Under a Blood Red Sky - Deluxe Edition CD/DVD

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Editorial Reviews:

Album Description
A Deluxe Edition version featuring the Under a Blood Red Sky CD (Disc 1) and the Live at Red Rocks DVD (Disc 2).

The remastered Under a Blood Red Sky album was originally released in November 1983, and consists of live recordings from three shows on the band's War Tour through Europe and America. Recorded at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado on 5th June 1983, Live at Red Rocks will be available for the first time on DVD, and will include 5 previously unreleased songs, a director's commentary, digitally re-graded pictures and a 5.1 mix.

This is the fourth CD as part of the Amazon.com-exclusive U2 deluxe edition box set and fits into the open slot within the packaging.

Amazon.com
A Deluxe Edition version featuring the Under a Blood Red Sky CD (Disc 1) and the Live at Red Rocks DVD (Disc 2).

The remastered Under a Blood Red Sky album was originally released in November 1983, and consists of live recordings from three shows on the band's War Tour through Europe and America. Recorded at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado on 5th June 1983, Live at Red Rocks will be available for the first time on DVD, and will include 5 previously unreleased songs, a director's commentary, digitally re-graded pictures and a 5.1 mix.

This is the fourth CD as part of the Amazon.com-exclusive U2 deluxe edition box set and fits into the open slot within the packaging.

Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Bigger than just a mini album. September 30, 2008
13 out of 16 found this review helpful

Live Aid may have turned U2 into the biggest band on the planet, but the first step to conquer the world had been taken some time ago through the release of this live mini-LP.

This is the recording that sold U2 to the masses. U2 had released 3 good albums but, at that stage, they were essentially a live band. Their studio recordings sounded raw and very live, so it's no wonder that a real live album would make these albums forgettable. Specially if this album concentrates the cream (and only the cream) of those first 3 albums, plus a non-album single and a cult b-side. C'mon, did anybody notice the Sunday Bloody Sunday original version, the one with the violin? Not really. But everybody remembers "This song is not a rebel song. This song is Sunday Bloody Sunday. Ra-ta-ta-ta..." That was the version that got played in every party, every disco, every home.

There is not a single track here that is not better than its studio version. Bono is now Bono Vox, an idol and leader of crowds and causes. And Edge emerges as the modern guitar hero for the 80's. As opposed to the hair-metal gods whose aim was to pack as many notes per second as possible, Edge approach was more of a sonic experience, a mix of punk and psychedelia through very loud amps. And even the Heavy Metal crowd loved him.

If you are not a die-hard fan, this is the first essential U2 album to buy.

This deluxe edition cuts off a few seconds of Electric Co. when Bono starts singing "Send in the Clowns", which is a shame. And adding a couple more tracks to the original 8-song, wouldn't have been a bad idea. But it's still a superb edition of one of the few indispensable live albums in any record collection.

5 out of 5 stars

Red Rocks rocks! October 1, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful

First, oh well, it's not the unedited show: "Two Hearts Beats as One" is sans "Let's Twist Again" and the "Send in the Clowns" snip has been cut from "The Electric Co." That said, I really don't care. The show rocks. Not sure the CD has any real value, beyond being a remaster, but the DVD of the full concert is astonishingly crisp, given the production value. This was U2 making it big before they made it big, and an important moment for fans who've been following U2 since the early days. The director's commentary is strangely quaint -- it appears he hasn't seen the full-length video since he edited it many years ago, but that makes his commentary fresh and lively.

What should be said is that the show transcends U2 in many ways. Here's a small act with a big sound trying to persuade the world. On that level alone it has merit.

5 out of 5 stars

This is THE Must-Have for Any U2 Fan. Essential. October 6, 2008
8 out of 10 found this review helpful

We've waited years for it and here it is. Finally. I have every U2 concert DVD you can have (even the Super Bowl performance and SNL) yet this is the one DVD that was a no-brainer.

For those of you around back then, it's nostalgic. This concert is what turned me on to U2. For some reason, MTV was showing it in 83 and when I saw it I said "Who ARE these guys?" From that point on, I was hooked. All because of this.

For others of you not old enough, this is a chance to see U2 at their absolute peak when they were the Band That Mattered, before they started playing around with irony beginning with Achtung Baby. Not that they don't matter now, but as other reviewers have pointed out, this is THE definitive version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," just as Live Aid was the definitive version of "Bad."

The songs are almost universally great and well-played (save for a sloppy trainwreck of "Two Hearts") and you get to see the original order of the set; if you owned this back in the day, it made it seem like "Surrender" was the opening song.

The visuals are stunning because of the weather. The crowd is nuts. And this was the concert that launched U2 into the big time.

AS FOR PICTURE QUALITY: as the director clearly states in the commentary, this was shot on VIDEO. It's been treated to look like film for this reissue, but it was video. And when you point a video camera at a light, it "burns" the tube, creating streaks across the screen which are all over this. That was the POINT. The director threw out all the "rules" for filming and did not care about the streaking/flaring. This is NOT a flaw in the remaster it ALWAYS looked like this. If you want a perfect picture go buy Live in Boston or Rattle & Hum.

Who cares about the red streaks when you have a concert this powerful? Finally it is here and it was worth the wait. Enjoy!

The attached CD is a fine version of the EP but really I'd rather watch this than listen to it. Plus, not all the songs on the EP were pulled from the Red Rocks show (only "Party Girl" and "Gloria"). Still worth having.

3 out of 5 stars

GREAT LIVE ALBUM, WHY NOT PUT THE WHOLE MUSIC ON CD??? October 17, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful

I've been eagerly awaiting a deluxe reissue of this album for years. THis is the best of U2 live really. Joshua Tree (recorded later) is still their peak, but as a live act, this has U2 as their most exciting, back when their political idealologies were blossoming, but just before Bono took his "I'm the greatest politician in the world and I'm also a fabulously cocky rock star" that he's been hell bent on the past 20 years....I love U2 (well not their last 2 releases so much that are a bit too bland for me, but their history: War, Joshua Tree, Under a Blood Red Sky, Zooropa, Achtung Baby, and many other great songs in the other albums.....even Pop has 4-5 absolute classics and for all its missteps had all the experimentation excitement, even though it sounds more dated than Boy today....

Under a Blood Red Sky though is just fabulous, the live cd, and the footage I've seeon over the years on TV.....

I was ready to buy this deluxe edition right away (I still probably will) but am VERY DISAPPOINTED to see that the full DVD concert is not on CD. The CD is just a remastered version of the old, short cd that's been on the market for years. THE enclosed DVD will be great and will cause me to buy this likely in the next 2 months when I get around to it, but while I'm excited/eager to own the DVD in my music DVD collection, I'll probably only watch it once or twice a year....but I do have much more time to listen to the CD, and unfortunately it's the same CD I've owned for years with just remastered sound. Now don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the remastered sound on this classic live record, but I've always wanted more U2 live from this era, and it seems that they are selling fans short by not putting allt he music on the DVD on the accompanying CD....

A real shame.

Overall:
GREAT MUSIC, great live record. U2 Live at their absolute peak. THe songwriting got better later, but they were never better performers than they were at this stage. Just a lot of fun, what live albums should be, but the CD is and always has been a bit too short really to make a list of the ten best live albums ever made (which is a shame because the songs on here are classic and if it was extended it definately could rank in that category).

The parts of the live dvd I've seen in the past are phenomenal. This was a real moment for U2 and for the 80's rock scene (I'm a child of the 80's and a high schooler of the 90's and this album and it's live shots have been played on TV quite a bit over the years and it's spellbounding).....I've seen U2 live in the early 2000's and have watched Rattle and Hum and Own the Zoo TV Live in Australia DVD, and I can say still that Under a Blood Red Sky is them at their most exciting that I've seen....

The negatives: why not put all the music that's on the DVD on the CD? The CD has always been very short, which has always brought this great live album down to reality. This was the opportunity, and this album has been one of those "I really really really can't wait until they expand it" albums for years. This was a real lost opportunity.

Overall, the music's great. The DVD will be a must have, but it's not a 5 star collection, because they jipped us on the cd portion, and that's the portion I personally would listen to the most.

1 out of 5 stars

u2 used to be a great band November 1, 2008
5 out of 10 found this review helpful

When the original EP Under a Blood Red Sky came out in 1983, it included a brief snippet of "Send in the Clowns" in the song "The Electric Co". When the CD was released about 10 years later, "The Electric Co" included one of the most awkward edits I've ever heard in order to omit that brief snippet of "Send in the clowns". Ever since then, I've hoped the original version would be restored. This is not the case with this release. Rather than restore the orginal EP version of "The Electric Co', they've cut another 20 seconds out of the CD version. It sounds better than the previous version but is still not complete. If you want to hear this release in its entirety, you still need to find the EP from 1983, pitiful as that is.

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