Let’s face it, it is not uncommon for the veteran and even 'vaguely’ veteran music types to release old concert footage as a deluxe-type DVD package. Aside from the obvious financial motivations behind such a move, there are other reasons for this, reasons which fall into an either/or type scenario.
A band 'either’ wants to remind viewers that at one point they actually really were a big deal 'or’ indeed the package is one of those more intimate affairs where the band can let those watching know that they started from humble club roots and it wasn’t always all about the stadiums.
U2 Live from Sydney is neither of the above. This particular outing, recorded in 1993, recalls a period in U2’s career when they were huge. Fast-forward 13 years to the present day and the Irish quartet are, well, still huge - and to think Popmart and emerging from a gargantuan lemon mid-gig had yet to happen.
By 1993 the preachy musings of The Joshua Tree era had been laid to rest and now the lads wanted to make you sit up and dance and think they were sexy but all of course it was all done in the best possible, yet ironic, taste.
Until now this particular 'gig’ had only been available on VHS but its DVD debut sees the concert with now with all manner of bells and whistles attached, with the film having been transferred from analogue to digital format yadda yadda.
And yes there are extras too, notably a trio of documentaries looking at the beast which was the Zoo TV tour and there is a video confessional ' a room where fans, yep you guessed it, confessed their inner most secrets to the whole world. Yippee.
The real treat of this DVD package is the gig itself, with Bono, Edge, Adam and Larry giving the world the first taste of U2 doing irony - bring to the masses the live versions their two albums from this U2 era, Achtung Baby and Zooropa. And you get Bono pretending to be the devil, or Macphisto, yes really, remember him. Crazy.
A band 'either’ wants to remind viewers that at one point they actually really were a big deal 'or’ indeed the package is one of those more intimate affairs where the band can let those watching know that they started from humble club roots and it wasn’t always all about the stadiums.
U2 Live from Sydney is neither of the above. This particular outing, recorded in 1993, recalls a period in U2’s career when they were huge. Fast-forward 13 years to the present day and the Irish quartet are, well, still huge - and to think Popmart and emerging from a gargantuan lemon mid-gig had yet to happen.
By 1993 the preachy musings of The Joshua Tree era had been laid to rest and now the lads wanted to make you sit up and dance and think they were sexy but all of course it was all done in the best possible, yet ironic, taste.
Until now this particular 'gig’ had only been available on VHS but its DVD debut sees the concert with now with all manner of bells and whistles attached, with the film having been transferred from analogue to digital format yadda yadda.
And yes there are extras too, notably a trio of documentaries looking at the beast which was the Zoo TV tour and there is a video confessional ' a room where fans, yep you guessed it, confessed their inner most secrets to the whole world. Yippee.
The real treat of this DVD package is the gig itself, with Bono, Edge, Adam and Larry giving the world the first taste of U2 doing irony - bring to the masses the live versions their two albums from this U2 era, Achtung Baby and Zooropa. And you get Bono pretending to be the devil, or Macphisto, yes really, remember him. Crazy.
