Over 10 years ago, when visiting a vinyl record convention, 14-year old me got talked into buying the soundtrack of this picture. It grew out to be my favourite record, containing many of my favourite artists and introducing a few more, all with excellent performances. Sometimes live records are just so much better than studio albums. Sadly, I do not live in the US, so it seemed near-impossible for me to ever lay my hands on a DVD (or even VHS) recording, but I somehow did. It was a copy of a copy of a copy, with some sound missing, but still glorious. I put it on in the background when having friends over or for some late-night watching. It's almost as if you're there, you can feel the energy of the bands and the audiences alike, and most of these performances are definitely of these bands in their prime. I've seen some of them live since, and it's just not the same. Some others never come to mainland Europe or have since passed away (Lux Interior!), so this remains a gem.

In the 80s, there were some REALLY good movies about the underground music/art scene - Mondo New York, Decline of Western Civilization and Urgh! (just to name a few) but Urgh! takes the cake for me. I put it above the rest because it's all JUST about the music. No blah blah blah...no commercial bull flop - no NOTHING but music and some of the AMAZING musicians that were out performing at the time.I did not like the Police getting 3 tracks however. That smacked of some favoritism but since they were the deep pockets at the time, anything less probably would have resulted in no movie at all. That's why God gave us the Fast Forward and Skip buttons I believe. LOL.Watching this movie gives you a brief albeit somewhat lacking skim of the entire punk/new wave scene at the time, but given the ocean of music that was out there when I was a young pup, it's probably the best possible collaboration given the time and money available for production. It is a MUST VIEW for any music aficionado. Rapidly moving from Wall of Voodoo to Pere Ubu to XTC to OMD and on and on and on is like watching your young life go by (if you were born in the 60s *grin*) on Fast Forward and it is WONDERFUL! That said, it's heartbreaking now to see how young and talented all those folks were and how few remain relevant today...but music today is EXACTLY what Jello Biafra predicted in would be: "If you don't keep your eyes open...you'll be forced to buy skinny tie...pop bands". Well, the skinny ties are mostly gone - but today's bubblegum, idiotic pop music is all powerful and sickening - gone is the creative, roaring flame of the late 70s/early 80s music scene - replaced with vapidness like Britney Spears et al.Urgh! was and still is a testament to what great music and culture are all about. It's an irreproducible miracle of the modern age and we will never see anything like it again short of a new age of enlightenment affecting all mankind. Find it! Watch it! PRESERVE it! COVET IT!! I give it two thumbs up, a snap, a circle twist and 4 zillion stars.

i remember being so impressed that someone had filmed the bands i was listening to as a kid.... i saw this movie in the theatre once and on cable about 400,000,000,000 times. I used to stay up and watch it on Night Flight (as so many others have mentioned) and it used to run on Showtime, HBO and Cinemax quite a bit back in the day. Awesome performances and a whole *@#$load of music that's all but been forgotten... like the best band and best performance in the movie (which thus far no one has mentioned): Gang of Four totally rocking out in London. If you really want to treat yerself, i highly recommend finding a copy of this, but wait to watch it until you can go back-to-back with Decline of Western Civilization. Ah, what a great time to be alive that was :D One of my favorite movies; I wish i could see it again (come on Rhino! save us from another pop diva and re-issue this film on DVD!)

Update (written on 1st Oct '16): In late 2009 Warner Archives in the USA released a very high quality 16:9 (transferred from almost pristine film), glorious stereo, "burn on demand" single layer DVD edition of Urgh! The DVD is not quite perfect - there are just a few very minor split second, but noticeable, audio glitches. It would have been improved greatly if there were chapter marks at the start of each artist's performance (rather than every 10 minutes) and if a running order playlist was printed on the cover. The big advantage over all previous tape and LaserDisc editions is that the synch of video and audio is precise throughout (other editions had severe synch errors especially in both Pere Ubu and Devo - with the audio a full third of a second in advance of the video). The only artist missing from the Warner Archives DVD is Splodgeness Abounds, with their punk version of the Rolf Harris ditty "Two Little Boys" (no great loss). This is likely to be the only version ever released on digital and it is 99% of everything I could have hoped for. NB: because this is a 16:9 transfer from original film we get more information left and right than was shown in any of the 4:3 versions (tape or LaserDisc), and what is cropped slightly from the top and bottom of the film frame is worth the sacrifice.My original 2003 review. comment was:Urgh! is the finest ever collection of alternative music performance, by artists at the prime of their stage careers. An important and lasting legacy of Urgh! was that it brought some previously unknown bands to the attention of a much broader audience than would ever have been possible otherwise. I'm referring here to acts such as Skafish, (the late) Klaus Nomi, The Alley Cats, Gang Of Four, Pere Ubu, X and The Cramps. No-one could fail to want more of The Cramps after seeing Lux Interior deepthroat his hi-ball mic, while barely staying in his pants. Jim Skafish's "Sign Of The Cross" is another highlight - as a blasphemous anthem of epic proportions.There are only a few performances that I really thought were so-so (Chelsea, 999, John Otway, Invisible Sex); a few more were "good", but the vast majority were amazingly good.Even on the poor quality transfer to LaserDisc you can appreciate that Urgh! was filmed with care and with genuine respect for the performers and the viewer really feels like part of the audience. The bands all sound great - but strangely it's in mono on the LaserDisc & VHS, while the double album on vinyl is in extremely good stereo. So when someone finally gets around to doing it, surely there's a state-of-the-art DVD just begging to be mastered and released? And if a DVD does eventuate, let's hope they make up for the major failing of the LaserDisc, and include Wall Of Voodoo's "Back In Flesh".