Various

Tour Is Hell DVD (2005)

Jordan Rogowski

I'm sure you fine people will correct me if I'm wrong on this one, but the idea of a live DVD, or a tour DVD, is to show the band's live performances along with various other hijinks on the road, interviews and whatever else is deemed fit. Why then did Eulogy Records pick three of the worst live bands, or just worst bands all around, to be on this DVD? Shattered Realm, On Broken Wings, and Black My Heart are pretty much unfit to entertain a crowd with an IQ anywhere over their shoe size, and yet, here they are on Eulogy's first volume of the Tour Is Hell series.

Massachusetts' mosh metal band On Broken Wings start the DVD off by saying "we're not really good at interviews," then proceed to prove it every time they're given the chance to speak. The lone highlight of their time is their story of being almost arrested by swat team members, because those swat members thought the air soft gunfight the band was having with Black My Heart was actually gang warfare. Had it actually been gang warfare, maybe one, or all of the members would have sustained injuries preventing them from playing the set caught by cameras, because it was absolutely awful. I've said numerous times and still hold to it that Remembering Never is the single worst live band I've ever seen, but On Broken Wings' uninspired drudgery gives them a run for their money. The lead singer is the only member of this 5-piece who moved during the entire performance, and that was only back and forth, in between horrible sounding growls. Ouch. Black My Heart fared slightly better, as the two songs they provided the DVD with are slightly more energetic, but still the only thing worth watching is their penchant for lighting off fireworks inside their moving tour bus. But even that gets old pretty quickly.

Approximately 46 bottle rockets and Roman candles later, Shattered Realm are given their portion of the DVD, which they use to talk about beating up some metal band they encountered while on tour in Tacoma. Wow, that's cool. About as cool as bragging about how much weed one of the members of your band can smoke in the next interview piece. Now, I'm not quite capable of saying I'm straight edge with a straight face, but bragging about how much you can smoke is pretty pathetic. And just as the two bands proceeding them, Shattered Realm managed to almost bore me into a coma with their brand of uninspired, passionless hardcore. The one thing of note in their set is it's the first time that you can actually see the crowd in any of the shots. There were very limited crowd shots during the previous sets, and when they did shoot a glance in that direction, all you were able to see was black. Whether it's the venue's lighting or the camera that's at fault, it still makes for a horrible performance.

The Judas Cradle has no live footage on this DVD, as they weren't able to make it to the show were the sets were filmed, which is a shame because the tour footage is really nothing but a highlight reel of how boring the personalities of these guys are. There's some freestyling, skipping on the beach, and swimming, and that's about the extent of it. The footage of the Warriors rounds the rest of it out, and thank God, because it's honestly the most entertaining thing on here. The live footage is solid, the band has some good energy, and the guys are pretty amusing. There's also music videos for the Judas Cradle and the Warriors tacked on the end that are a decent addition.

I really feel like I need to apologize, because I know damn well this is a boring review. But one can only do so much with the material that they're given, and in this case, I was given a shiny, thin, circular turd. Thank you Eulogy, for wasting an hour and a half of my life in which I could have watched three episodes of "Boy Meets World," or something else exponentially more entertaining.