was Popmart as disturbing as the Mexico City video??

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truecoloursfly

The Fly
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I finally got to see the official Popmart video, having missed the tour. Much has been said of the Popmart show; I love POP, so I wanted to see for myself. Well, shite.
I was reading the Mofo thread this morning, too, still fresh with the pain of watching Bono in Mexico. Maybe it'll mellow with a few repeats, but what I saw last night... Watched it again tonight, and again I was in tears by the end of his little chat before ISHFWILF. He's visibly in pain, a drowning man, lonely in a crowd...
The concert is framed by two defining moments: the last-night-on-Earth blitzkrieg of lights and Popmuzik, out of which comes Bono's plaintive first line: lookin' for to save my, save my soul;
and the scarifying HMTMKMKM: Kill me! Come on, KILL ME! he screams at the audience, all those images of dead celebrity supernovas behind him. Can one not tempt fate too boldly?? I'd have been afraid for him! This from the man who goose-stepped in the stadium in Berlin, I know, but ZooTV was about mocking, even defying the Devil, with the power of One as a weapon; Popmart appears to be a kind of... resignation, a last waltz with the Devil.
In Mexico City, I feel the chill, the first time they were not moved by joy. I realize it was a scarce week after Michael Hutchence's death, and that was much on their minds. Yet, the album itself questioned God, and the show (it seems to me) was built on alienation from God, and from joy. (It even mocked Her "mysterious ways.") It wasn't the show's bigness, after all, not its "hubris" that put people off, although on the surface that's what they saw -- it was the darkness, the cold, the fear. I love Bono, and it broke my heart to watch that performance. He is so lost, so desperate -- a boy, a raging adolescent in a hoodie and a summer buzzcut. An orphan.

Please, those who saw that tour, tell me it was different than that. Or wasn't...but tell me what it was for you. The show reviews at U2tours make it sound like any other series of shows. Was it? Feedback is such a perceptive bunch. Reminisce a little, if you would... I need to know.

Deb D

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***Grace makes beauty out of ugly things***

the greatest frontman in the world -- by truecoloursfly: http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=1575
 
i stayed in a popmart tour concert, and it was spectacular, amazing, incredible, quiet difenret than elevation tour...
it hadn?t intimity but it was 70.000 people jumping into MOFO...wooooooh!
I enjoyed the concert, but I prefer the Elevation tour...
as same as I like POP but I prefer ATYCLB...
but I hope that the new tour will be in footbakll staiudms!
 
ummm....it's a brilliant tour, if you ask me. it completely freakin' blew my mind the first time i saw it, the first and only time something completely went beyond my expectations.

as for the elevation tour, it just met my expectations. not bad, considering my high of standards.

*missing the video shows...

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Fatty the Skank
 
I found it VERY disturbing and impossible to watch. I admit Bono's appearance, a skinhead in a muscle shirt, had a lot to do with it. The other guys looked weird too and the stage setup was hard to look at. I don't like many of the POP songs either. I hate PopMart, I admit to being one of those longtime fans who was turned off by it. I can honestly say I was upset by it. There had been reasons I had loved U2 and with PopMart they had destroyed all of them.Don't flame me, that's my feelings. I saw it on TV, I willnever buy a copy! I have all the other videos and I love them and look forward to the new Elevation one!

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"I've been all over,
and it's been all over me!"



[This message has been edited by GypsyHeartgirl (edited 10-25-2001).]
 
I didn't attent any of the popmart concerts, but I love the Popmart in Mexico City video and I love the popmart boots I have. I agree that the Mexico City popmart is very heart-breaking to watch... Bono was so emotional, especially during One, Gone, Please and WOWY.
 
I thought Popmart was outstanding. It is impossible to judge a tour by watching it on film. You really have to experience it first hand. Look at the webcast of the Notre Dame show. Alot of people that watched it thought it was a flat show with a lame crowd. I was personally there and this was definately not the case.

Check out the Popmart videos from Sao Paulo Brazil and Santiago Chile, they are better shows than the Mexico City show IMO and you will probebly enjoy them more.
 
I?m with Blue Room. The Popmart concert I attended was the 2nd one in Buenos Aires, an it was awesome, another great U2 performance, their art was there, intact, and they had lots of fun with their Argentine fans...and also lots of Brazilians were there (like me
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)
As for the video of S?o Paulo concert, well, what can I say...it?s my fave
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okay, I?m biased, of course, but I think Blue Room is not, and if he recommends it, it?s because it?s one of the most emotional performances in the whole history of Popmart concerts. It would be amzing if they had released that one oficialy IMHO.



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Seu pa?s ? lindo. Seu povo ? lindo. Suas vozes s?o lindas. N?o esqueceremos voc?s. - Bono - S?o Paulo - 01/31/1998
 
popmart was one big fuckin' psychadelic groovey funky send-me-to-the-moon dance party.

Dunno what you were watching. chill out and see it for what it was
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I can't change the world, but I can change the world in me.
 
I stopped being 'disturbed' by just ignoring the entire thing. There is too much else good U2 to love. I just pretend the whole fiasco was a nightmare. Nobody likes everything somebody does, when my Grandmother changed her pickle recipe to one I didn't like I stopped eating them until she changed it again! You like what you like, what you don't you don't.

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My U2 webpage: http://community.webshots.com./user/u2kitten

Walk On, stay safe tonight
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[This message has been edited by U2Kitten (edited 10-25-2001).]
 
To me, POPmart Mexico City seemed fairly happy, especially during Pride (We're here...to make love!!)

Overall, one amazing show, just hoping the DVD gets released

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"...and a thousand slimy things did crawl upon the slimy sea..."
 
I just gotta clarify: I am not unhappy with what they did on Popmart, nor pissed off at them. My question is more of the nature of what they added to their oeuvre with it -- I could no more ignore it than I can ignore Picasso's Desmoiselles or or Whitman's Leaves of Grass, equally disturbing (or at least, shocking) events in the cultural life of their time. Van Gogh had a monochrome period, and his scandalous nerve-jangling colours, and the choral beauty of his Starry Night.
Elevation is choral beauty... was Popmart a canvas deliberately bereft of joy (which can be itself a valid artistic statement)? Some answers here suggest it was not. Tell me more. What statement do you think they tried to make, and were they successful? I think this is an important question, somehow...

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***Grace makes beauty out of ugly things***

the greatest frontman in the world -- by truecoloursfly: http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=1575
 
That's a really interesting interpretation.. I never really saw Popmart as a morbid, despairing affair, but more as a glitzy glamourous happy funtime.
 
mmm....pickles
smile.gif

personally, i love my popmart video. but i think that colours has a point- bono did seem a little lost at times, even desperate, especially when i'm already feelng a bit depressed.
 
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