SHADOWS FALL
The Art of Touring
(Century Media)
Color
Region 1
NTSC

If you’re looking for something comparable to Iron Maiden’s Live After Death in quality of production, fuggedaboudit. The Art of Touring is a completely different style with its own intrinsic charm, built on bootlegs and behind-the-scenes handheld camera footage. Between Zakk Wylde’s extolling the virtues of the band’s derrières to deer hunting, tour bus mishaps and oral rocket launching, the band’s shenanigans often run like a toned down Jackass movie Jr. – some of them are hilarious.

Additionally, there’s a humorous yet poignant cover of Pantera’s “Walk” done with Damageplan when Dimebag Darrell was still alive. Six of SF’s professional videos are featured as well as bonus tracks including quality covers of Motley Crue’s “Live Wire” and Dangerous Toys’ “Teas’n Pleas’n” with a cameo appearance by that band’s vocalist Jason McMaster.

On a side note: from this DVD, you can note the way glam metal and its theatrics subtly influenced this band – whether it’s by the stunts they’re pulling on and offstage, by the bands they cover or by frontman Brian Fair’s impossibly long dreadlocks whipping around his head like the aesthetics of frenzied moshing octopi. What’s remarkable about Shadows Fall is that they have supreme technical skill (drummer Jason Bittman was voted #1 Metal Drummer in the Modern Drummer Reader’s Poll) but they don’t sacrifice the intensity and passion of the music in order to show off individually. The Art of Touring makes them seem like down-to-earth, normal metalheads themselves. The Art of Touring is a product of DIY ethic combined with bearable bootleg quality performances, definitely worth the money if you’re just a metalhead who appreciates that type of mindset or, of course, if you just happen to like the band.

View this review in its original state here at American Wired.