On Monday June 30th, 2008 I had the honor of attending Lamb of God's “Walk With Me in Hell” DVD premiere at the Chelsae Theater in New York City. I walked in early and took a seat in the center of the nearly empty theater. The theater had comfortable seats, great sound, and a screen suitable for the room. Seeing the DVD in a theater definitely made it a better experience than sitting at home watching the DVD.
I didn’t know exactly what was going to be shown when I got there since there are two DVDs, a documentary on disc one and their entire performance at the Download Festival and the making of "Sacrament" on the second DVD. The documentary portion of disc one was shown, however. I wasn’t sure what to expect, since I didn’t particularly enjoy their previous DVD’s, (“Killadelphia”) backstage footage. The “Killadelphia” footage didn’t connect scenes well, which made it feel more disjointed and random than something that could hold it’s own. “Killadelphia” focused on their personal lives and hobbies, which was interesting, but something was missing in the flow and organization of the content. I would later find out that “Walk With Me in Hell” was the complete opposite of the things I disliked about “Killadelphia.” The lights eventually went down and after a few unnecessary commercials they came back on.
The band and director came out for a brief introduction about the documentary. They then took their seats in the audience. Drummer Chris Adler sat directly behind me. I thought at first, “Well great, now I am forced to enjoy this.” But it was unnecessary, as the documentary was very well produced and entertaining. The introduction to the movie took a cliché horror movie approach reminiscent of Blair Witch or Cloverfield, but at the same time this differentiated it from other music documentary films. Besides, it was probably done for humor value. The movie really lets you into the life of a touring band and the struggles that occurred during their tours ranging from power outages and broken equipment to playing in front of the wrong audience. “Walk With Me in Hell” also illustrates the band’s personality dynamics through these rough times and the boredom of waiting between shows.
With Chris Adler sitting behind me, I noticed that he covered his face during a part that poked fun at his goal to quit smoking through exercise. Though he seemed embarrassed about it, he was still able to laugh at himself. It was cool that he was still able to also laugh at some of the bizarre disaster stories mentioned in the film as well.
The band seemed to be very resilient and resistant to the stresses of touring, able to brush them off and move on. This form of perseverance is admirable, as many bands drown in it. “Walk With Me in Hell” illustrates that Lamb of God is able to see past the negative side of life and create a fun and positive environment for themselves. The vibe drawn about the band from the movie was that these are normal, fun, chill, silly, and friendly guys just like anyone else in the world, they aren’t gods (well maybe of metal), and certainly don’t think they are. I commend this because many bands that are as big as Lamb of God seem to develop crazy egos and delusions of grandeur.
Having seen other backstage access concert videos and documentaries with and about bands, “Walk With Me in Hell” is truly one of the best. The whole time I felt like I was just hanging out with the band, which gave a realistic idea about their off-stage personalities. After the movie, the band hung around for a few minutes and signed autographs and let fans take pictures. Though the band members seemed busy, they were very welcoming of the fans. It was great to have the opportunity to see an exclusive premiere and to see the band for the people they are outside of performers.
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