Filmmaker Richard Lowenstein shares U2 and INXS experiences ahead of academic U2 Conference

Aussie director Richard Lowenstein, who worked with both U2 and INXS and documented their lives, has a special treat for fans.

Australian filmmaker Richard Lowenstein had been working with INXS for five years when U2 came calling.

After a string of video clips and casting frontman Michael Hutchence in his film Dogs In Space, Lowenstein was hired to direct the clips for the Rattle and Hum singles Desire and Angel of Harlem.

And when U2 decided to film a concert on the Australia leg of their Lovetown tour with blues legend B.B. King 30 years ago, they booked the Australian filmmaker for the gig.

Bono, B.B. King, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr on stage during the Lovetown tour. Picture: Independent News and Media/Getty Images.

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Lowenstein will show that rare film and his Mystify documentary about his good friend Hutchence at the U2 Conference on Thursday, a gathering of academics and superfans at 301 Studios in Sydney where the Irish band has enjoyed the occasional recording session during Australian tours.

“I’ve been looking at the behind the scenes footage – by that time we all had video cameras – and there’s film of David Bowie and B.B. King and Bono chewing the fat in a bar; it’s extraordinary,” Lowenstein said.

“There’s a scene where David Bowie walks up to the camera and holds his hand out to introduce himself as I’m hiding behind the camera.”

“It was such a vibrant time for the band with U2 having just done the Rattle and Hum album.

“They were exploring what was possible as far as stage lighting and filming it.”

Irish band in an Irish pub in Sydney. U2 with B.B. King at The Mercantile hotel in The Rocks. Picture: Bob King/Redferns)

Various snippets of the grainy Lovetown concert film live on YouTube and Lowenstein hopes one day U2 would consider restoring and re-releasing it.

A reissue would be worth it for the scenes featuring a cheeky Alannah Hill, long before she launched her fashion line and stores.

Hill confronts band members Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr, along with members of King’s band and fans, with saucy questions about love and sex.

“There’s no sex in Ireland, I thought you would know that,” Bono jokes in the film as Hill chases him down a Sydney street.

Lowenstein said Hill disarmed the band and everyone she met during the shoot with her upfront personality.

“She was being frisky in her classic outrageous way … they did end up censoring a lot of what we could use in the official film,” he said.

“But I think they have been incredibly balanced between the rock’n’roll lifestyle and what you run into during a long tour and it’s to their credit and why they have longevity.

“Bono is still with his high school sweetheart Ali, a shining, beautiful person and they are thick as thieves.”

While Lovetown was focused on shooting one of their final concerts on the Australian leg – their last indoor arena tour before claiming our sports stadiums as their own with the Zoo TV tour – Mystify has been a labour of love for Lowenstein.

Director Richard Lowenstein will present his U2 and INXS films at the U2 Conference. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

The director wanted to show his friend Hutchence as a fully realised human, his tumultuous love life and the trauma of his head injury which many close to the rock star believed ultimately contributed to him taking his life in 1997.

“I am very pleased for Michael, that his presence on the planet is now something legitimate and there’s something respectful of him because I didn’t think there was anything in book or film or dramatic series that really respected who he was,” Lowenstein said.

“I think people find it easier, especially when you look a certain way as he did, to slide that character into an archetype of having a good time and supermodels, beautiful girlfriends, big houses and hit records.

“And that doesn’t look at the nature of the industry he was in.”

The real Michael Hutchence is brought to life in Mystify. Picture: Supplied.

While Mystify illuminates Hutchence’s relationships and the shift in his behaviour in the wake of the head injury he sustained when assaulted by a taxi driver in Copenhagen, perhaps the biggest question it raises for fans is the sliding door moment of his side project Max Q.

Lowenstein was aware of the singer’s deep frustrations about the “paranoia” surrounding its release in 1989.

“I have the evidence there was a concerted effort to squash that album,” Lowenstein said.

“I don’t include the band in this. I don’t think they even knew or cared … and I think they would have loved it if he had a successful solo album.

“I was with Michael throughout the whole Max Q thing and there was never any chance he would start another band and leave INXS.

“There was a a certain paranoia among management and people looking at what happened with Sting when he went solo and The Police broke up.

“You only had to have one conversation with Michael to know that wouldn’t happen; INXS was his family and he loved family.”

Mystify is screening on Foxtel on Demand and will air on the ABC on November 24 from 8.40pm.

Originally published as Filmmaker Richard Lowenstein shares U2 and INXS experiences ahead of academic U2 Conference