U2 - Zoo TV Live from Sydney (1992) Review

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(More customer reviews)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 different characters ("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.

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