Color cover. Picture CDs. The sound is good for an audience recording, thanks in large part to the powerful PopMart sound system. Bono chats to the audience on various things, most notably former Beatle George Harrison's snotty comments about U2 that summer. Before "Even Better
Than The Real Thing," Bono sarcastically tells the fans, "Good people of
Yorkshire, you made a terrible mistake- George Harrison says you
shouldn't be here. It's all big fucking hats and lemons and air." Bono
lets loose a more powerful satiric tear at the ex-Beatle when he includes
a snippet of Harrison's most well known Beatles' contribution,
"Something," near the end of "Mysterious Ways." A marvelously improvised
(or seemingly so) 2 minute version of "Rain" closes the show, probably as
much for the Beatles as for the reported rain that night. Bono reminisces
with the crowd throughout the night, telling them before "I Still Haven't
Found What I'm Looking For," "We've been coming here for a long time-
going right back. Last time was the best- the time we spent here at
Roundhay was the best concert of our tour, last year- last time." He
then jokingly adds, "Of course, tonight is crap." He digs deeper back
than Zooropa: "Going back to Tiffany's...Tiffany's with those fucking
palm trees. We brought a few palm trees with us, you'll see a little
later- and a 40 foot lemon, of course." Bono's jocularity recurs
throughout the night, with statements like, "Anyway, I hope you like all
this shit because...you paid for it." At the beginning of "Staring At
The Sun," Bono begs Leeds not to laugh at his guitar playing. The
highlights of the evening, beyond the George Harrison bashing are Bono's
reflections during "Bullet the Blue Sky," when he asks, "How much do you
want for your soul?" and the moment when Bono begins singing Led
Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" at the end of "Discotheque" and heavily
distorted Edge plows ahead with him, playing the well-known riff. On
Track 5, before the encore begins, the audiance begins spontaneously
chanting, "How long to sing this song." In all, this is a good show- the
band obviously have a good rapport with the audiance. The front cover
attractively mimics the Who's classic 'Live At Leeds' album. The back
cover has a faint picture of Bono taken from, I believe, a Spin or
Rolling Stone article earlier in the year- April or May. The liner notes
contain an essay poking fun at the band poking fun at themselves,
as well as a complete tour itenerary containing some never performed
concerts. The picture CDs are pink and blue (for "Miami," perhaps?) and
both include the cartoon of Bono which was included in Rolling Stone's
March, 1997 review of Pop. Not a bad bootleg. There is a bit too much
clapping in the vicinity of the taper. Not very much bottom end.
Certainly not the best recording or performance from the tour, LIVE AT
LEEDS should satisfy the hard-core completist but very few others. The
best thing about this set is the cover which is attractive only for its
simplicity and novelty. But where The Who's 'Live At Leeds' was one of
the best live performances ever recorded, this is not event the best U2
performance - not even close. Disc 1 is purple and white. Disc 2 is
blue and white. The sound quality is good, but in many songs the crowd
(with talking and hand clapping) overrules the recording equipment that
was used. Inside the cover, you'll find the complete PopMart tour dates
and the following review of the show from New Musical Express (NME) by
Simon Williams called 'Notorious Big Show!'

"...It isn't called PopMart any more. No sirree. For us Blighty
bleeders who don't, like, comprehend the whole bally Yankee supermart/
market concept, U2 have craftily updated their whole touring promotion
and, according to the legion of posters smeared across the derelict pubs
and shops lining the route to Roundhay Park, rechristened it PopSport.
Oh, and there's a bloody big football on the posters as well, just in
case we haven't noticed just how adroitly they've transferred their
cultural allegiances from the US of A to the U of, uh, K. So there's
this huge lemon, right. And the yellow skin peels away to reveal a sort
of vast silver citrus-shaped disco ball. And then the ball trundles
along this catwalk into the audience and then it stops and the top half
sort of slowly lifts off and U2 are standing there and this metal ladder
appears and the band walk down and all this equipment has suddenly
appeared at the end of the catwalk and the band sort of launch into
'Discotheque', like, in the middle of the crowd and it's just the start
of the encores and, no ociffer, I'm pot nissed, it really, really did
happen...
...As did many other things tonight, not all of them quite so jaw-
droppingly amazing, but still pretty damn saucy. See, from the moment
they dramatically appear stage-right and stride along an alleyway through
the sodding audience to a final, carefree version of 'Rain' just over two
hours later, U2 pretty much blow every conception of live performances
and their alleged limitations out of the water. Light years ago, their
cursed Red Rocks farrago (remember the white flags? The mullets? The
manic bleat preaching?! Lawks!) catapulted the freaky foursome into the
shameful realm of the rawk arena. Over a decade on, we have our own new
generation of big stage bastardos, with Oasis, Blur, Radiohead and The
Charlatans already booked into suddenly credible binocular-friendly
venues before Crimbo. And rest assured that none of them will provide
entertainment on a scale anywhere near as staggering as this.
The plot is pretty simple: for the old crowd pleasers (see 'I Will
Follow', '(Pride) In The Name Of Love', 'New Year's Day') the theme is
stripped down and euphoric; for the later efforts (see the majority of
the quite literally tune-unfriendly 'Pop' album) the spectacle is all
and, more often than not, utterly spectacular. And here's the rub. U2
used to be more substance than style Now they're more style than
substance and represent older men getting to grips with younger people's
dance-dazzled sounds. Somewhere in the middle you'll find PopSport in
all its awesome, gizmo-grinning glory. "George Harrison says you
shouldn't be here!" yells Bono, a man who obviously snorts the tabloids.
"It's all big fucking hats and lemons!" It is, too, courtesy of The
Edge's camp cowboy attire and one large bright yellow bugger stage-left,
but when U2's retort is the gentlest of touches of 'My Sweet Lord' at the
close of 'Mysterious Ways' you realise just how much they're enjoying
this whole supposedly hard-nosed corporate touring fandango.
The highlights, then: Bono doing his traditional dance-with-a-girlie-
from-the-audience act during a bionic 'Miami', and offering her a cigar;
the cloud-bursting lasers for 'Bullet The Blue Sky'; the way in which
Bono subverts all the Big Rock bollocks by dragging the crowd down
into a 'Radio Ga Ga'-style mass clapalong; a stack of screamingly
familiar songs which we haven't got time to detail because our minds
are too busy being boggled by the cheeky, funky things in U2's life.
And oh yeah, one other small-but-rather significant bit: somewhere in the
middle of the set Bono and The Edge are at the far end of the catwalk
with their acoustic guitars, duetting on 'Staring At The Sun'. Bono has
already beamingly ordered the crowd not to laugh at his fretboard, uh,
dexterity. In a few minutes The Edge will be striding solo on that same
catwalk, bellowing 'Singing In The Rain'. Throughout the entire
experience fans will be waving flowers. Dads will be shouting along.
Geezers will be hugging each other. Mothers will be clapping. Small
girls will be quivering. And small boys? Hey, we all know about small
boys and their jiving, jumpers for goalposts, right? Yes.
U2, then. Loaded, daft, dizzy, and, quite literally, Pop sports for
all..."
This is the original pressing on this label.