Less Than Jake – The People’s History of Less Than Jake [DVD]

Less Than Jake is one of the world’s most renown ska punk band. They’ve just released their second major label album, B Is For B-Sides, and have even made appearances in major movies like Daddy Day-care. But they haven’t just suddenly jumped onto the scene to take over the music industry, no. They have been touring, releasing albums, and creating fans for over eleven years; and like most bands, Less Than Jake took a camera with them and recorded many of their pivotal points in their career, along with countless live shows. Here, on The People’s History Of Less Than Jake, is that footage.

The DVD is set up into five sections: The Here And Now, The History, Avante Tarde, Photos, and Extras. The first of them all features three live performances. The first one is live in London and is split up by little interviews between each song. The interviews kinda slow down the performance a bit, but are interesting to see nonetheless. The second live one is “Not A One Hit Wonder, A Ten Year Failure… Live From Rhode Island” (or something around those lines). Here we get a full set that is done perfectly. The audio is fantastic and clear, the video angels are diverse and smooth, its recorded perfectly. But then again, considering it was recorded live for TV, it makes sense that a TV station does it well. This subsection is definitely the best part of the entire DVD and makes it worthwild. The last subsection keeps up the pace with a mixture of a ton of live performances melded together perfectly.

The second section is The History, here they have over an hour of live footage from different points in their career. It starts off with them playing Big to a crowd of one, sitting on the floor, to them playing in front of thousands at the Leeds Festival. It is interesting to see their live performance transform over the year and the crowds grow bigger and bigger. The filming quality differs from set to set, they have some which were recorded using only one camera and others which used more, so you get a wide range of filming styles here too. Some bad, and some good.

Next we get Avante Tarde, and personally, I couldn’t even watch it all. It is the band in costumes messing around and pretending to be different characters. Quite honestly, it isn’t fun to watch at all. This section really diminishes the overall entertainment value of the DVD. After Avante Tarde, we get to the Photos section, which is just a bunch of photos. They keep it moderate, and don’t force you to sit there for 10 minutes watching photos flash by, but still have and enough to keep your interested. The final section is Extras, which has some extra interviews with Vinnie about Monkey Vs. Robot, and Fueled By Ramen Records, along with some music from other FBR artists.

The People’s History Of Less Than Jake isn’t a great band DVD, I have seen a ton which are a lot better. There are a few live performances here which would make it worthwild for the extreme fan of the band; but its not a must have for casual fans of the band.