Zoo TV: Live from Sydney
Zoo TV: Live from Sydney is a concert film by Irish rock band U2. It was shot on 27 November 1993 at Sydney Football Stadium in Sydney, Australia, during the "Zoomerang" leg of the group's Zoo TV Tour. Directed by David Mallet, the concert was broadcast on television worldwide via pay-per-view, and was released on home video in May 1994 on VHS and Laserdisc.
Zoo TV: Live from Sydney
17 May 1994
27 November 1993
Sydney Football Stadium (Sydney, Australia)
118 minutes
- Ned O'Hanlon
- Rocky Oldham
U2 faced difficulties with booking their November 1993 concerts in Sydney, as the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust originally rejected the band's application to book Sydney Football Stadium. John Fahey, the Premier of New South Wales, personally intervened to allow the shows to take place. U2 and the production crew used the 26 November concert as a dress rehearsal for the official filming the following day. Matters were complicated when bassist Adam Clayton was unable to perform on 26 November due to an alcoholic blackout, forcing his bass guitar technician Stuart Morgan to fill in. It was the first time a member of U2 had missed one of their concerts since their earliest days; Clayton recovered in time for filming of the 27 November show. The group initially planned to produce a January 1994 "triplecast" of the concert with MTV to offer it from different perspectives on three different channels, but they ultimately cancelled it.
Zoo TV: Live from Sydney received favourable reviews from critics and won the Grammy Award for Best Music Video, Long Form in 1995. It received sales certifications of double platinum in Australia, and platinum in the United States, the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Brazil. In 2006, it was re-released on DVD, while also being issued as a live album entitled Zoo TV Live to subscribers of U2.com.
Release[edit]
All tracks played on that night appeared on the video, with the exception of "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World", which was played between "Numb" and "Angel of Harlem". Many speculate it was omitted because of a controversy about Bono sharing a glass of champagne with an underage girl on-stage, while others believe that the band was unsatisfied with their performance.[9] However, producer Ned O'Hanlon stated in an online chat in 1996 that the concert was too long and needed to be cut for the video release.[10]
There was controversy in Japan after the video aired on television; in August 2007, Zoo TV set designer Willie Williams confirmed that no offensive phrase towards Japan was ever part of the Zoo TV show, and that it was simply a figment of a reporter's imagination after viewing the hundreds of random words displayed during the song.[11] In reality, the words displayed were shown in the following sequence — BOMB / WHORE / ULTIMATELY / JAPAN / CHAOS / I / WANT / IT / NOW — which caused the reporter to mistakenly "see" the reported offensive phrase.[12]
After being broadcast on TV, the show was first released in May 1994 on VHS and Laserdisc.
Zoo TV: Live from Sydney was one of the first titles slated for release in the DVD format in 1997/1998, and previews for it appeared on PolyGram DVDs of the time. But the PolyGram release was canceled. It was released on 18 September 2006 under the Island Records label. The DVD was released in a one- and two-disc edition, similar to the DVD release of Vertigo 2005: Live from Chicago. Both editions featured the concert in its original 4:3 aspect ratio, remixed with Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, and PCM Stereo audio.
The "super deluxe edition" and "Uber edition" of the Achtung Baby 20th anniversary reissue, which were released in November 2011, contain Zoo TV: Live from Sydney as one of four bonus DVDs.[13]
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the band's 1993 album Zooropa, on 12 July 2023 the Zoo TV: Live from Sydney concert was live streamed globally.[14]
The two-disc DVD release featured the following bonus features on disc two:
There are three easter eggs. These are: all three parts of the Interference documentary from the 1992 Achtung Baby video release; a 75-second video of war-themed warning drills; and a time lapse video of the Zoo TV stage being constructed and disassembled, set to the band's song "Some Days Are Better Than Others".
Zoo TV Live
18 November 2006
27 November 1993
Sydney Football Stadium (Sydney, Australia)
Rock
118:31
U2.com
Footnotes
Bibliography