U2- Vertigo 2005//Livefrom Chicago

Wed 4th Jan, 2006 in Music Reviews

With less than three months to go until their first Australian tour in eight years, U2 have released Live from Chicago, documenting the band’s Vertigo tour which has already wound its way through Europe and twice through North America. And to say it’s fantastic is an absolute understatement. The DVD shows a band, 29 years into their career, still playing with the sort of passion and musicianship bands half their age strive for. While they may have formed in 1976, Live from Chicago never looks like a band even approaching the status of a nostalgia act.

Most U2 fans will have already placed themselves firmly in one of two camps. The first is the ‘I’m not watching this, I don’t want it to spoil the show’ group – which bearing in mind recent tours and releases from Green Day is easy to understand. The second is the ‘well, they’re not Green Day’ group who already bought this the day it came out, justifying it with comments like ‘U2 never play the same set twice’ and ‘this is the indoor production, I’m seeing the stadium show’.

The truth is probably somewhere in between. Perhaps 75% of the songs on this DVD will be played during their Australian tour. But while many bands will play an identical setlist night in, night out, U2 have a history of mixing things up and it’s difficult to see Live from Chicago spoiling anyone’s night.

But onto the music. Eight of the eleven tracks from 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb feature here, the highlight of which has to be the opener City of Blinding Lights, which with its’ descending curtain of lightbulbs and spine-tingling piano immediately places itself somewhere near the top of my personal favourites list. 1980s classics such as Pride, New Year’s Day, Sunday Bloody Sunday and Where The Streets Have No Name also make appearances, but perhaps the biggest surprise is the amount of surprise album tracks featured. The band’s debut album Boy is represented by Cry, Into the Heart, An Cat Dubh and The Electric Co.

The second disc of the deluxe version includes a short documentary on the tour, which is interesting though far from essential, and a few songs filmed with remote infra-red cameras, which do provide a brief distraction.  All told, Live from Chicago presents a brilliant show from the band, and those holding tickets to the March shows but don’t already own this will most definitely be heading to their local record stores in the days following those performances.