Photo by Emily Wilson ($)

Al Barr - vocals
Ken Casey - bass guitar & vocals
Matt Kelly - drums
James Lynch - guitar
Marc Orrell - guitar
Tim Brennan - accordion, mandolin, whistle & acoustic guitar
Scruffy Wallace - bagpipes

On the Road with the Dropkick Murphys features a brief look into the life of an Irish punk rock band, the Dropkick Murphys. This seven man posse takes punk rock with a twist of Celtic and traditional folk music, to provide the punk genre with an absolutely unique sound. Originally, the band started in 1996 as your common garage band, but they quickly grew in stature within the punk rock community, which is solely due to their attractive high energy and riveting unique style of music.

The bulk of this DVD spans across three main features. The first main feature is Live On St Patrick's Day, an hour and five minute long live recording from their 2002 show at The Avalon Ballroom in Boston MA. This live recording is also features the same content as their live album release, Live on St. Patrick's Day from Boston, MA at the Avalon Ballroom. The second item is 65 Days Of Hell, which features a forty minute documentary of the band's 65 day journey across the country during the infamous 2003 Warped Tour. Lastly the DVD contains Behind the Scenes, an hour and thirty-two minutes of non-stop Dropkick Murphy debauchery that includes drinking, a special Dropkick Murphys fourth of July special (while stuck in Canada), and other wild and crazy antics. However, also included with the three main attractions are a few extras, music videos and two mini-featurettes.

Track List (*)
1. Walk Away
2. As One
3. The Dirty Glass
4. The Outcast
5. Buried Alive
6. Time To Go
7. This Is Your Life
8. Kiss Me I'm #!@*faced
9. John Law
10. Upstarts & Broken Hearts
11. Curse Of A Fallen Soul
12. The Gang's All Here
13. Boys On The Docks
14. Barroom Hero
15. Road Of The Righteous
16. Do or Die
17. Caught In A Jar
18. The Gauntlet
19. Heroes From Our Past
20. The Torch
21. Forever
22. Spicy McHaggis Jig
23. Good Rats
24. A Few Good Men
25. Black Velvet Band
26. Cadence To Arms
27. Finnegan's Wake
28. Amazing Grace
29. The Rocky Road To Dublin
30. The Wild Rover
31. Worker's Song
32. Gonna Be A Blackout Tonight
33. Fields Of Athenry
34. For Boston
35. Alcohol
36. Which Side Are You On?
37. Don't Eat That Red Snow
38. Booze 'n Pills

The DVD

Video:
This feature is presented in 1.33:1 Full Frame color. Don't expect to be graced with a stunning picture, in fact, expect something a little worse. There are several factors that can be contributed to the poor quality of this feature. The first, Live On St Patrick's Day, this was a live recording of 2002 performance. Now it is fairly difficult to record a band playing live, unless of course you have the proper equipment, a well lit venue, and the participation of the world. Anyways it's clear that there wasn't thousands of dollars dumped into this, but for all purposes of a live recording it looks fairly good. Similarly the 65 Days of Hell documentary was filmed with sub par equipment. Thus the result wasn't a perfect picture. In Behind the Scenes, footage was used from various amateur sources, taken from fans and friends, obviously nothing professional. Overall the picture quality is just not what you would except from a high budget movie. While the picture quality isn't outstanding, it's definitely not bad. For all purposes, it looks fairly decent.

Sound:
Similar to the video, the audio was presented from different sources. Some of the audio originated from professional sources, while others amateur. The Live On St Patrick's Day featured both 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound and 2.0 Dolby digital stereo audio tracks. In this portion of the feature the audio sounded quite good. However, my meager setup demuxed the 5.1 clarity to stereo. The remainder of the feature was presented with just a stereo, which didn't sound quite as clear, but was still fairly good.

Extras:
The extras included are two mini-featurettes; Black and Gold and Labor Day Documentary. As well, the Dropkick Murphys included seven music videos from their vast library of songs, that include "Barroom Hero", "10 Years of Service", "The Gauntlet", "Wild Rover", 'The Spicy McHaggis Jig", "Walk Away", and "Black Out".

Final Thoughts:
I don't claim myself to be a fan of the Dropkick Murphys, as my initial impressions of the band was that they were your traditional garage band with too much yelling and not enough music. After spending more time listening to this band's music, I found that I was clearly wrong. I'm not quite sure what I originally heard, but it most likely wasn't the Dropkick Murphys, as they manage to produce a very interesting, catchy, and unique sound with their twist of Celtic folk with punk rock.

While I enjoyed this DVD release, it's clearly not for everyone. Some people may simply not like their music, in that case I suggest you listen to the song samples from Live on St. Patrick's Day from Boston, MA at the Avalon Ballroom to determine if you do or don't. Others may simply find some of the DVD's content to be a bit repulsive. The features (excluding the live performance and music videos) present pretty much one long party, with the band and friends doing crazy stuff (mostly while drunk), drinking, vomiting, hitting each other in the head, and so on.

For fans of the Dropkick Murphys your day has come, the long anticipated DVD release is finally here. You'll definitely want to check this out. However, unless you are a fan of the Dropkick Murphys or enjoy dabbling into the music genre of punk rock, you might not enjoy this release. Similarly, in regards to the Behind the Scenes and 65 Days in Hell features, if the likes of MTV's Jackass [reviews] offends you, you'd best look elsewhere. So for you casual viewers, On the Road with the Dropkick Murphys provides a breadth of entertainment and I recommend this title as a rental. However, if you find you enjoy the sultry sounds of the Dropkick Murphys, feel free to kick up my recommendation up a notch.

($) This photograph is taken directly from the Epitaph Records website.
(*) The track list is taken directly from the Epitaph Records website, as well, the track list is not presented in order of appearance.