U2 Does It Again!!!

ZOO TV was one of the greatest, most outragous tour in history and this video documents that well. There's really no way to descibe it. U2 wastes no time in bombarding you noise, random video, and lots of flashing lights, only to take it all away and do a brilliant acoustic set on a B-stage halfway through the show. Bono's characters, The Fly and Mr. MacPhisto, are both crazy and entertaining. It's hard to imagine this is the same guy in the cowboy hat and leather vest from Rattle and Hum, but he's just as amazing, if a little bit crazy.

I get the feeling that this video gives you a better show than going to the actual concert would've, although I can't say considering I was only in Kindergarten when it was filmed. This is one of my all-time favorite videos and I HIGHLY recommend it. I only wish I could get it on DVD.

...a magic night...

...this is the best concert, by anyone, ever. Period. Fortunately for me, I picked this one up on laserdisc in '94, and its the best buy I've ever done. At least I can enjoy it in all its digital splendor. I don't know about the quality of this tape, but you should pick it up anyway, to get a small glimps of the wonder that was the ZOO-TV tour. I saw it live in Oslo, and it's a night I will never forget...

"Ambition bites the nails of success."

If somehow you were living in a cave during the early 90's, you probably still would have heard of ZOO TV, the most ambitious tour in history. Just in case you don't know much about it, here's some background. U2 were the biggest band in the world in the 80's, but they got sick of their holier-than-thou image and making music with the simple "3 chords and the truth" style that defined their music, and which they conquered the world with in the 80's. The band nearly broke up while making "Achtung Baby," in 1991. The band survived but knew it was time for a change, in order to keep themselves and their massive fan base interested. They decided to become and simultaneously parody decadent rock-stars. To do this, they staged the most ambitious, decadent and awesome tour in history (and dated supermodels including the bassist, Adam, hooking up with Naomi Campbell, yup, Naomi:-). ZOO TV used over 36 video monitors (to parody MTV and CNN,shoving TV in the faces of fans, they used a barrage of images,half-baked subliminal messages,satellite tv from around the world, and live-feed of the war-torn people in Sarajevo- although not in this show). They also used multiple trabants (beaten-up junker cars suspended above the stage, many of them now reside suspended from the ceiling at the rock and roll hall of fame),video confessionals (which were often both funny and haunting, though none are on this tape), 2 stages (one that comes out in the middle of HUGE, and I mean mindblowingly HUGE crowds), a belly dancer (who would later become the guitarist's wife), Bono as differentcharacters ("The Fly" and "Macphisto" on this tape, he also dressed as "mirrorball man" to parody televagelists during the american leg of the tour). Bono nightly made prank phone calls on stage to the white house or to order 10,000 pizzas (nothing that cool on this tape, though). However, all of the glitz aside, what stands out most about this concert is, of course, the music. Here, there are GREAT live versions of many "Achtung Baby" songs (many of them improved and more exciting than the album versions) , some live rarities such as "Lemon" and "Dirty Day." They also manage to incorporate a lot of their biggest hits from the 80's quite seemlessly. The result is the best, most ambitious concert-tour ever, by any band, period. This is the fastest-selling-out tour in history. Demand for tickets outweighed supply 10-1. The tour was in fact SO huge that just being on the road, and the cost of keeping and building to tour ate up profits, but that's how much U2 care about their fans, they wanted to keep ticket prices low, and still show people just what makes U2 so legendary. Although I doubt this is the best show of ZOO TV, it's all we've got, so get it. Also, get PopMart- I personally like PopMart better, but that's just a personal preference (I really dig the songs off of "Pop," and felt they were trying to take the ZOO TV concept to the next level, which they did, but with varying success). I hope U2 returns to these types of huge venues with high-concepts. I like their "stripped down" shows a lot too ("elevation 2001"), but no concert matches the excitment, interest level, ambition, and the cleverly-disguised warm-hearted fun of ZOO TV. Simply the best concert tour by the best band still making music.