U2 – 360° at the Rose Bowl DVD review
There’s no need to elaborate a lot on U2, since the band is a living rock legend. It’s one of the bands that I grew up with even though I didn’t understand the true meanings of their songs till a bit later. “With or without you” was my teenage anthem. My cousin and his friends (Hi to all, if you read me) played it over and over in the car.
After the release of “No line on the horizon”, U2 started their international (European and North American) stadium tour known as “360° Tour” referring to their 360-degree staging/audience configuration. It’s a unique and a premiere as a stage configuration where they are basically surrounded by their crowd.
The 25 October 2009 concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California was filmed for the concert release U2 360° at the Rose Bowl. This same concert was streamed to over 10 million viewers on U2′s official Youtube channel. I remember watching it live in the morning (Thanks to the time difference between Cali and France) then later in the afternoon, since it was available on demand. Well now, you can find it on DVD for an HD experience.
The show is flawless, giant and mind blowing. The center-like setup makes perspectives very interesting, I mean it makes them huge and uber giant. You can see how immense the stadium is, how small the stage looks like compared to it, and how much cheering people there was there. The visuals are colorful and “in-your-face” like. Marrying LCD screens and a laser show. No wonder they choose to experiment with a circle shaped stage, as it was the only solution to give their crowd an optimal feel of visuals and sounds. The latter must have been amazing, surrounding the whole stage, starting from the center and flying equally everywhere. Just talking about it gives me goosebumps.
The DVD was filmed over a single night, something that rarely happens. The recording camera’s and all the crew behind it were flawless again. Director Tom Krueger was behind the scenes.
Need I talk about the music ? Urm no, it’s U2, they are legends, their songs are too.
I am sad to have missed this gig in Stade de France, but it was quickly sold out.
So, if your father likes rock and you have no clue what to bring him for father’s day, go and crab a copy of this magnificent DVD because it’s a piece of collection to play every time you feel good, down, blue, happy, energetic.
Making Contakt, the documentary
Making Contakt is a documentary DVD starring Richie Hawtin and his M-NUS crew throughout a series of concept gigs that happened in 2009. The idea behind the “Contakt” shows was to create a yet unseen experience out of a gig. The experience was 3 dimensional : One visual, second musical and third physical since the crowd interacted before and after every party.
The musical experience in Contakt showcased all the M-NUS crew live on stage. That is, Richie, Magdra, Troy Pierce with live supports from Marc Houle, Heartthrob & Gaiser. This was made possible with the creation of a unique (and complex) DJ setup that first surprised the hell out of me. It took me 5 minutes to emerge from the setup presentation and was thinking, damn that can open up so many possibilities while bringing up many questions on how can this be real ?
Multitasking as a DJ is a bit of a hassle, even with advanced gears and “Richie’s oh-so-famous sync macros 
”. Yet concentration is a must to play a logical track’s progression and keep up with the transitions. Details weren’t given on that part. All we know is that the team worked hard to be on the same page and a huge respect goes to them. Who said computer assisted DJing was an easy task ?
Another interesting aspect was the visual one. Richie wanted it to be a Web2.0 like gig, live SMS messages written on the LCD screens, live webcam feeds to the audience, to sum it up, a live experience on and off stage.
The documentary narrates the unique experience of this crazy adventure. The concept’s risks were way too high, Richie’s ambitions were extremely high (As usual right ? ) but in the end it worked. There were flaws and there were successes and this is the beauty of it all.
I loved seeing all the sides of the production, it’s a melting pot between a behind the scenes, a movie and a documentary. You just don’t want it to end and once its over, you just want to replay the DVD.
The DVD comes with a CD of the soundtrack, most of the tracks are the M-NUS classics that you might have heard over a Richie or Contakt set if you attended any (Lucky you if you did).
The world needs people like Richie Hawtin, audacious, experimental and willing to take the experience further from what it is today. Some might not like him, for his personality or for his music style. But it’s undeniable how his presence affected the scene and how we mix music today. Digital DJing is good because it opens up possibilities, it opens up creativity, it makes you concentrate on more essential things and who knows, tomorrow you’ll be 3 on stage rocking the place down
You can buy the DVD from Amazon or M-NUS’ website.
Cheerz
