It’s a truly infamous tour.

Not much else needs to be said about the Popmart tour that U2 put on during April 1997 and March 1998 than what has already been compiled in journals, magazines, newspapers and reams of videotape.

The stage is one of the most integral parts to the whole spectacle. A 170ft by 56ft LED screen, a 100ft cocktail stick complete with an adequately sized giganto-olive – and don’t forget the 50ft mirror ball lemon that the band emerged from in their encore. To put it bluntly – they took the absolute piss.

How do you carry on with this form of decadent, ironic, iconic image? Blind your audience with imagery from pop-art pioneers like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol is how. Nothing says “KA-POW!” like 150,000 pixels still causing near seizures a decade later.

Luckily for them, Al Gore and his carbon footprint wouldn’t be around for a while yet…

It doesn’t detract away from the power of their playing though; it only helps to enhance it. You can’t help but be lured in by the sheer scale of their sound. It’s been said time and time again, and Edge may have his detractors for being easy to read, but you can’t beat the pin drop performance of Sunday Bloody Sunday for one, or the brutally powerful intro of Pop Muzik and Mofo.

Even when you think Bono’s ego would be battling the screen for attention at all times (he does fit his face into a camera lens at one point – it is Bono after all…), it’s the moments where you see him take his guard down that reveal priceless moments.

Focus on your attention on Desire and Staring At The Sun for the juxtaposition between his real persona and his characters that appear in Bullet The Blue Sky amongst others.

The re-mastered sound and visuals bring the performance to life; taking the monologue VHS versions released previously to the cleaners. The crowd sound enthralled in total rapture, whilst Bono’s voice – that has clearly taken a battering – is full of traffic stopping grit and passion come With Or Without You.

You don’t even need to second-guess what the cleaned up visuals do to the thousands of lighters held up by the crowd at various moments.

The collectors item is the inclusion of Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me that has barely been captured since, and then an impassioned One, which is dedicated to INXS singer Michael Hutchence who had died under tragic circumstances a short time beforehand.