reapplying for the job\u2026 of the best band in the world<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 As a first step, the group brought back former producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno and issued the gripping, purposeful All That You Can\u2019t Leave Behind<\/i>.\u00a0 Next came the formal interview — the ensuing tour — and it quickly became clear U2 meant to land the job.\u00a0 <\/p>\nThe big innovation was the replacement of all the post-modern satirical excess of the Zoo TV and Popmart tours with a stripped down stage featuring a giant heart-shaped walkway extending out of the wings of the stage and halfway across the arena floor, with the audience on both sides of most of its circumference.\u00a0 The setup was designed to remove all other distractions and get back to what the band has always done best \u2013 pump out heart-pounding anthems of hope and pain and joy and sorrow that bring crowds to their feet over and over again.<\/p>\n
The opening duo of \u201cElevation\u201d and \u201cBeautiful Day\u201d sets the bar as high as any band ever could.\u00a0 The floor crowd erupts with the first notes and pogos all the way through the churning, hammering \u201cElevation\u201d and doesn\u2019t miss a beat as the band and audience feed on one another\u2019s energy all the way through the soaring \u201cBeautiful Day\u201d and the positively cataclysmic \u201cUntil The End Of The World.\u201d\u00a0 The ultimate compliment to their performance, though, is that the crowd stays in the palm of their hands even as they segue into the slower paces of the soulful \u201cStuck In The Moment You Can\u2019t Get Out Of\u201d and the soaring \u201cKite.\u201d<\/p>\n
The middle section of the show is highlighted by strong performances of album cuts like \u201cGone\u201d and \u201cNew York<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>\u201d and old favorites like the driving \u201cI Will Follow\u201d (the very first track on their 1980 debut album) and the raw \u201cSunday Bloody Sunday.\u201d\u00a0 Moments later, \u201cIn A Little While\u201d (which Bono touchingly dedicates to Joey Ramone) plays gentle yin to the hammering yang of \u201cDesire,\u201d which drops into an acoustic \u201cStay (Faraway So Close)\u201d\u2026 and then they\u2019re ready to blow the roof off the place once and for all.<\/p>\nThe Unforgettable Fire<\/i>\u2019s very best album track \u201cBad\u201d executes a steady, satisfying build until it bleeds right into \u201cWhere The Streets Have No Name,\u201d which finds Bono exhorting the crowd into a frenzy and then running a full lap around the heart-shaped walkway before bellowing out the song\u2019s first line \u201cI want to run\u201d as lights behind the band spin and send the entire arena into what feels like orbit among the stars.<\/p>\n
Oh yeah.\u00a0 And then they bring on the encores\u2026!<\/p>\n
The screeching-thunder opening chords of \u201cBullet The Blue Sky\u201d threaten to rip the building open, though the choruses take on a sort of trance-y cadence here under blood-red lights.\u00a0 Later, Bono turns the final section of the song from an indictment of US<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> intervention in Central America<\/st1:place> to a furious treatise on gun violence in the U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>, keying on the death of John Lennon at the hands of a madman with a cheap handgun.\u00a0 Then \u201cWith Or Without You\u201d keens and pleads as Bono pulls an appropriately overwhelmed fan out of the audience to lie flat on the walkway with him while he sings to the rafters.\u00a0 \u201cThe Fly\u201d starts out softer than on Achtung Baby<\/i>, easing through the first verse before exploding into the dirty-sweet chorus riff; an abridged \u201cWake Up Dead Man\u201d bravely plumbs the darkest corners of the band\u2019s collective faith; and then we\u2019re at the close.\u00a0 Is there a more fitting exit song for a band with the emotional character and ambition of U2 than the elegiac yet ultimately optimistic \u201cWalk On\u201d?\u00a0 I think not.<\/p>\nBesides superb cinematography and sharp editing, one of the cool tricks director Hamish Hamilton throws in is the Bono-cam, whereby every so often the scene will cut to the perspective offered by a pinhole black and white camera located in Bono\u2019s omnipresent sunglasses.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard not to get caught up the moment while catching glimpses of the scene from Bono\u2019s perspective at moments like his bullfight\/duel with The Edge far out in the center of the arena at the climax of the positively incendiary \u201cUntil The End Of The World.\u201d<\/p>\n
The June 2001 Boston show captured on this DVD is missing several personal favorites from the show I caught that November \u2013 \u201cMysterious Ways,\u201d \u201cPride (In The Name Of Love),\u201d \u201cI Still Haven\u2019t Found What I\u2019m Looking For\u201d \u2013 as well as uniquely post-9\/11 touches like the projected list of victims that scrolled down the giant screen during \u201cOne,\u201d which the band immediately followed with an impassioned \u201cPeace On Earth.\u201d\u00a0 But the two shows have this in common \u2013 a band at the height of its powers, coming out with something to prove to both its audience and itself, playing its gigantic heart out.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been to a lot of concerts; I\u2019ve also watched a lot of concert DVDs.\u00a0 Only the rarest of the latter manage to pull you directly into and make you feel a part of the event you\u2019re watching, to sweep you up in the surging emotions of the moment being chronicled.\u00a0 This one does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5708],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-41205","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-u2","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41205"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}