Story Of The Year – Live In The Lou / Bassassins

There are so many live DVDs coming out these days, that you never know what ones to get. Luckily, Story Of The Year‘s Live In The Lou / Bassassins starts off ahead right from the beginning by not only giving you a DVD, but also a CD of the live show. And then, on top of the live show on the DVD, there is also a mini one hour documentary on the band’s last two years. So right away, this one looks like it will take the lead, but still the question lingers: “Is it worth it?”

Let’s look at it in two parts for now. There’s the live section and the documentary. With the CD and live show being off the same show, they of course sound the same. The CD is good. Plain and simple. The sound is clear and vivid, and you can hear the crowd clearly scream along in the background making it so it really feels like a live album. Dan Marsala’s vocals are strong as he yells and screams through all the songs from Page Avenue on the last Nintendo Fusion Tour date. They do talk a bit, but not so much that it becomes annoying, just enough to keep you entertained. But after only listening to the audio version of the live show, you miss some things. Things that you can only pick up from the DVD version, so of course, that comes next.

The Live In The Lou aspect of the DVD sounds good, just like the audio CD did. The band puts tons of energy into their set, and it shows as they jump around and sweat like crazy. They keep it entertaining by switching around instruments in Falling Down. Dan takes over drumming duties from Josh Wills as he takes control of yet another guitar and surprising everyone, Matt from Letter Kills comes on for vocals. After that, on Burning Years, Adam Russell drops his bass and runs into the crowd. Running up the stairs, you then see him on the balcony where he jumps off and lands in the crowd. Oddly, as soon as he lets go the screen turns black and they say:

“We had to remove this due to legal reasons.
The bald eagle is an endangered species.”

Or something to that effect. That’s not the only mistake on the live show too. Before it starts, it lists the dates: November 12th and 13th 1987. What those dates mean, I’ll never know. The live DVD is a good view, although at times it does get dark and is really shaky. It will probably be something you will only watch once before putting it away for good. The CD is a lot easier to play then the DVD.

The other half the DVD is the Bassassins section. But for such a young band, they really don’t have much to put on it, and it shows. They fill it up with pointless ramblings and idiotic interview questions where they change all the words around. It is slightly entertaining, but as it goes on you just get bored. You don’t really learn anything new about the band or its members, just see them doing stupid stunts and tricks. Its okay, but only okay. If they had waited a few more years then they could’ve done a really good documentary.

Sadly, the best part of the DVD is all the extra features. They have the three music videos for Anthem Of Our Dying Day, Until The Day I Die and Sidewalks along with some acoustic AOL Liveperformances. There is also a Making Of “Sidewalks” section, and this is very interesting to watch. You actually learn how they did it and their ideas behind it all. If the rest of the documentary was like this, then it would be worth it so much more.

Story Of The Year‘s Live In The Lou / Bassassins is good for huge fans of the band. But casual fans will want to stay clear from it, as it only gives you one new song (The Heart Of Polka Is Till Beating) and the documentary won’t be worth it.