U2 - Elevation Tour 2001 - Live from Boston [Region 2] (2001)

'Elevation 2001- Live From Boston' was shot on June 6th at the Boston Fleet Centre with 20 cameras under director Hamish Hamilton. The quality and content of the release is set to create a landmark in the history of music DVDs.

Disc 1 contains the 1 hour 47 minute full show featuring classics such as Beautiful Day, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Where The Streets Have No Name and With Or Without You.

Disc 2 contains Another Perspective - the full show again but this time with an 'alternate camera' feature in which viewers can compare and contrast the view from the 'Bono cam', the 'fan cam' or the 'Director cam'.

This second disc also features 'Road Movie' - a 5 minute time lapse sequence showing the staging of a rock and roll concert from empty arena to a full arena and back to an empty arena again.

And there are also three bonus tracks including Beautiful Day (live from the Clarence Hotel, Dublin September 2000) and Elevation (live from Miami, opening night of the Elevation Tour, March 2001)

This DVD contains one concert of U2's Elevation 2001 tour, filmed in Boston on June 6th, 2001 at the Fleetcenter, Boston, Massachusetts. It does not contain the entire concert; the tracks "Mysterious Ways", "People Get Ready", "Pride", and "One" are missing (...).

The concert is shot in 4:3 aspect ratio (so no widescreen unfortunately) and the video quality is quite good. Of course, audio quality is more important for a concert registration. As written above, audio is either PCM or DD5.1 on my disc. Both tracks sound very good altough there is mainly only audience to be heard in the rear channels.

Even without the missing tracks, DTS audio, and widescreen video, it is a great registration of the Elevation 2001 tour. A chance to re-experience the concerts you have been to, or should have been to (altough it does differ a bit from the three concerts in Arnhem, the Netherlands). Some of the highlights of this particular show: Bono & the Edge duelling during UTEOTW, Edge kicking his guitar after Gone, a very touching version of Stay, the flashing lights during WTSHNN, Bono giving a girl the day of her life during WOWY, and the visually superb ending of the Fly.

(...) NBC-TV has aired WHTSHNN live and Elevation on tape during their NBA Finals coverage, so if you have seen that, you have a pretty good idea of what this DVD is like.

This is a must-have DVD for all U2 fans owning a DVD player and a reason to buy one for those who don't. I always thought that Rattle & Hum was worth buying, even if only for the great version of WOWY (containing the extra verse). That's still true, but the same holds for this DVD. This version of WOWY does not contain the extra verse, but it is very very emotional. You have to see and hear this for yourself!

I would like to finish with Danny Eccleston's (Editor, Q Magazine) words in the booklet of this DVD:

"U2's music lifts you up. It's big enough to do that. And in this turbulent year - where Hate has hit the headlines and Hope is in the small print - we've really needed it. Needed it all over the world. Enjoy U2's Boston show. It is a good thing, and right now we need all the good things we can get.".

First of all I must say I agree 100% with Michael Behuniak from Seattle, WA USA who wrote an excellent review here.

I attended three of the shows during this tour and must admit that this DVD fails to capture the spirit, intimacy and intensity of the tour.

My big problem with this DVD it's direction and editing is annoying, distracting and just plain poorly done.
There seems to be a single mindedness of the director's part here to focus only on BONO the entire show.

We are all sick of the rapid fire disorienting style of editing that MTV has made so popular. This is not a MTV video! The director obviously didn't know his audience too well. U2 fans in general are patient people with normal attention spans who enjoying being able to focus on a shot and enjoy the music.

The best editing is when the viewer is not aware of it. It should be seemless and flow naturally. For example, if the viewer hears a guitar solo they expect to also see the guitarist playing it. Don't make us crawl in our seats with agitation waiting and hoping to see the guitarist! This also is applicable to any band member. If the song opens with a bass line, show us the bass player etc.

The best filmed concert video without question was U2 LIVE AT RED ROCKS. It captured it all and didn't miss a beat or a shot. It should be a textbook course in "HOW TO FILM A ROCK CONCERT". It beyond comprehension why this concert is not availble on DVD? What is u2 thinking? I hope that when they finally do release Red Rock on DVD they don't blow that opportunity by not packaging it correctly. The correct way would be to release it as a FULL-LENGTH concert with the originally deleted songs, "Two Hearts,An Cat Dubh, Twilight, Into the Heart etc.

Also, for extras it might be cool to package it using the seperate fixed camera angles. For example it would be awesome to have a concert with a camera angle for each band member. How about an Edge cam, Adam cam, Larry cam. Believe it or not people do find it fascinating to watch them play the music. It can get boring just watching Bono all the time.

But the most disturbing part of this DVD is the fact the Director had the NERVE to put himself on it!!! This is what really got me upset, it then became quite clear that he likes to stroke his own HUGE ego. What a waste of disc space! And I'm sure like most of you reading this you couldn't have cared less to watch this guy calling camera shots while he danced around like a dork in the control room. This space could have been used for more usefull stuff. How about an interview with Edge , or a soundcheck by the band, or an Edge CAM angle I could go on and on..anything but the director himself. Shame on him.

Now I'll just sit and wait and pray that they release "Under A Blood Red Sky" soon.