My honest opinion is that the Aloha Films Group is slightly mismarketing their product. Beyond Warped does not focus too much on the behind-the-scenes aspects of the tour; instead, it follows the standard path for documentaries about one of the most successful festivals in the history of music with performances and short interviews.
The DVD opens with a performance of "Punk Rock 101" by Bowling For Soup and is followed by the band describing how effective the Warped Tour staff is at physically setting up the show day after day, city after city. The majority of the video is delivered in this format as the musicians lend a little insight on how they feel about certain characteristics of the Warped Tour, the benefits of the diversity on the tour, the weather, and several other topics.
While many may complain about the lack of main stage acts out of the 20-plus bands on the disc, there are still quality performances by the household names. Guttermouth's live renditions of "Party Of Two" and "Bruce Lee Vs. The Kiss Army" prove they deserved to be on the Warped despite an early departure. Anti-Flag lend two solid performances with "911 For Peace" and "Got The Numbers." Epitaph's upbeat pop-punkers the Matches fly through a bouyant performance of "Jack Slap Cheer" and later on you see bassist Justin San Souci hand-crafting shirts for a few fans. The River City Rebels forced themselves onto the tour and I'm glad the crew caught snippets of Saucy Jack, the trombone player, as he was a comedic treat on the dates I attended. The decision to mix a feature on hardcore dancing with a performance by From First to Last is a little sketchy, but the unintentional humor behind this scene makes it worth watching. Perhaps the strongest performance on the DVD is Billy Talent's dedication of "Try Honesty" to all the people who make Warped Tour happen -- although it's rivaled by a very cinematic edited cut of "Kids & Heroes" by the Bouncing Souls.
The most astonishing feature of the Beyond Warped DVD is the visual and audio quality of the footage, recorded entirely on High Definition cameras in Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound. Supporting the technology are several excellent camera angles of the groups, the fans, and artistic scenic shots spanning across two hours of impeccable footage.
The only significant fault with the DVD would be the lack of big names, but the bands on the media are listed on the back cover so you are not duped. Think of it as finally getting to see a few of the bands you missed because you were off watching Bad Religion or Rise Against. Another minor aspect that would be appreciated would be to include which city the performances were from on the screen as well as song titles. Other than those simple tweaks, kudos to Aloha Films on a job well done and we should all look forward to more standard setting media from them.
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