2 out of 5

Label: Deathwish

Produced by: ?

Mm, live shows.  What I look for: good sound quality; camera-work that accurately captures the feeling and experience of the show.

I can’t claim to be a Give Up the Ghost / American Nightmare fan in the least, I just buy stuff on Deathwish Records in the faith that it’ll be, at the worst, average hardcore (more often than not it’s good to great, hence my faith); whether or not AN classifies as average or something other, I can’t say, as this ‘documentary’ – footage of two reunion shows, about 45 minutes each, with some boring talking heads mixed in – must be for fan memories only.  From an audio perspective, the first show (Boston) has good music fidelity, but the vocals drop in and out as the lead singer thrashes or hands off the mic to fans.  The second show – LA – is maybe more consistent, but alas, I can’t really tell because the volume is waaay low, although you can hear the fans singing most of the show, which is pretty interesting.  Yes, this may just be a defect in my copy, but nothing musically is solid enough to entice me to grab another copy to find out; on album, I’m sure this stuff has the potential to be fire, but on this DVD, it really only seems like it’d be interesting if you were there, or at a similar show.

…If you weren’t at such a show, or haven’t been to a hardcore show, the LA show gives you a good sense of the complete anarchy, with people storming the stage and jumping all over the band and into the crowd.  The camerawork here is pretty good, constantly roving around and switching points of view.  The Boston show is really boring though, taking mostly a static stage view and, sure, capturing some epic crowd dives, but otherwise doing nothing to really interpret the energy of the visually packed venue.

The talking heads are cut into the Boston act; some minor talk about the reunion, some fans talking about the legacy of the band.  Nothing revelatory beyond “yeah dude, American Nightmare rocked,” though.