Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've never been very happy with U2's 1980s work on CD. The mastering was not done well for the format and it really took some life out of it. Now that has mostly been corrected (Rattle and Hum is the lone 80s album yet to be remastered).
This box set is fantastic, in the tradition of The Joshua Tree box set from 2007. You get a beautiful book with pictures and comments from Eno, Lanois, and others reminiscing. The lyrics are there as well, something excluded for the CD release. Also some nice black and white photographs on textured parchment that are frame worthy.
The first disc is the album, sounding better than ever. Adam's bass is more pronounced here and the dynamic range of the CD is finally put to good use, giving as a better feel for each song. Very well done. There's stuff in there that I had not heard before, only ever hearing the old CD version.
The second disc is full of extras. Only a few songs had not been released in the past. Most of it is remastered stuff that appeared as b-sides for the singles or on the Wide Awake In America EP, making that EP obsolete. Disappearing Act is a great song, featuring recently added vocals by Bono, much like Wave Of Sorrow on Joshua Tree. Yoshino Blossom is a good instrumental that had not been officially released. Then there are two remixes of Wire and an excellent Sort of Homecoming remix done by Daniel Lanois as he was working with Peter Gabriel on So. And because of that you can hear Gabriel on this quite excellent version of the song.
Everything else on this disc was released before but it sounds better than ever, just like the album itself. It also compiles all the releases that occurred surrounding The Unforgettable Fire into one set.
Now onto the DVD. It features music videos from this album. Two for Pride and "live" videos for Bad and A Sort Of Homecoming as they were released to MTV. We also get The Unforgettable Fire documentary - so it is basically the old Unforgettable Fire Collection that was released on video cassette back in the 80s (and it is called that on the box set). So that's the first time it has been released on DVD.
The second bit on the DVD is live material. A couple of songs from the 1986 Conspiracy of Hope Tour and U2's Live Aid performance. The second Pride music video (Sepia version) is found here as is a bootleg video of 11 O'Clock Tick Tock. I'm not sure why the bootleg is on there as the quality is not all that good.
Overall the set is great. The one complaint could be that they didn't include the concert from Dortmund that was recorded for this tour, but I can also understand why it was not included. Much of that music was covered in the restored DVD release of Under A Blood Red Sky that featured the full concert outside of Fire as that footage was unusable. However, it would have been nice to have a live version of The Unforgettable Fire, a live version of Wire, and a live version of A Sort of Homecoming. Indian Summer Sky was only played a few times and it didn't come off well. Promenade, 4th of July, and Elvis Presley and America were never played. So ultimately the only critique I'd levy would be the lack of performances for those three songs (the performance video for Sort of Homecoming wasn't a real performance video nor was that concert performance a real concert performance - it was a soundcheck recording with audience reaction thrown in).
I'd guess that U2 either doesn't have the rights to the Dortmund show, they don't like it, or they're saving it for a release at some later date (a boxed set of U2 live shows on DVD would be nice).
But that is really a minor complaint. This great album sounds better than ever. The DVD gives you some good stuff and the extras CD is full of goodies, old and new.
A must buy for any fan.
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Limited Edition Box Set: containing 2 CDs (remastered album and bonus audio CD), a DVD with live footage, documentary and videos, a 56 page hardback book with liner notes by The Edge, Brian Eno, Danny Lanois, Bert Van de Kamp and Niall Stokes, and 5 photographic printsDeluxe Edition: containing 2 CDs; the remastered album, and the bonus audio CD which featuresB-sides and previously unreleased material, a 36 page booklet with liner notes by The Edge, Brian Eno, Danny Lanois and Bert Van de Kamp
Click here for more information about The Unforgettable Fire (Super Deluxe Edition 2CD+DVD)
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