U2.

People either love them or hate them.  I’ve rarely found anyone who was on the fence.  I’ve always loved them, so I could never quite figure out what people disliked so much about them.  Was it the overexposure?  Was it the serious themes of their early albums?  Was it the perceived pompousness of Bono?   

I never could get to the bottom of it, but myself, I could always look past any and all of those things.  In every conversation I’ve ever had with a detractor, the one thing I’ve never heard anyone say was that U2 was a bad band to see live.  In truth, their showmanship has been one of the things that has allowed me to forgive the albums that I felt were mediocre at best.    

It was apparent back when they originally released their Live at Red Rocks EP and accompanying videotape.  These four Dubliners created an atmosphere akin to a revival in the cold and rain of the Red Rocks Amphitheater.  People were losing their shit watching U2 play and they only had three albums out, the last of which was just barely starting to get some radio play in America. 

Fast forward five years and U2 was easily the biggest band in the world, playing stadiums globally.  I had seen them on their first few jaunts through the US in relatively small venues (the University of Southern Florida basketball venue comes to mind as the best of those early shows).  When they made the move to stadiums I started to wonder if that same electricity would transfer over to the larger venues.   

Over the next few years my question was repeatedly answered with a “yes”.  I saw them play with BB King in Yokosuka, Japan and bring an overly polite Japanese crowd to their feet in no time, screaming for more.  I saw them play the Georgia Dome behind Achtung Baby and even though my seats were all the way in the back of the stadium, the show still blew me away.  The reason being, U2 learned to balance that righteous old-time religion feel with the overwhelming spectacle of a big time rock show.  Four men on a humongous stage somehow were able to make 80,000 people feel like they were part of the show.  That’s extremely hard to do but it comes naturally for this band, in large part due to Bono.   

After that show, I decided not to see them again for a while.  I figured there was no way to top that show.  For crying out loud, they had suspended cars from cranes to act as the spotlights and put up humongous video screens!  What they hell could they possibly do next? 

Enter the Popmart tour.  I elected to skip it, but now, having seen the U2 Popmart Live From Mexico City DVD, I’m kicking myself ten years later.  Holy shit what a spectacle!  Chronicling what would essentially be the last of their tours to push the envelope musically and visually this DVD captures a great band that is simply hitting on all cylinders.  The twenty-five song set covers old faves like “I Will Follow” and “New Year’s Day” (songs they had ceased to play on the previous two or three tours) as well as later hits like “Staring at the Sun” and “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”.  Throughout the DVD, you get a sense of the overwhelming spectacle of the stage which includes a 170ft by 56ft LED screen with 150,000 pixels of constantly changing imagery, a gigantic mirrored lemon throwing out sparkles and the towering golden arch that pokes fun at McDonald’s and consumerism in general.   

However if this was all a visual feast, the DVD would be a failure.  The fact is, musically U2 played one of their best shows ever in Mexico City and it’s not a by-the-numbers affair.  They play with arrangements, they throw in nuances of other musical styles and they reinvent themselves as proto-rave rock giants.  It’s one of those sets you want to rip to mp3 so you can listen to it on your iPod. 

If you’re a fan at all, you can’t go wrong picking up this DVD. 

Presentation 
Amazing.  Seriously, it’s bright, colorful and well shot.  The audio is clear and clean  (I listened in DTS 5.1 Surround) and sounded brilliant through my home theater system. 

Extras 
There are none.  That’s the only drawback.  Some backstage footage would have been nice or even some token PDF of the band’s catalog with info on release dates and units sold would have been something.  But it’s a bare bones affair.