Customer Reviews

Under a Blood Red Sky - Deluxe Edition CD/DVD

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

We've waited years for it and here it is. Finally. I have every U2 concert DVD you can have (even the Super Bowl performance and SNL) yet this is the one DVD that was a no-brainer.

For those of you around back then, it's nostalgic. This concert is what turned me on to U2. For some reason, MTV was showing it in 83 and when I saw it I said "Who ARE these guys?" From that point on, I was hooked. All because of this.

For others of you not old enough, this is a chance to see U2 at their absolute peak when they were the Band That Mattered, before they started playing around with irony beginning with Achtung Baby. Not that they don't matter now, but as other reviewers have pointed out, this is THE definitive version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," just as Live Aid was the definitive version of "Bad."

The songs are almost universally great and well-played (save for a sloppy trainwreck of "Two Hearts") and you get to see the original order of the set; if you owned this back in the day, it made it seem like "Surrender" was the opening song.

The visuals are stunning because of the weather. The crowd is nuts. And this was the concert that launched U2 into the big time.

AS FOR PICTURE QUALITY: as the director clearly states in the commentary, this was shot on VIDEO. It's been treated to look like film for this reissue, but it was video. And when you point a video camera at a light, it "burns" the tube, creating streaks across the screen which are all over this. That was the POINT. The director threw out all the "rules" for filming and did not care about the streaking/flaring. This is NOT a flaw in the remaster it ALWAYS looked like this. If you want a perfect picture go buy Live in Boston or Rattle & Hum.

Who cares about the red streaks when you have a concert this powerful? Finally it is here and it was worth the wait. Enjoy!

The attached CD is a fine version of the EP but really I'd rather watch this than listen to it. Plus, not all the songs on the EP were pulled from the Red Rocks show (only "Party Girl" and "Gloria"). Still worth having.

Live Aid may have turned U2 into the biggest band on the planet, but the first step to conquer the world had been taken some time ago through the release of this live mini-LP.

This is the recording that sold U2 to the masses. U2 had released 3 good albums but, at that stage, they were essentially a live band. Their studio recordings sounded raw and very live, so it's no wonder that a real live album would make these albums forgettable. Specially if this album concentrates the cream (and only the cream) of those first 3 albums, plus a non-album single and a cult b-side. C'mon, did anybody notice the Sunday Bloody Sunday original version, the one with the violin? Not really. But everybody remembers "This song is not a rebel song. This song is Sunday Bloody Sunday. Ra-ta-ta-ta..." That was the version that got played in every party, every disco, every home.

There is not a single track here that is not better than its studio version. Bono is now Bono Vox, an idol and leader of crowds and causes. And Edge emerges as the modern guitar hero for the 80's. As opposed to the hair-metal gods whose aim was to pack as many notes per second as possible, Edge approach was more of a sonic experience, a mix of punk and psychedelia through very loud amps. And even the Heavy Metal crowd loved him.

If you are not a die-hard fan, this is the first essential U2 album to buy.

This deluxe edition cuts off a few seconds of Electric Co. when Bono starts singing "Send in the Clowns", which is a shame. And adding a couple more tracks to the original 8-song, wouldn't have been a bad idea. But it's still a superb edition of one of the few indispensable live albums in any record collection.

First, oh well, it's not the unedited show: "Two Hearts Beats as One" is sans "Let's Twist Again" and the "Send in the Clowns" snip has been cut from "The Electric Co." That said, I really don't care. The show rocks. Not sure the CD has any real value, beyond being a remaster, but the DVD of the full concert is astonishingly crisp, given the production value. This was U2 making it big before they made it big, and an important moment for fans who've been following U2 since the early days. The director's commentary is strangely quaint -- it appears he hasn't seen the full-length video since he edited it many years ago, but that makes his commentary fresh and lively.

What should be said is that the show transcends U2 in many ways. Here's a small act with a big sound trying to persuade the world. On that level alone it has merit.

I've been eagerly awaiting a deluxe reissue of this album for years. THis is the best of U2 live really. Joshua Tree (recorded later) is still their peak, but as a live act, this has U2 as their most exciting, back when their political idealologies were blossoming, but just before Bono took his "I'm the greatest politician in the world and I'm also a fabulously cocky rock star" that he's been hell bent on the past 20 years....I love U2 (well not their last 2 releases so much that are a bit too bland for me, but their history: War, Joshua Tree, Under a Blood Red Sky, Zooropa, Achtung Baby, and many other great songs in the other albums.....even Pop has 4-5 absolute classics and for all its missteps had all the experimentation excitement, even though it sounds more dated than Boy today....

Under a Blood Red Sky though is just fabulous, the live cd, and the footage I've seeon over the years on TV.....

I was ready to buy this deluxe edition right away (I still probably will) but am VERY DISAPPOINTED to see that the full DVD concert is not on CD. The CD is just a remastered version of the old, short cd that's been on the market for years. THE enclosed DVD will be great and will cause me to buy this likely in the next 2 months when I get around to it, but while I'm excited/eager to own the DVD in my music DVD collection, I'll probably only watch it once or twice a year....but I do have much more time to listen to the CD, and unfortunately it's the same CD I've owned for years with just remastered sound. Now don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the remastered sound on this classic live record, but I've always wanted more U2 live from this era, and it seems that they are selling fans short by not putting allt he music on the DVD on the accompanying CD....

A real shame.

Overall:
GREAT MUSIC, great live record. U2 Live at their absolute peak. THe songwriting got better later, but they were never better performers than they were at this stage. Just a lot of fun, what live albums should be, but the CD is and always has been a bit too short really to make a list of the ten best live albums ever made (which is a shame because the songs on here are classic and if it was extended it definately could rank in that category).

The parts of the live dvd I've seen in the past are phenomenal. This was a real moment for U2 and for the 80's rock scene (I'm a child of the 80's and a high schooler of the 90's and this album and it's live shots have been played on TV quite a bit over the years and it's spellbounding).....I've seen U2 live in the early 2000's and have watched Rattle and Hum and Own the Zoo TV Live in Australia DVD, and I can say still that Under a Blood Red Sky is them at their most exciting that I've seen....

The negatives: why not put all the music that's on the DVD on the CD? The CD has always been very short, which has always brought this great live album down to reality. This was the opportunity, and this album has been one of those "I really really really can't wait until they expand it" albums for years. This was a real lost opportunity.

Overall, the music's great. The DVD will be a must have, but it's not a 5 star collection, because they jipped us on the cd portion, and that's the portion I personally would listen to the most.

I've been a fan of the CD for many years, but I had never actually seen the concert video until now. This video is amazing, definitely worth the price of admission. As one of the earlier reviewers wrote, you hear the definitive versions of most of the material featured here, and for my money, this was U2 at their height - they may have gone on to become superstars, but this was really them at their best. The music is sharp, cutting, and well-played, and the cameras caught some extremely dramatic shots, made even more so by the elemental factors, the rain, the temperature, etc. I personally would have loved to have seen the CD redone and expanded, but lets face it - if you already have the CD, you're getting this for the video, and the video alone is worth the acquisition. I would call this one of the best concert film/videos of the '80s. The packaging is also good (as with all of their recent reissues), and I enjoyed the still photos. All in all, a great package.

Finally on DVD, one of the great rock shows ever!

I wasn't at the well-known Concert at Red Rocks, where U2 played on June 5, 1983, which was, coincidentally, my 23rd birthday.

I was at the show about a week later, in Dallas, where U2 played to an UNsold-out 1200 seat theater, located inside -- get this -- a bowling alley. (Dallas had a really small "underground" rock scene then, and I saw REM, The Pretenders, and even Talking Heads at this unlikely venue. "The Bronco Bowl" was small and intimate and had great sound). The Irish Rockers had never been to Dallas, and had never even had any commercial radio-play there. If you were a North Texan who didn't have MTV, and a lot of people didn't, it was very likely that you'd still never have heard of U2 at all. Not me, though! Having recently been in college in Rochester, NY, I was very aware of U2, and a very big fan by this point. I had all three of their LPs, including the newly released "War". I would have seen them play at Rochester Institute of Technology in '82 if it hadn't been for a huge exam I had to study for the next day.

So here was my first chance to see them live, on The War Tour, with 800 other hard-core believers.

Let me say they did not disappoint. In fact, Bono, Edge, Larry and Adam proceeded to perform the greatest rock concert I have ever seen, before or since. And I have seen everybody (including U2 in later years)! The kids ripped my head clean off! The energy was incredible. The sound, the songs, the stage itself, were all ablaze. Bono went as far to the back of the stage as he could get, and ran, full speed ahead, taking a leaping header into the crowd. That's right! Head first, arms out, like diving in to a pool, landing on the shoulders of astonished fans. I kept blinking my eyes, wondering if I had actually just seen it, or had hallucinated the dive. (On the Red Rocks video, by contrast, he carefully falls backwards in to the crowd). Bono had not yet achieved the God-like and masterful showmanship he would very soon have. At this point, he was flying high on his own energy, like a kid with a brand new rocket-ship. He was always right on the edge of control, at times literally staggering and swaggering, like he was drunk with his power. (By the time I saw them again in 1985, in a 20,000 seat arena, he had learned to channel and control that spirit like a Shaman). In Dallas in `83, it was already clear that Bono was an incredible performer and would-be Superstar.

Speaking of The Edge, his guitar-playing, all shimmery and drony and dreamy, was a total rock revelation for me, myself a young guitarist. I soon went out and bought an analog delay effect like the one he used.

The girl I took with me was one of those people who had never even heard of U2 before that night. On the way out of the show, she thanked me profusely for introducing her to the astonishing Irish Band. Haven't seen her since that night, but, I'll bet all these years later, she's still telling people, "I saw U2 before they were famous!"

So, why do I post this review of "Under a Blood Red Sky", being that I was not at Red Rocks? Well, it's very fortunate for the world of rock music, and U2 fans, that it was filmed. Back in '83, I was really excited when I heard the film was coming out, and that indeed it was shot within days of the show I saw. It captures U2 on the rise to stardom, and why they deservedly became among the greatest bands in history. Of course I bought the 12" record and the VHS video as soon as they came out.

Is Red Rocks as good as the Dallas show I saw? No. It's actually tamer by comparison. (Too bad they didn't film THAT one!). But will Red Rocks mesmerize you? Will it blow your mind?

Might it be the best rock show you've ever seen?

Oh yeah....

This isn't as much a review as a question. Did anyone else notice that the Clannad song on track 1 (pre-concert footage) is very muted and pushed back? (It's a tad better on the closing credits, but still muted.) After an initial listen, I pulled out my well-worn VHS tape, and "Theme From Harry's Game" is right up front, which gives a very moody and contemplative intro to the concert footage. I also thought the VHS sound is--overall--brighter and more alive than the DVD PCM remaster. I know that The Edge has really emphasized bass on all his remasters, but here it seems to be at the expense of the high end and the drums. I also know the trend in remastering these days is lots of compression, but normally PCM is supposed to be the least compressed of the formats, is it not?

I'd really appreciate an answer from someone, because I'm wondering if I got a bad pressing of the DVD, and need to return it. Until I get that figured out, I'll stick with my 3-star rating. Please comment on this issue. Thanks, Rick.

I always loved Under a Blood Red Sky and when this was released with a DVD I had to get it. I have seen U2 a few times and enjoy all their music, but this was a special time for the band in their earlier days as they started to grow.

Many of the most important/famous songs from up to that point are included, GLoria, I Will Follow, Sunday Bloody Sunday. One of my favorites is Seconds.

As others have mentioned the DVD was shot in a certain way so that there seems to be strange effects going on. I wish it was also filmed in another way so that there would be a "clean" looking version just to see what it would look like, but it does not take away from a powerful performance by the band.

In it's longest form (official) yet, this video highlights U2 at what some may say was their peak. The rain didn't damper their fire (if anything the smaller crowd, and dreary surroundings make them even more exciting) and this was a showcase for the band and the venue.

I first saw them right around this time on the tour and this was how I became a lifelong U2 fan.

As far as the picture and sound, it is top notch. Much brighter and crisper than the previous Laserdisc / VHS. The sound is a bit better than the old laserdisc, but not as improved as the picture.

The concert is missing just a few things. "I Fall Down" is not included in the set at all because of (from the liner notes) "A camera malfunction" and Two Hearts is missing a snippet of "Lets Twist Again" and Electric Co is missing about 2 minutes of "Send in the Clowns", cutting out the Edge's on FIRE guitar solo.

All in all, nice to see a more complete, better looking package. While I miss the solo/send in the clowns bit, I would rather gain the additional tracks, much improved picture and lose 2 minutes than go back to the laserdisc.

-Chrisedge

Edited to ADD: Many folks are complaining about the red lines or streaks in the picture. This is the result of using tube cameras to videotape the concert. Before CCD Camera Technology, Tube cameras were used to videotape, and any time they are pointed into a bright light, then moved, it can cause the streaking that you see. This is not a defect of the DVD, nor something that could be easily corrected. It was in the original version as well, but the better clarity is probably showing it off a bit more.

Well I am a huge U2 fan so anything they put out there I am buying and I love this!