Review by Brian McLean
One thing needs to be clarified when it comes to Strapping Young Lad’s DVD released through Century Media Records. The DVD is titled For those Aboot to Rock, not About to Rock as in the 1981 Aussie hard rock band album.
That’s what is called instant Strapping Young Lad humor starting with the title.
Twelve camera operators captured Strapping’s 14 song set in front of a sold out home town crowd at the Commodore in Vancouver, headquarters for the Lad.
Touring in support of their 2002 release, Strapping Young Lad, the band relied heavily on the disc for the set list pulling seven songs from the album.
The disc and show start out with the same tracks, opening with “Dire,” followed by “Consequence,” “Relentless,” and “Rape Song” with “Devour,” “Aftermath” and “Force Fed” later in the set.
The show concludes with “Far Beyond Metal” and has an appearance by Drew. Who’s Drew? Purchase a copy, watch and find out.
There’s no need to worry for the hardcore Strapping fans, the crowd favorites “Detox” and “SYL” are in the set.
The DVD features a standard solid effort Strapping Young Lad show, a high energy set complete with Devin Townsend’s unique and humorous one liners and on stage antics.
What’s missing would be Townsend’s belittlement of concert attendees in the crowd. Probably a wise move not to heckle the hometown crowd that sold out the venue for the filming of a live DVD, but very amusing when it occurs elsewhere.
Some of the show’s lighter moments has Townsend sporting a super size foam cowboy hat tossed in from the crowd as well as on stage self satisfaction. Only Devin.
What is not standard on For those Aboot... is the live footage formatting and editing. The program is not the normal full screen the entire time, instead there’s creative editing with the camera angles available. It’s a definite plus and attention grabber.
It’s not uncommon to have a split screen of two images vertically or four images horizontally with the top half being an overall stage with three close ups of band members underneath. Specifically great behind the kit footage of drummer Gene Hoglan, a top metal drummer hands down.
The packaging of the live show on film is a definite plus as a whole.
Additional features have the inclusion of the videos
for “Relentless” and “Detox” along with crew and
standard band interviews.
As with a Strapping Young Lad show, the DVD captures what it’s all
about. Relentless metal.