U2

U2 - Rattle & Hum [HD DVD]

Rattle and Hum is not a film for anyone looking for an introduction to Irish band U2's career in the 1980s, but it is a vibrant portrait of an established group making its musical pilgrimage through the America it has always imagined through blues, gospel, and early rock 'n' roll. Filmmaker Phil Joanou (Heaven's Prisoners), a veteran music-video director and maker of the distractingly kinetic Three O'Clock High, finds a suitable outlet for his high energy in this juggernaut of a journey, which finds U2 collaborating with a black gospel choir and B.B. King, recording inside the legendary Sun Records studio, dropping by Graceland, and in a moment of fearlessness, performing the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" to exorcise Charles Manson's sick claim on the song. --Tom Keogh

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 - Rattle and Hum

A concert movie on an unprecedented scale Rattle And Hum captures U2-on and off the stage - during their triumphant Joshua Tree tour. From the giant technicolor stadium celebrations to the black-and-white intensity of the indoor shows this is U2 at thier best. Follow the group across America exploring new influences playing with the legendary B.B. King on a journey which takes them from Dublin to Graceland from San Francisco to the streets of Harlem from The Joshua Tree to Rattle and Hum.System Requirements:Running Time: 98 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 2002 Paramount.Format: DVD AUDIO Genre: MUSIC DVD/CONCERTS Rating: PG-13 UPC: 097363222842 Manufacturer No: 322284

Rattle and Hum is not a film for anyone looking for an introduction to Irish band U2's career in the 1980s, but it is a vibrant portrait of an established group making its musical pilgrimage through the America it has always imagined through blues, gospel, and early rock 'n' roll. Filmmaker Phil Joanou (Heaven's Prisoners), a veteran music-video director and maker of the distractingly kinetic Three O'Clock High, finds a suitable outlet for his high energy in this juggernaut of a journey, which finds U2 collaborating with a black gospel choir and B.B. King, recording inside the legendary Sun Records studio, dropping by Graceland, and in a moment of fearlessness, performing the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" to exorcise Charles Manson's sick claim on the song. --Tom Keogh

U2 - Zoo TV, Live From Sydney

Zoo TV represents U2 at their most ambitious. The multimedia event combines two stages with live music, pre-recorded tracks, and 36 screens flashing an array of words and images. (Video artists include Kevin Godley, Anton Corbijn, and Brian Eno.) The theatricality extends to the quartet themselves, since Bono, as "The Fly," enters the scene in black patent leather--shades of '68 Elvis--while Adam Clayton sports a platinum mohawk. In order to recreate the experience for the home viewer, slogans are superimposed over footage from this 1993 engagement, e.g. "question everything," "this is not a rehearsal," etc. As Bono quips, "The latest and greatest in software, hardware, and menswear--we've got it all here." With so much going on, the most dynamic material tends to work best, like "The Real Thing," "Bullet the Blue Sky," and "Mysterious Ways," complete with belly dancer (in keeping with the song's Moroccan-set video). The foursome also tackles a few covers, like Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love" and Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love." Towards the end of the latter, Reed appears via video monitor to sing along. Arguably, the whole Mister MacPhisto thing--Bono as satanic lounge lizard---doesn't quite work, but U2 deserves props for taking chances when most bands in their position would be resting on their laurels. With the accent on material from Achtung Baby and Zooropa,Zoo TV: Live From Sydney first appeared on VHS in 1994 and garnered a Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

1. Opening Track
2. Opening Sequence
3. Zoo Station
4. The Fly
5. Even Better Than The Real Thing
6. Mysterious Ways
7. One
8. Unchained Melody
9. Until The End Of The World
10. New Year's Day
11. Numb
12. Angel Of Harlem
13. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
14. Satellite Of Love
15. Dirty Day
16. Bullet The Blue Sky
17. Running To Stand Still
18. Where The Streets Have No Name
19. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
20. Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car
21. Show Me The Way To Go Home
22. Lemon
23. With Or Without You
24. Love Is Blindness
25. Can't Help Falling In Love

U218 Videos

1. Beautiful Day
2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
3. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
4. With Or Without You
5. Vertigo
6. New Year's Day
7. Mysterious Ways
8. Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of - US Version
9. Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of - International Version
10. Where The Streets Have No Name
11. Sweetest Thing
12. Sunday Bloody Sunday
13. One
14. Desire
15. Walk On - International Version
16. Walk On - US Version
17. Elevation
18. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
19. The Saints Are Coming (U2 and Green Day)
20. The Making Of Vertigo [Bonus Content]
21. A Story Of One [Bonus Content]
22. Beautiful Day - Eze version [Bonus Content]
23. Pride (In The Name Of Love) - Slane Castle version [Bonus Content]
24. Vertigo - Lisbon version [Bonus Content]
25. Vertigo - HQ version [Bonus Content]
26. One - Buffalo version [Bonus Content]
27. One - Restaurant version [Bonus Content]
28. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own - Single Take version [Bonus Content]

U2 - Rattle & Hum [Blu-ray]

Paramount U2 Rattle and Hum (Blu-ray)
A concert movie on an unprecedented scale. Rattle and Hum captures U2-on and off the stage-during their triumphant Joshua Tree tour. From the giant technicolor stadium celebrations to the black-and-white intensity of the indoor shows, this is U2 at their best. Follow the group across America, exploring new influences,playing with the legendary B.B. King, on a journey which takes them from Dublin to Graceland, from San Francisco to the streets of Harlem, from The Joshua Tree to Rattle and Hum.

Rattle and Hum is not a film for anyone looking for an introduction to Irish band U2's career in the 1980s, but it is a vibrant portrait of an established group making its musical pilgrimage through the America it has always imagined through blues, gospel, and early rock 'n' roll. Filmmaker Phil Joanou (Heaven's Prisoners), a veteran music-video director and maker of the distractingly kinetic Three O'Clock High, finds a suitable outlet for his high energy in this juggernaut of a journey, which finds U2 collaborating with a black gospel choir and B.B. King, recording inside the legendary Sun Records studio, dropping by Graceland, and in a moment of fearlessness, performing the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" to exorcise Charles Manson's sick claim on the song. --Tom Keogh

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 - Zoo TV Live from Sydney (Limited Edition)

Zoo TV represents U2 at their most ambitious. The multimedia event combines two stages with live music, pre-recorded tracks, and 36 screens flashing an array of words and images. (Video artists include Kevin Godley, Anton Corbijn, and Brian Eno.) The theatricality extends to the quartet themselves, since Bono, as "The Fly," enters the scene in black patent leather--shades of '68 Elvis--while Adam Clayton sports a platinum mohawk. In order to recreate the experience for the home viewer, slogans are superimposed over footage from this 1993 engagement, e.g. "question everything," "this is not a rehearsal," etc. As Bono quips, "The latest and greatest in software, hardware, and menswear--we've got it all here." With so much going on, the most dynamic material tends to work best, like "The Real Thing," "Bullet the Blue Sky," and "Mysterious Ways," complete with belly dancer (in keeping with the song's Moroccan-set video). The foursome also tackles a few covers, like Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love" and Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love." Towards the end of the latter, Reed appears via video monitor to sing along. Arguably, the whole Mister MacPhisto thing--Bono as satanic lounge lizard---doesn't quite work, but U2 deserves props for taking chances when most bands in their position would be resting on their laurels. With the accent on material from Achtung Baby and Zooropa,Zoo TV: Live From Sydney first appeared on VHS in 1994 and garnered a Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Disc One

1. Opening Track
2. Opening Sequence
3. Zoo Station
4. The Fly
5. Even Better Than The Real Thing
6. Mysterious Ways
7. One
8. Unchained Melody
9. Until The End Of The World
10. New Year's Day
11. Numb
12. Angel Of Harlem
13. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
14. Satellite Of Love
15. Dirty Day
16. Bullet The Blue Sky
17. Running To Stand Still
18. Where The Streets Have No Name
19. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
20. Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car
21. Show Me The Way To Go Home
22. Lemon
23. With Or Without You
24. Love Is Blindness
25. Can't Help Falling In Love Disc 2

1. Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World
2. A Fistful Of Zoo TV
3. Desire
4. Zoo TV - The Inside Story
5. Trabantland
6. The Fly
7. Even Better Than The Real Thing
8. Video Confessional
9. Numb
10. DVD-Rom
11. DVD Credits
12. Houston Timelapse
13. Abort Sequence
14. Rockumentary