U2: Rattle And Hum on DVD

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Dom Robinson reviews

U2: Rattle and Hum
Distributed by

Paramount

    Cover

  • Cert:
  • Cat.no: PHE 8122
  • Running time: 95 minutes
  • Year: 1988
  • Pressing: 2001
  • Region(s): 2, PAL
  • Chapters: 20 plus extras
  • Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
  • Languages: English
  • Subtitles: 23 languages available
  • Widescreen: 1.78:1 (16:9)
  • 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
  • Macrovision: Yes
  • Disc Format: DVD 9
  • Price: £19.99
  • Extras: Trailer

    Director:

      Phil Joanou

    (State of Grace, Three O’Clock High, Heaven’s Prisoners)

Producer:

    Michael Hamlyn

Featuring:

    Bono (Lead Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica)
    The Edge (Lead Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals)
    Larry Mullen, Jr. (Drums)
    Adam Clayton (Bass Guitar)

U2: Rattle And Humis the reknowned concert movie filmed on their Joshua Tree tour back in 1988.

U2 are one of, if not the, premier Irish rock band. They’ve recorded severalalbums over the past 20 years including Boy, War, which gave them moreof their rock-based hits such as New Year’s Day, Pride (In The Name of Love), and The Unforgettable Fire.

In the case of The Joshua Tree, it spawned three hit singles: With OrWithout You, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Where The StreetsHave No Name, and one imported single which only made No.48, In God’sCountry, all of which are included here.

The album of this film gave the band four hits, Angel of Harlem, When LoveComes To Town (that track featuring B.B. King who joins them here too), thesix-and-a-half-minute epic, All I Want Is You, and their first Number Onesingle, Desire.

1991 brought Achtung Baby, another Number One single, The Flyas well as Mysterious Ways and the soulful One. 1992 and 1993 sawthem take a different route, putting more of an electronic sound into theirmusic for Zooropa, and their subsequent Zoo TV tour, paradingsuch tracks as Numb, Lemon and Stay.

1997 saw their album Pop, and athird Number One single, Discotheque which showed the band going technoat the end of the video and dressing up as the Village People believe it ornot (!)

This year seems them going more into the mainstream with hits like BeautifulDay and Elevation.

U2: Rattle And Hum begins loudly with their cover of the Beatles classic,Helter Skelter, performed at the McNichols Arena, Denver, Colorado, oneof the indoor locations where the band were filmed. Brief interview clips,filmed at the Point Depot Recording Studios, Dublin, come between some of thesongs, and that location also forms the setting for a burst of Desire.

The band travel across America exploring new influences, and play alongsidethe legendary B.B. King on a journey which takes them from Dublin to Graceland,and from San Francisco to the streets of Harlem.

Up to the end of chapter 12, the film is black and white only, but with thelaserdisc the the clever bit came at the sidebreak, such that when you beganside 2 (ie. track 13) – and tracks 13-17 are performed at Sun Devil Stadium,Tempe, Arizona – everything’s in colour. However, for the last three trackswe go back to where we started, and back to black and white.

movie picBono was the last to realise where the audience were.

There are 20 chapters, one for each song, and the track listing is shown below.It’s interesting to note that the film contains 8 tracks not included on theactual album, namely tracks: 4, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18.

    Tracks :

      1. Helter Skelter
      2. Van Diemen’s Land
      3. Desire
      4. Exit
      5. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
      6. Freedom For My People/Silver And Gold
      7. Angel Of Harlem
      8. All Along The Watchtower
      9. In God’s Country
      10. When Love Comes To Town
      11. Heartland
      12. Bad
      13. Where The Streets Have No Name
      14. MLK
      15. With Or Without You
      16. Star Spangled Banner/Bullet The Blue Sky
      17. Running To Stand Still
      18. Sunday Bloody Sunday
      19. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
      20. All I Want Is You

Unlike the1997 PAL Laserdisc release,we now get to see the film in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen as it was originallyfilmed. I could complain that the picture quality is questionable because itappear to have a fair bit of grain throughout, although when it’s bad that’sactually an intentional effect.The average bitrate is 6.1Mb/s, varying quite a bit.

Also, unlike the stereo Laserdisc, the sound is remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1,obviously in English only. You know any of the U2 songs listed above? Nowimagine them in DD5.1 and have a guess why I’ve given the sound full marks.Yes, it’s that good.

The only extra is a rather pointless 80-second 16:9 anamorphic trailer of theband walking on stage, partly in silhouette.Subtitles are available in a mindboggling 23 languages:English (and hard of hearing), Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish,Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian,Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish andTurkish. Other than English though, not all of them are used for the lyrics.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


OVERALL
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.

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