U2 Go Home - Live from Slane Castle, Ireland
Interscope, 2003
DVD
Available at Amazon.
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Go Home documents the second night of U2's shows at Slane Castle in Ireland's County Meath on their 2001 Elevation Tour. If you're a collector of U2 brand products, you're no doubt aware that an Elevation Tour DVD (featuring a Boston gig) is already available. If you've seen that one, you'll recognize the set list, heart-shaped stage design and dramatic lighting cues on this one because they're almost entirely the same. But despite its seeming redundancy, Go Home deserves to exist because of its incredible historical significance. It's emotional every time U2 returns to play a show in Ireland, but these shows at the Slane held special importance. 20 years earlier, in 1981, was where the band played their first festival, in a supporting role for the similarly Irish-proud Thin Lizzy. In 1984, Slane's cavernous ballroom is where U2, along with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, laid down the basic tracks for The Unforgettable Fire. So it's not thoughtless romanticizing to call this homecoming uniquely poignant. For Bono, it was also impassioned on a personal level. His father died of cancer just a day before the first show.
Overhead crane shots of the Slane property, packed with 80,000 giddy fans, create a massive spectacle. The concert's production values are predictably grandiose; four massive screens follow each band member around for the benefit of the people standing a mile away. Lights brighten and dim according to each song's style. They stop short of costume changes, but it's all quite spectacular, although the forever common man-championing U2 have obviously shed the "ironic" decadence of their more recent, best forgotten tours.
The most striking thing about this concert is that 28 years into their career, U2 still play with the passion and intensity of four men who never doubted that they were the most important band in the world. Barring "Lemon" and a few other fun Zooropa tracks, I personally have no interest in any of U2's post-Achtung Baby output, but even the most jaded of fans can't deny the energy blasted out here on newer songs like "Elevation" and "Walk On". Bono's lyrics have taken the sharpest nosedive in quality, but The Edge has proven to be as masterful at erecting walls of blaring guitar as he once was at trickling out beautiful reverb-dipped minimalism. "Beautiful Day" was always pretty cheesy, but its naïve emoting feels at home in this enormous setting; as the chorus erupts ("it's a beautiful day!!"), bright lights shoot off and the audience screams, and all of a sudden "Beautiful Day" is an amazing song.
Naturally, U2 don't scrimp on your old favorites, providing a generous sampling from their nine albums. Because their best tunes are so timeless, you can't even tell that they've probably played them about a million times each. "New Year's Day" sounds great; its driving, graceful bridges and chorus haven't aged a day. "With or Without You", their finest ballad, is a showstopper, although Bono's eccentric (read: irritating) habit of skewing low on the words "without you" frustrates the audience attempting to sing along to every line. "Sunday Bloody Sunday"'s local import means that it's more emotional than if it were being performed in, say, Miami. As the song winds down, Bono recites the names of the 29 who died in 1998's Omagh bombing in Ireland. In general, the band's obligatory righteousness is kept to a tasteful minimum, with only a few political factoids making their way onto the big screen.
Considering the setting, the band's nostalgia is understandable. Bono lets it all out during a fiery, on-point rendition of "Out of Control", thanking each of their parents for lending them 500 pounds in order to record their first demos. His flashback introduction ("We're a band from the north side of Dublin. We're called U2. This is our first single. We hope you like it!") is positively chill-inducing.
Go Home is presented in both Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround sound, so if your home entertainment system is equipped, it'll sound amazing. (It sounded all right on my crappy TV speakers too). The DVD-ROM offers 360-degree footage of Slane Castle and its grounds, as well as a tour diary, a band calendar and more.
The DVD also includes a documentary on the making of The Unforgettable Fire that was previously only available on VHS. I had never seen it before, so it was a real treat for me. Interviews with the band members come across as slightly arrogant. Discussing his frequent improvisation, Bono notes that "Martin Luther King's best speeches were when he threw away the script". (If you'll remember, the album they were recording featured the MLK, Jr. tribute "Pride" as well as a song called "MLK"). The Edge claims divine inspiration, saying, "there's something that works through us to create in this way". Historically, because of the undeniable passion seething through their music, U2 have been given a free pass on pretentiousness, a give-and-take that I have no quarrel with. The documentary is filled with special moments like Bono belting out "Pride"'s grand chorus and Brian Eno suggesting a pause in the process so they can all go outside and watch a solar eclipse.
If you're going to own just one Elevation Tour DVD, definitely get this one. It might not be as crucial as Rattle and Hum, which followed the band on tour at their Joshua Tree peak, but it's an affecting "local boys do good" story on a huge scale, and the songs sound as good as ever.
-- Justin Stewart
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