U2 360° At The Rose Bowl [Blu-ray] [2010]

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 - 3Concert film - 3.5 (would have been a 4 but for the unforgivable butchering of the opening of the show)Extra content disk - 5So 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 ;)

After the obligatory tour, the essential live video. U2 have documented every tour for the past 25 years on video : and here is U2's most cinematic, enormous tour. 360 is a unique proposition - a night spent in the round with no front or back, and a good view from everywhere in the venue : there is no line on the horizon, in the cosmos, just an immersive, surrounding everything. This is what 360 means.After 30 years of this stuff, I suppose the motive is to make it interesting. And if you're an artist, or a musician, music and art is what you do. In some ways this is U2 with the world's biggest playset, off exploring somewhere.Originally webcast, now rethought, re-edited, and re-mixed, this DVD can be a frustrating watch : the editing is jerky, with too many atmospheric out of focus shots, too many closeups, too many quick-cut fractions, and some of the `impossible zoom' shots that take anyone with a fraction of understanding out of the verisimilitude of the moment. Not only that, but the 360 show is the world's biggest, and most ambitious stage. It deserves to be seen, to be enjoyed, to be luxuriated slowly, as it is, to be frank, the most impressive, and imposing rock staging I've ever seen - a veritable battleship of music. 360 needs scale, and this presentation sometimes misses the sheer scope and size of this. But 360 captures something nothing else does : the heart and the beat. And helicopters.The camera pans over the huge stage, rises across the Rose Bowl, takes the vista in, of this enormous Gaudi-esque Claw that dances in a sea of light in the middle of the football stadium, and sets it in the context. And then you jump cut for a fraction of a second to an out of focus shot of the bassist's fingers. Style supercedes substance sometimes. But not often enough. The eternal battle of the concert film is to capture the spectacle or the spirit - and it is rare that one can do both.Whilst this frenetic editing captures the spirit of the show as you do from the floor, a plastic-beaker drinking evening of jumping and airpunching, it misses the presentation of the show as it feels from the top of the stands. The spectacle itself.Bono has his moves worked out, the angles, the second-hand, instinctive stagecraft -so much so that perhaps he has reached the instinctual zone of reaction and action that a footballer occupies his whole life, where there is no space or time to think, just to be. Just try not to see if there are any closeups of Bono's shoes. You won't see them.There's a moment in "Beautiful Day" where almost the entire audience reaches to the stage and Bono encapsulates the ethos of music in one fell swoop : "Touch me. Take me to that other place.", as if pleading to be healed by Jesus. What that other place is is never clear, but it exists, if only as the mythical 'somewhere'.The songs are the same, yet different - new contexts and new arrangements, new flourishes and new age. "I'll Go Crazy" is reworked from a hangover to a late night high speed disco train in a stunning moment of revision, all thudding drums, bongos, and thick bass that drives the night forward. When the screen contracts and stretches as a concertina, resembling some kind of ancient lantern, and the lighting is set to an epileptic recreation of a nuclear explosion in "The Unforgettable Fire", the effect is not just at the level of an emotional or intellectual truth but some kind of cerebral, thematic whole - everything connects in everything. War is just a spectacle for the television.The final strait of the main set sees the set change, expand, the stage become a cone of light and the songs become some kind of hymn, mantra, or something. The songs become more than they were ever meant to mean, a third dimension that really only ever exists for that moment, the space between the songs, the band, and the audience : to see it on a screen recreates that sense of community, but in the same way that a photograph can never be as real as reality itself. There is a moment there, where the band takes you beyond the music, to some sense of community. This is one of the reasons U2 are one of the best, if not the best, live band on the planet by now : they unify 80,000 strangers into one moment of short communion. One, but not the same.No amount of video can capture that moment : when the whole stadium is united by a brief, intangible spirit.The encore is business as usual : the time machine of "Ultraviolet", "With or Without You" , and the closer - "Moment of Surrender" : the refrain that sticks in my mind is that of the exodus due to happen as the stadium empties."I did not notice the passersby. And they did not notice me".In the future, people will talk of U2 amongst the greats of Mozart, Amadeus, The Beatles. And they will deserve to be there : and "360" is, for its minor faults of editing, an important snapshot of one night in their lives at this stage of their journey. The point is not to arrive, but what you see on the way. What a view.Extras : the first song of the set "Breathe" is only on the deluxe editions, alongside a fine selection of bonus documentaries, extra videos, interviews, and general stuff. Whilst there is a truly amazing documentary hiding inside a U2 tour, none of the material on here captures it. But it provides a well rounded perspective on the tour.. The single DVD contains just the music : and is more than serviceable if that is all you are interested in. Either version is recommended.

Another unique concert U2 DVD!After one more U2 masterpiece, "No Line On The Horizon" managed, as always, to create a new magic with the tour "U2 360°Tour"!One of the most important moments in the history of U2, a moment that every true fan of U2 will always remember, is finally, return of, for me, the best U2 song ever, "The Unforgettable Fire", perfectly sung and played in the ambient and emotional version.An unforgettable and unique moments are: first "Moment of Surrender" probably one of the best U2 songs ever, and definitely the best "No line" thing, the next one is always mandatory and epic "Until The End Of The World ", another memorable moment for every U2 fan, is the return of "Ultra Violet" on the set list....The only criticism is the lack of incredible song "Breathe" with which they started almost every concert on the same tour. The decision of which probably does not agree any real U2 fan and will always remain a mystery, why was left out from the concert DVD and put it on the bonus dvd?Despite these objections, U2 has recorded another one unique and eternal concert DVD!!!I m ready, I m ready for what s next ?

Great show and immense venue.The direction sometimes chooses shots to try to get you to feel as part of the crowd but just ends up making you unable to see the band.The picture quality is sometimes grainy due to the dark shots producing a lot of noise which is exacerbated by the blue ray definition.Overall an amazing set and show but a shame the HD quality wasn’t in the producers mind