Robbie Robinson ([email protected])
Thu, 07 Jan 1999 14:35:20 -0800
PLASTIC BONO BAND
Bono is the greatest rock'n'roll showman on earth.
U2
PopMart: Live from Mexico City
Doh. Just when we'd eased ourselves back into nodding appreciation
of Old U2, here comes a reminder that the New U2 are much better.
It's a concert video, but in U2's hands, such a mundane item is
transformed into an essential adjunct to the multimedia U2.com
experience.
It usually means a concert with some cameras at it. But U2 gigs
already have cameras at them. U2 gigs, that is, since Zoo TV in
1992, which, compared to the PopMart tour in 1997, was a doodle
on a napkin. This, as they use to say on Tiswas, is the stuff.
Some stadium bands (The Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi) tackle the form's
yawning void by having bouncy castles onstage and their lead
singers running from side to side for two hours like the cricketing
dad on The Fast Show. Not U2. PopMart - and whether you went or
not, you'll know the drill: half a McDonald's arch, big lemon, huge
cocktail stick, fuck-off olive - manages the deft trick of
involving the audience in its own spectacle. It's as if 70,000
Mexicans with the sleeves of their denim jackets rolled up have
come to the same diner.
This intelligently-choreographed video - shot by David Mallett at
the Foro Sol Autodromo, December 3, 1997 - captures all the songs
(24), costume-changes(three), lights(umpteen), and spectacle(one),
about which, ironically, there is nothing ironic: this is pure
rock'n'roll theatre.
Some late news just in: Bono is the star, always captivating with
his funny old gait - a wounded dog crossed with Robin Williams as
Popeye - and a master of ceremony, whether playing bull to Edge's
matador on a jetty or (yes!) getting a girl up onstage for Old U2
emotional relief. As a nod to their own history, I Will Follow is
faithfully preserved, and Sunday Bloody Sunday acoustically revived.
Elsewhere, dressed like Elvis as a UN chemical weapons inspector,
U2 are what pop will be like in the future. If we're lucky.
***** (that's a big ol' five red star rating they gave it - the
highest possible - Robbie)
by Andrew Collins
In the January 1999 issue of Q. That's a big ol' important British
music magazine ;-)
Bye, bye
Robbie
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