U2 360° at the Rose Bowl (Super Deluxe Edition)

I want to start by saying that I am probably the perfect degree of U2 fan for this release. I am fan enough to love their music, but not enough of a fan to have a favourite song that I feel should always be played at their live performances and therefore complains about their set lists when it is missing. I attended one of the 360° concerts in Gothenburg last year and despite mediocre seats, it was a very enjoyable experience, with great music and the most impressive stage I have ever seen.

The concert at the Rose Bowl was filmed with 27 HD cameras and was streamed live on Youtube and it is these recordings that are the base for this release. The set list of 22 songs was a mix of both new songs from the "No Line on the Horizon" album and old classics. The recording has been edited in a few places, most noticeable by the exclusion of their opening song "Breathe", which is included among the extras on this Blu-ray, but otherwise nothing cut detracts from the experience. We are treated to 129 minutes of beautiful music.

As mentioned before, I am not fan enough to have a single song, which I feel should always be included and because I cannot come up with any U2 songs which are mediocre or bad, the set list on this release seems quite perfect to me. Considering the amount of music made by U2, there will always be songs which are left out, but in this case we get a good mix of new and old, with a good balance between ballads and rock and everything in between.

Much of the music of U2 is made to be played live and there are several songs which, to me, are better here than on their studio albums. Particularly "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight", where all the members of the band are out among the audience, on the circular walkway around the stage (Larry Mullen, Jr. with a bongo drum) and really give all they have got, is worth mentioning as one of the highlights of the concert.

The band seemed at the top of their game from beginning till end and delivered an enthusiastic performance. At the concert I attended in Gothenburg Bono's voices seemed a little rusty singing the first couple of songs, but there were no signs of anything like that at the Rose Bowl performance. He is at his best performing in front of huge crowds (97.000 people in this case) and the amazing scene is perfect for reaching as many people in the crowd as it is possible. U2 has described the audience as the fifth member of the band and that is very close to the truth with the 360° stage. The Claw, as it is called, is a unique setup and is the world's largest concert stage. It is placed much closer to the centre of the stadium than usual for concert stages, which gives room to have the audience stand and sit all around it (hence the name of the tour), which allows the band to focus their performance in any direction. This is helped along by a marvellous big-screen which, like the stage, is circular and displays its images in all directions.

U2 may not be the best musicians around (although they have become a lot better since their early days), but they are a fantastic live band, probably the best in world, and with their focus on impressive and immersive stage shows, their performances are an experience that no one should miss. The last couple of tours have mostly been indoors affairs with 20.000 people, making it possible for U2 to have a more intimate connection with the audience, but with the 360° stage they have succeeded at bringing the intimacy with them, even when playing crowds of 90.000 people. Unfortunately it is not really possible to capture the immense size of the Claw and the way it connects the band with the crowd on film, but other than that it is hard to find any fault with this recording.

This Blu-ray release is at a resolution of 1080i, which is quite common for concert releases, and is encoded in MPEG-4 AVC at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. As we are dealing with a live performance and an after-dark one at that, we cannot expect to get the same video quality as on a big Hollywood production, where scenes can be reshot until they are perfect. Nevertheless we are presented with a really good effort here. The large majority of the shots are sharp and detailed, with a nice amount of film grain. There are some shots, particularly those from cameras far from the stage, which have a little more grain and noise, but that is to be expected with low-light footage. There are also a few out of focus shots. It most cases this is for artistic purposes, but occasionally focus is lost due to mediocre camerawork.

The blacks are quite deep with a reasonable amount of detail and the colourful stage show is also very beautiful and vivid. It is a little hard to judge the fidelity of the colours as there are few naturally lighted shots, but the balance between the primary colours seems very good.

DNR and EE are absent from this transfer, at least from what I could tell, but banding do occur occasionally in the sharp contrast between the darkness and powerful stage lights. Otherwise there are no compression artefacts to be seen, even in the blackest areas.

If all concerts looked like this on Blu-ray I would definitely buy more of them. The few problems mentioned above is more a result of the difficulties with live footage, than it is a problem with less than stellar equipment, production, or the transfer to Blu-ray. It is not comparable to big movie productions, but for what it is, it hardly gets any better than this.

When the disc is loaded it automatically defaults to a lossless 2.0 LPCM audio track, but both a 5.1 Dolby Digital track and a lossless 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track are also included. It is the last one mentioned I have reviewed here.

I must say that I was really impressed with the audio on this release. Never before have I heard this good and clean sound on a live recording; in places it almost sounded like it was recorded in a studio. There is a really good spatial feel to the surround sound, with the main part of the music coming from the front speakers, while the sound of the audience is nicely spread out to the rear speakers. The subwoofer has a nice depth, without it being too heavy or intrusive and the bass guitar and drums sound natural. The high frequencies are also nicely handled and we are treated to an excellent range of frequencies without any clipping. Bono's voice comes through fine and clearly, even when he competes with the loud audience who, as mentioned, are well represented on the track.

It should be mentioned that the other two audio tracks were also quite good, although the Dolby Digital track lacks a little of the fidelity of the DTS-HD MA track, while the LPCM track naturally is not quite as immersive.

This is a truly excellent concert recording and I do not think that a live recording can sound much better than this.

On this Blu-ray we get quite a lot of extras for a concert release. Unfortunately most of it is in standard definition (480p) with 2.0 Dolby Digital audio.

Squaring the Circle: Creating U2360° - A Documentary (34:43 min. HD) - Documentary on the genesis of The Claw stage. Through interviews with the band members and the people behind their stage show, we get a glimpse at the stage's construction and the difficulties and innovations its unique design brought with it. This is a very good and informative half hour.

U2360° Tour Clips (18:39 min. SD) - 8 short featurettes with clips from different stages of the tour. It is a mixed bunch with a lot of footage of fans before the shows and a funny little performance by the Edge.

Bonus Track - "Breathe" (Live at the Rose Bowl) (5:32 min. HD) - Here is the first song played at the Rose Bowl concert, but which was not included in the main feature. It quickly becomes evident why, as the first couple of minutes are marred by problems with the camera focus and it would not have been a good representation of the rest of the show.

Berlin Time-Lapse Video (4:09 min. SD) - A time-lapse recording of the building of the scene, the concert, and the dismantling of the scene in Berlin. It was interesting to see the scene being built and again you get an idea of how big it is.

European Tour Opening - Barcelona (7:03 min. SD) - Featurette with footage from the first concert of the tour in Barcelona.

North American Tour Opening - Chicago (10:02 min. SD) - Featurette with footage from the first concert of the North American leg of the tour in Chicago.

Music Video: "Get on Your Boots" (3:25 min. SD)

Music Video: "Magnificent" (4:25 min. SD)

Music Video: "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" (4:14 min. SD)

Music Video: "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" (Live at Barcelona) (3:50 min. SD)

The Making of "Get on Your Boots" Video (2:12 min. SD) - Behind-the-scene on the making of the video.

The Making of "Magnificent" Video (5:25 min. SD) - Behind-the-scene on the making of the video.

BD-Live - Grants access to the following: "U2360 Tour Clips", "Breath 5.1", "U2360 BD-Live Community", and "Live News from U2.com". "U2306 Tour Clips" are more short clips from different cities of the tour; as the tour progresses more footage will become available here. "Breathe 5.1" is the same recording as included among the extras, but with 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. "U2360 BD-Live Community" grants access to U2 related forums, still galleries, quizzes, tour dates, and more. "Live News from U2.com" is a news feed from U2's official website.

Rom Content: Edge's Tour Photo Gallery, Screensavers, Desktop Wallpapers, Weblinks - Unfortunately my PC is not equipped with a Blu-ray drive so I was not able to check this content.

There is a nice amount of extras included here and it should be enough to satisfy most fans. Unfortunately the menus on the disc are not very user friendly. There is no "Play All" option and each time you finish a clip you have to start over from the main menu, which means there is a lot of navigating around the menus involved. Nevertheless this release deserves high marks for the amount and quality of the extras included and although most of it is in SD, this is easily forgiven as the source material, in most cases, does not exist in HD.

It might be apparent by this review that I am a fan of U2, which should probably be taken into consideration when you read it. Nevertheless I have tried to look at it objectively and even though I have not seen many concerts on Blu-ray I have a hard time imagining that anything could be much better than this.

First of all it is a fantastic concert and this release is an excellent representation of the experience. It has a very good video transfer with a few minor problems, which are caused more by the difficulties of live recordings than it is a fault of the Blu-ray transfer itself. The audio is breathtaking and I highly recommended listening to this Blu-ray on a good sound system with surround speakers. Last, but not least, there is a nice amount of extras included; it would have been nice to see more of it in HD, but this is not really possible as the source material is standard definition.

If you are a fan of U2 (or just enjoy good music) there really are no excuses for not giving this release a spin and it is easily recommendable on Blu-ray. Not only do you get great HD video, but you are also treated to an amazing lossless audio track, which is not available on the DVD release.

This review is based on the Blu-ray disc included in the Super Deluxe Edition of U2 360° at the Rose Bowl, but the content is identical to the standard Blu-ray release, so all of the above is applicable to that release as well. I have also written a fairly thorough illustrated article on the content of the Super Deluxe Edition which can be found here.