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This DVD of footage from Sounds of the Underground from 2005 is set up in a pretty typical easy to use format. The beginning has selections for “play,” “chapters,” and “outtakes.” If you press on “chapters” you can select what you want to watch by band. Obviously, “play” just plays the whole DVD. It appears that the outtakes are from all over the tour. The outtakes are mostly just a bunch of dudes from a bunch of bands doing a bunch of funny things. It’s pretty typical backstage stuff. Beer bongs, autographed tits, booger picking, screaming fans, chicks on tour buses. You know, the usual. Of course there are scenes from other cities as far as backstage actions goes, but the performances for this DVD were all recorded at the parking lot of the Starland Ballroom in New Jersey on July 2nd 2005. The intro consists of footage from the whole day to a Throwdown song. Then we see a performance from All That Remains, with a little bit of candid backstage action. Same thing happens with the band Devil Driver. This pattern follows throughout the entire DVD with a performance of a song along with some candid backstage action either before or after each band. As far as the performances go, I could mostly never hear the bassist with any band. I mean, sometimes I could hear the bassist but I would really have to listen for it at times. There are also some moments of a camera on stage or backstage where the sound quality is absolutely horrible. These moments are sporadic and surprising, and frankly a little annoying. But they seem to be moments that need to be seen, and maybe they couldn’t find good audio for those certain clips or something. There are some great moments on stage and off. There is a beard montage. I like how Strapping Young Lad’s singer talks shit to the audience through the use of a shark hand puppet. There is a bulldozer attempt that seems to not go as planned during Throwdown’s set. There are a lot of “I stink” moments when the guys get whiffs of their own armpits. Every Time I Die gets the award for most smart-ass lead singer. There is a lot of footage of him being hilarious. Of course Gwar spews out a lot of fake blood all over everybody. As far as the performance clips themselves, they are all pretty good. Most of the bands have alright energy. There are some where the bands are just doing the posing rock star thing, but most of the bands seem to be having a genuinely good time. There are a lot of great camera angles. There must have been cameras all over the place. There is a pretty good representation of the audience throughout the day as well. Unfortunately most of them are doing that stupid ass punching kicking dance thing. I propose a new rule that any show where you see people doing that, just get together with the rest of the people around that idiot and smoosh them into the middle of a tight circle so they can’t do that shit anymore… but I digress. The only thing I would have cut back on, or added to the outtakes were all the clips in between band performances. It would be better to just have all the band performances one after the other, with all that in between crap relegated to somewhere else on the DVD so you can just get an hour and a half or so of straight music.
Alright, so this should of been up last week but after reading what I had wrote I decided that it sucked and scrapped it. So lets take another crack at it shall we? Yes, we shall. Can't get enough of the Sounds Of The Underground Tour? Don't you wish you could just take it home with you? Well, with the release of this DVD now you can. Of course, it covers last years fest, but technicalities aside this is one well put together DVD. Chronicaling the tour's stop in New Jersey on July 2nd 2005, we get to see the action both on and off the stage. Very well shot with multiple camera angles, attention is given equally between the band and crowd as well as between the band members themselves. Each band gets a spot of perfomance footage along with candid backstage footage. The sound quality isn't bad, if you listen closely you can make out everything with drums and bass being the lowest in the mix, followed by guitars which cut through the most clearly. The vocals are mixed a bit to high at some points but overall it gives a good represenation of all the bands in a live setting. No track by track here, that's what cluttered things up the first time around. Instead we'll save this for assorted highlights. Every band pulls off a solid performance but I noticed that there were some bands that for the most part stood around, with the singer doing the most moving about the stage, maybe one or two of the other guys as well, but not the whole band. It was like they would rock out for the bare minimum, usually during the chugga chugga part. But there were some bands who I felt as a whole put forth the effort to put on a good energetic show, those being Devil Driver, A Life Once Lost, Strapping Young Lad (who also get the award for best audience abuse), Every Time I Die, Norma Jean and Chimera. Then there are those who went above and beyond the call of duty, those being Poison the Well, Unearth and GWAR. Speaking of GWAR, they were the biggest highlight of the whole DVD for me. Provding the best candid footage as well as a kick ass performance of "Bring Back The Bomb," which features George Dubya getting decapitated. Good times. As the credits roll, we are then subjected to more screaming then a pro wrestling match. What is yelled and screamed the most? "SLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYERRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!" What, you were expecting something else? From there we go on to the out take footage which is somewhat of a blooper reel, delivering some truly hilarious moments. We have several guides on our tour, the best being who else but GWAR vocalist Oderus Urungas followed closely by Lamb of God front man Randy Blythe. Now onto the awards and other assorted nonsense. Only two bands, Devil Driver and Throwdown, make the claim for "the biggest pit of the day" on camera, with both having massive circle pits follow. The victory goes to Throwdown though for their "Bulldozer" at the beginning of their song. Ok a "bulldozer" is when all the people in the front turn around and run towards the back, bringing the pit of the back and running over everything else like a bulldozer. Honorable mention goes to Lamb of God for their "Wall of Death" also known as the "Braveheart" where the crowd splits in two and all at once runs at each other. Unearth picks up the win as Kings of the Chonger (Chonger = Beer Bong), with the honorable mention going to Balzac of GWAR for his whiskey chonger. Yes, you read that right my friends, he beer bonged whiskey. Devin Townsend of SYL takes home the award for best audience abuse via hand puppet. A sampling "You guys pretty much suck" also later calling everyone "pricks." Good times indeed. So if you just can't get enough of the Sounds Of The Underground Tour, pick up this DVD and prepare to be entertained.
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