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Audio/video of the week: September 30

By Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published September 29, 2008 at 6 p.m.

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U2

Under a Blood Red Sky (deluxe set: CD and DVD), Island Records

Grade: A+

It's about time.

Easily one of the most famous, acclaimed concerts of the 1980s (if not all time), U2's June 1983 Under a Blood Red Sky concert at Red Rocks - a performance that put the band on the map (and didn't hurt the venue, either) - is finally in stores today. It's restored, it's in 5.1, it has songs never before released and it's just as riveting as ever.

Over the years fans have put together a patchwork of soundboard feeds, rare B-sides, pirated copies of the (incomplete) VHS release from the '80s turned to DVD and shaky snippets on YouTube. Finally, those are no longer necessary.

More than two decades later, it's still a thrilling performance, raw but polished, passionate and sincere. Basically, it's a power trio backing a singer but sounding like thunder. All the band members look impossibly young, especially bassist Adam Clayton, and The Edge is captured in his full-haired, pre-cap incarnation. Bono, unfortunately, is hard at work on his mid-'80s mullet. It was shot in an era when it was expensive (and a huge hassle) to film at Red Rocks, and lousy weather made the crew's job all the more difficult. The billowing fires on top of the Red Rocks stage pierce the rain and gloom. (Visitors since have been disappointed that those pyres were brought in just for this filming - they're not a regular part of the Red Rocks show.)

In the deluxe DVD/CD set, the eight-song original Under a Blood Red Sky EP is featured, remastered. But that disc contained only two songs from the Red Rocks performance; the others are taken from different tour stops. In a way it's superfluous to what actually happened on that rainy night.

So the DVD becomes indispensable, featuring all 19 songs in order, from the opening Out of Control to the final 40. It captures a concert where a legendary rock band came of age.

Mark Brown

Comments

  • September 30, 2008

    8:55 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    debindenver writes:

    Finally! Of all the great shows I've seen at Red Rocks thru the years, that one still stands out as the best! Cold, wet, rainy, and absolutely magical! And then getting to see the full line-up of bands originally scheduled the next night for holding on to your ticket stub - ah yes... the good ol days before concerts cost $150 to sit in the nosebleed section for a 45 minute show....