Filmed at the Foro Sol Autodromo in Mexico City on December 3, 1997, PopMart Live from Mexico City was directed by David Mallet and first released on video the following year. Both the video and audio have been digitally remastered and the DVD includes a brand new 5.1 surround mix in DTS and Dolby Digital of the concert. The single disc, Standard version will contain only the concert material and the Special Limited Edition 2-DVD version will feature on the 2nd bonus disc, nine previously unreleased live audio and video tracks, four documentaries, a PopMart tour visuals montage, and DVD-ROM extras.

U2 Go Home - Live from Slane Castle (Jewel Case)

U2: Popmart Live from Mexico City

U2's PopMart Live from Mexico City is released on DVD for the first time on September 18th in two formats, a Special Limited Edition 2-DVD Deluxe Packaging version and a single disc, Standard version. Described as a sci-fi disco supermarket, the PopMart Tour opened in its "spiritual home", Las Vegas on April 25, 1997. All trash and kitsch, PopMart introduced a giant mirrorball lemon, a 100 foot cocktail stick - complete with olive, and the works of Lichtenstein, Warhol and Haring, to a live rock audience: a production experience never quite seen before. Filmed at the Foro Sol Autodromo in Mexico City on December 3, 1997, PopMart Live from Mexico City was directed by David Mallet and first released on video the following year. Both the video and audio have been digitally remastered and the DVD includes a brand new 5.1 surround mix in DTS and Dolby Digital of the concert.

U2 - Elevation Tour 2001 - Live from Boston [Region 2]

After the huge, lavish spectacles of previous tours, U2 decided to tone things down a bit for Elevation, which accompanied their All That You Can't Leave Behind album. Just as the album marked a return to a simpler more stripped-down sound, the live shows returned to smaller venues and a more intimate show, and from start to finish Elevation provides a welcome reminder of what a great band this is. Recorded in Boston, the show features a healthy mix of new and old songs, which were written over the course of two decades but sound as fresh and relevant as ever. From classics like "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Where the Streets Have No Name," and "I Will Follow" right up to instant favorites such as "Beautiful Day" and "Elevation," every track is stunningly executed. If you saw the concerts, this is a worthy and lasting souvenir; if you didn't, watch this and you might be kicking yourself. --Helen Marquis, Amazon.co.uk

Vertigo 05 Live from Chicago

When he isn't rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kofi Annan and George W. Bush, the activist Bono has a side project he likes to call "U2." U2: Vertigo - Live From Chicago captures the band on two nights during their tour to support How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Once known for taking the most technologically extravagant shows on the road, the boys from Dublin have settled into a comfortable role of rock elder statesmen, placing emphasis on the anthems and weepers of their considerable body of work rather than gigantic lemons that descend from the rafters. Always a band that reflects the zeitgeist, this concert film finds them at their earnest best, with comparatively stripped-down stage production and superbly recorded sound. To call U2's more rocking songs "anthems" borders on understatement, and it is their anthems that ring most exuberantly in Chicago's United Center. Bono understandably looks heavier and wearier than in days past, perhaps due to the weight of the world he has hoisted onto his shoulders. While the icon roams the circular stage around the Metallica-style "snakepit," The Edge, drummer Larry Mullen Jr., and bassist Adam Clayton pin the songs to the floorboards and take them to the heavens. How can these guys not play fantastically together? Standouts include hits both classic and newly minted, among them "Beautiful Day," "New Year's Day," "Pride (In the Name of Love)," and "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Late in the concert Bono makes his appeal to the leaders of the world to end extreme poverty, invoking the imagination of a country that put a man on the moon. Ingeniously, he asks the crowd to take out their cell phones and text-message an account that operates as a petition to end world hunger. With the stadium aglow in LED screens, the band smoothly glides into "One." Elsewhere, Bono invokes religion, donning a headband decorated with Islamic, Jewish, and Christian symbols, assuming the appearance of a grizzled No Nukes protester circa 1975. (Perhaps this is a new persona akin to The Fly?) Kidding aside, these may be days in which we need the uplift and passion of U2 more than the 1990s, when they dressed up as the Village People and occasionally performed at K-Mart. Not suitable for those who don't wish to save the world. --Ryan Boudinot

"U2 Vertigo//2005" is without doubt the hottest tour of the year!! Ticket demand has been phenomenal and by the end of 2005 U2 will have played to 3.25 million people! "Vertigo//2005, U2 Live From Chicago" the DVD captures this unique experience.

The DVD features 23 electric performances, with songs drawn from across the bands entire career - from first album fan favorites such as "Electric Co," through U2 classics such as "Pride...," "New Years Day" and "Where the Streets Have No Name" and right up to date with "Vertigo" the smash hit that launched this years #1 studio album "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb."

Directed by Hamish Hamilton

DVD TRACK LISTING
1. City of Blinding Lights
2. Vertigo
3. Elevation
4. Cry/Electric Co.
5. An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart
6. Beautiful Day
7. New Year's Day
8. Miracle Drug
9. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
10. Love and Peace or Else
11. Sunday Bloody Sunday
12. Bullet The Blue Sky
13. Running To Standstill
14. Pride In The Name Of Love
15. Where The Streets Have No Name
16. One
17. Zoo Station
18. The Fly
19. Mysterious Ways
20. All Because Of You
21. Original Of The Species
22. Yahweh
23. 40

***This Limited Edition Double Disc Set comes in special packaging and includes a bonus second disc featuring a `behind-the-scenes' documentary as well as other exclusive unseen performance elements.***

Classic Albums - U2: The Joshua Tree

An outstanding entry in the Classic Albums video series, this hourlong documentary, produced in 1999, assembles the creators of U2's The Joshua Tree to comment about the musical magic that occurred a dozen years earlier in a home studio in Dublin. Merging past and present, coproducers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, mixer Steve Lillywhite, and guitarist The Edge isolate separate tracks on the album's master tapes to illustrate how some of U2's greatest songs were layered with each individual's crucial contributions. Bono listens in while Lanois deconstructs the masters, appearing genuinely shy about his vocal tracks but eloquent in describing the album as "not Irish at all" in its innovative sound, but "very Irish" in terms of the emotions that inspired it. Later, The Edge describes the "cinematic" sound of the album, intended to transport the listener to a specific physical location based on each song's mood and atmosphere.

Bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen weigh in with illuminating comments, and the hour offers an abundance of video excerpts, concert footage, and memorable anecdotes. Eno sets the record straight on the torturous process of recording "Where the Streets Have No Name" (he almost "accidentally" erased the master tape in hopes of starting from scratch), and Bono admits to a heavy Led Zeppelin influence on "Bullet the Blue Sky." Archival footage shows the recording in progress (one wishes there were more of it), and what emerges from this collective reminiscence is an enlightening study of mutual chemistry and fruitful collaboration. Upon viewing this video, another listening to The Joshua Tree will be more rewarding than ever. --Jeff Shannon

After toiling for years as an underground cult favorite with a rabidly devoted fan base, Irish rock band U2 finally broke through to mainstream success on the strength of their 1987 opus THE JOSHUA TREE. Released in March of that year, THE JOSHUA TREE became U2's first number-one album and won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The record's crossover appeal stems from its emotional exploration of universal topics such as love ("With or Without You"), death ("One Tree Hill"), and spiritual longing ("I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For") without sacrificing any of the trademark social consciousness of the band's earlier albums ("Bullet the Blue Sky," "Mothers of the Disappeared"). This episode of the CLASSIC ALBUMS series details the making of U2's chart-topping album through interviews with band members, archival film footage, and live performances. Rating: Not Rated Content: n/a Runtime: 60 minutes DVD Code: Region 1 US, CA Genre: Musical & Performing Arts Color: Color Extra Info: DVD Features: Keep Case Full Frame - 1.33 Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo - English EDITORIAL REVIEWS: ADDITIONAL PRODUCTION NOTES: Director: Producer:

U2 - Achtung Baby : A Classic Album Under Review

This DVD contains the ultimate review and critical analysis of U2's most pivotal album. It offers a previously unobtainable level of insight into the band during the recording of their most dynamic and well respected album. Via the use of live footage,

Popmart - Live from Mexico City [import]

This stunning concert documentary sheds fresh light on U2's controversial 1997 Popmart tour, the Irish rockers' gaudy, epic trek in support of their electronica-edged Pop album. Mixed reactions to the pulsing, dance friendly music on Pop and disappointing ticket sales to stateside Popmart shows were interpreted as evidence that the band's new sound and look were merely opportunistic.

Yet one need only view Popmart Live alongside the Rolling Stones' contemporaneous Bridges to Babylon 1998 long-form video to grasp U2's underlying passion and conviction. While Popmart trumps the Stones (ringmasters of the original rock & roll circus and among the principal inventors of stadium rock) in terms of sheer scale, U2's presentation still strikes thematic sparks missing from the Stones' more conservative designs for the Bridges stage.

With its vast, ramped stage and enveloping video backdrop, the Popmart set serves the band's posttechno impulses, yet the music remains rooted in U2's passionate, high-flying rock style, using its skittering dance rhythms and garish pop-art motifs to support the band's underlying themes, not replace them. Filmed in Mexico City before a huge reverent crowd, the concert balances close-ups against the quartet's often mesmerizing staging effects; the camera work sustains a sense of the show's outsized physical setting, while expertly closing the distance between us and the band.

The band also shrewdly integrates older songs into the pumped up, burnished arranging style heard on Pop while stripping down newer material in less varnished, more vulnerable settings. A series of duets with just Bono and the Edge on acoustic guitars underscores that strategy. --Sam Sutherland