Dance Hall Crashers – Live At The House Of Blues L. A. (The Show Must Go Off) [DVD]

Kung Fu Records have been making headlines over the past year or so with their constant stream of live DVD releases with their ever-popular The Show Must Go Off! DVD series. They’ve released DVDs from big named acts like Alkaline Trio, Goldfinger, The Vandals, Mest, Zebrahead, Guttermouth and Reel Big Fish along with newer and smaller bands like One Man Army, The Matches, Tsunami Bomb and even an odd stand up comedian by the name of Neil Hamburger. Now they are set to release their eighteenth DVD featuring The Dance Hall Crashers, Live At House Of Blues L. A.; and sadly, as we are nearing the twentieth episode, it seems as if the novelty of The Show Must Go Off! is wearing thin.

Now, that’s not saying this DVD should be forgotten about, because it shouldn’t. It has easily kept up the standards of the series, but unfortunately, the label has failed to raise the standard lately. In every release, we constantly see the same positives and the same negatives, over and over again. Like always, the sound is spectacular. You can hear everything and it comes through the speakers beautifully clear. The DVD features a small range of bonus feature, like the signature band commentary that comes with every release. But like their previous releases, that’s pretty much it. This time they’ve added a nice collection of live photo shots from the performance, something which has been missing the past few releases, and some small extra footage clips of the crowd and band before and after the concert. But other than that, it’s pretty much all there is in the vein of bonus features.

Meanwhile, as they’ve successfully maintained the positive aspects of the DVD series, they’ve also stayed pretty steady with the negative and have failed to really improve on their mistakes. Although the Dance Hall Crashers are a lot clearer then their predecessors in Tsunami Bomb, it is still fairly blurry and dark at times. It isn’t vibrant like live videos should be, it just seems to dark to keep your eyes glued to the TV screen – and add the fact that it suffers from some graininess, the image quality is less than a treat for your eyes.

Nonetheless, The Dance Hall Crashers put on a solid performance for their energetic fans in attendance and I’m sure fans of the band will enjoy watching it once or twice. But unless you are a huge fan, this DVD won’t provide too much bang for your buck. And if you’re like me, and this is your first introduction to the band, it’s not a spectacular introduction. Hopefully, by the time they’ve reached number twenty,Kung Fu would have picked up on their little mistakes.