U2: Popmart—Live from Mexico City

Filmed by noted music video director David Mallet, U2: Popmart—Live from Mexico City features the famed Irish pop rock band at a lower point of their chart-topping career, on a 1997 tour promoting the release of the disappointing Pop. Backed by a giant neon-colored video wall sporting images of the band, as well as art by Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, U2 serves up a generous 25-song set, with nearly a third of the songs drawn from the techno-driven Pop (“Mofo,” “Discotheque,” and forgettable numbers such as “Gone,” and “Wake Up Dead Man”), and four solid hits from 1991's Achtung Baby (“Even Better Than the Real Thing,” “One,” “Until the End of the World,” and “Mysterious Ways”). The band's classic catalog is well represented with “New Year's Day,” “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “With or Without You,” and the moving tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Pride (In the Name of Love).” Although lead singer Bono has long been the heir apparent to Mick Jagger as the rock star nonpareil, he seems more subdued here (in a relative sense, of course), and he's obviously struggling with weakness in his voice. Ably backed by Edge's choppy guitar, Adam Clayton's commanding bass, and Larry Mullen, Jr.'s steady drums, the Popmart concert is solid spectacle (the band leaves the stage at one point, only to return in a giant lemon that opens like a pod), presented in DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1, and PCM stereo. Even though this is a clear step down from U2: Zoo TV—Live from Sydney (VL-1/07), it's still head and shoulders above what most bands are able to muster for a live performance. Recommended. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)