U2: 360 At The Rose Bowl

After catching the 360 show in Cardiff, I was eagerly anticipating the release of the concert on Blu Ray. Cant help but feel slightly disappointed.

The overall performance from the band is good, we all know Banjo's voice aint' what it used to be, which is excusable after so long in the trade. The major gripes are with the production.

Firstly, it seems that the director has had too many cameras at his disposal. The editing jumps far too quickly from one camera to another, mixed with arty-farty shots to a point where it really begins to get on your nerves after a while.

Secondly, much of the concert has a grain effect rendering for artistic purpose which sort of defeats the object of filming and releasing in HD. Also, most of the bonus footage is only in standard definition.

Finally, the biggest gripe, as mentioned before, the omission of Breathe as the opening track. The main feature seems to open half way through the second track!?!? No band entrance, no build up! Very strange. Who ever decided on this ought to have the contents of my Wheelie Bin tipped on their heads!

Overall, a decent release, could have been better with a little more care and attention. For fans and collectors. For those wanting to see a classic U2 gig, captured in all its glory and well presented, go for Zoo TV in Sydney or Elevation in Boston.

I am giving my opinions here as a U2 fan who went to the 1st Wembley 360 gig last year. And as the owner of 30+ concert DVD's (including 6 U2 concerts).

Starting with the good: The 2nd 'Extra's' disk is great, with some really good stuff on it especially the main 360 documentary. I would give this extra content disk 5 stars. But it's the inclusion of one thing on this extra content disk that is the start of my unhappiness with the main concert film on disk 1...

The 'bonus' track of Breathe on disk 2 is as all U2 fans know the opening song of the 360 shows. The song signals the entrance of the band 1 by 1 (Larry first starting up the drums, then Mr Clayton then Edge and finally Bono). And adding to it's importance is the music and video sequence just prior to this. David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' starts up and their is a little U2 backing piece called 'Soon' that follows it combined with a clock countdown that fires up on the big 360 video screen. This is a REALLY big and important opening to the show that sets the scene and excitement - but not only is it missing from this bonus track Breathe, but it is missing from the start of the main concert film which instead has been given the opening song as 'Get On Yer Boots' (boooo...... worst song on the NLOTH CD).

Why boys, why? Why have you taken a scalpel to this important bit of the concert? I think I speak for most U2 fans when I say I'd rather ditch the weak GOYB for Breath. And even if you did have to have GOYB instead of the much better Breath for disk running time purposes (can't see why but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt) then ok. But you've really ruined the opening of the concert by not having the aforementioned Bowie/Soon clock countdown.

Ok, so got that off my chest. But it gets worse. The editing of GOYB is a total abortion job. What was the editing team on for this first song? Acid? There are so many camera edits, changing rapidly from one cut to the next and so quickly that you only see a few seconds of one of the band before flying off to another shot. I'm not kidding when I say that it actually made me feel nauseous. And I've never had that sensation before. A Tears for Fears concert DVD was the worst i'd seen before - but this is in a different league. Truly awful editing in my opinion.

Now the good news. Strangely this lousy editing only lasts for that one song. By the time the 2nd song gets going the editing team have calmed down (or the effects of the acid tablet they had taken have worn off :) ). For the rest of the show the editing is better and the camera changes much slower. It's not in my opinion the best U2 concert representation I've seen though by any stretch. Even the Vertigo tour DVD from Chicago is superior, and the Vertigo Milan and Elevation Boston show are streets ahead. In fairness to the director I think the 360 show was probably a big challenge to shoot. There must have been a difficulty in getting such a huge stage with the distances involved recorded in a way to give some kind of show intimacy like the live audience had. So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt!

Some other criticisms:

The awesome majesty of the 360 stage spaceship is not really shown until way too far into the show. I would have liked to have seen more distant shots showing it's scale and things like the vertical lasers and the top of spire mirrorball. You don't really appreciate from the concert film the technical masterpiece that Willie Williams and Mark Fisher created for the boys. For example the Unforgettable Fire / City Of Blinding Lights / Vertigo segment when the video screen decends is not as spectacular as shown as it was in reality.

The film stock they have used is a bit too grainy. The performance was HD shot, but comparing the quality of the video here to the awesome quality of the recent Killers & Police concert DVD releases it falls far short of the best.

The U2 'baby' spaceman menu intervention between encores is silly and needless.

A minor one this, but the pictures in the booklet are also naff quality. Again they are grainy and lack clarity and focus. Not in a good way like if Anton Corbijn does them, but in an amature way like if I had taken the photos myself! Come on Tara Mullen - please pull your socks up with regards the quality of the packaging & presentation. It's not good enough for a band like U2 (the richest band in the world to boot) to have cheap packaging.

Ok, so that's me done moaning. Here are the good points:

The audio recording mix is really good. It has a rawness to it that I've never heard on a U2 concert DVD before. It's like they've decided to not over-process the sound in post-production and that's great IMO. You can hear Edge's guitar in a more intimate way than before - warts and all. That's appreciated.

The songs are great of course (notwithstanding the slightly naff GOYB). It' great to hear The Unforgettable Fire. In fact that trio segment of Unforgettable Fire / City Of Blinding Lights / Vertigo is an awesome one and real highlight. THe epic Moment of Surrender is a spine tingler too (why was it not the 1st single boys... Should have been brave and released as Brian Eno said).

Also uber cool is Bono and THAT JACKET in Ultraviolet! Fricken' Lazers man, in a coat! Only he could pull that off.

Another great shot is when the helicopter filming the show flies right across another highup camera. An amazing image that.

So to my star ratings:
Packaging - 3
Concert film - 3.5 (would have been a 4 but for the unforgivable butchering of the opening of the show)
Extra content disk - 5

So that averages out at around 3.5 / 4 - and as three stars is too harsh I will give it 4. But if there was any way I could do 3.5 I would.

The bottom line for me is that this concert has not been edited/filmed in a way that is either sympathetic or representative of what was an awesome live experience - and as such it is in no way U2's finest concert on film.

I'll happily go and put on my flame-proof jacket now - can I have some lazers in it please to cushion the blows that doubtless are about to come my way ;)

Watched this last night, and I have to say I was hugely disappointed. The sound mix is fine, the selection of songs is good and I'm sure U2's performance was excellent. Unfortunately, the visuals on this disc are very poor indeed. The picture doesn't really look as if it is even in HD a lot of the time - very blurry and poorly focussed. The director spends far too much time showing you arty shots of lighting effects superimposed over the band, or shots from the crowd with the band obscured by people's heads and hands. When you do get to see the band, the images have a very artificial look to them, as if the artists have been digitally superimposed on the backgrounds. There's also a lot of cheesy 70's style shots of all 4 band members superimposed, or blended together - none of this enhances the experience at all, and you're left with something that looks like a showcase of the director's digital studio techniques, rather than the band.

I'm sure there are better videos of U2 than this - this one is really best avoided.