Various Artists - Vans Warped Tour '07: 2007 Tour Compilation
2008, Image Entertainment
One has to question why it took so long to get this particular compilation to market. The Vans Warped Tour for 2008 has already concluded, and it seems unlikely there would be a significant market for a DVD of selections from the 2007 tour at this late date. Nevertheless, Image Entertainment has Vans Warped Tour '07 out in time for the 2008 Holiday season.
Vans Warped Tour is the longest running punk rock tour in the US, and fans tend to be pretty hardcore. The eleven artists here aren't so much significant for who was included as who wasn't. Performances from Avenged Sevenfold, Bad Religion, Chiodos, Circa Survive, Coheed & Cambria, Killswitch Engage, Fishbone, Pennywise, Pepper, The Starting Line & Sum 41 are all well and good (although the performances of Chiodos and Fishbone were lukewarm at best), but why include interviews from artists like Paramore or Alkaline Trio without a live performance? There are other interviews here from The Almost, Coheed & Cambria and Killswitch Engage, among others. Ultimately, at just an hour running time, this set is light on substance.
Vans Warped Tour '07 appears to be a quickly put together release to make some dough in the holiday season. Fans of the tour undoubtedly have countless bootlegs available to them through tape trading, etc. where more complete sets are available. The official release amounts to a slick sampler platter that is designed to please everyone and likely to please very few in fact. More highlights, more bonus tracks, and longer sets from some of the bigger names are all options that might have made this more marketable. A longer running time (perhaps two hours instead of one) would also have made this more worthwhile.
To learn more about the Vans Warped Tour, check out http://www.warpedtour.com/. You can pick up a copy of Vans Warped Tour '07 at Amazon.com.
Labels: Alkaline Trio, Bad Religion, Coheed and Cambria, Paramore, Sum 41, The Almost, The Starting Line