Moneen, The Moneen DVD: It All Started with a Red Stripe

The DVD begins with a short film, The Start to This May Be the End to Another, which acts as a documentary of Moneen, showing the band traveling in their tour bus, enduring the typical trials of losing the signal during business calls, excessive gas pumping, and unloading all the heavy gear. Filmmaker Alex Liu filmed it over a period of three years, starting with a considerably unknown pop-punk band from Canada (filmed in black and white) and fast-forwarding to 2007, when they are signed with Vagrant and in the recording studio (in color).

The film jumps back and forth between the past and present, highlighting the differences between the start of a music career and the middle of one. Liu concentrates on the high energy and expectations that encompass everything in the beginning and how this attitude fades into a more relaxed atmosphere as the serious relationships between band members develop into more comical ones. An example for Moneen would be the five-minute sequence with the four bandmates fighting over a child’s plastic baseball bat. By the end of the film, the members of Moneen are tackling each other naked in hotel rooms and acting like brothers.

The tour journals follow in the same vein as the film, showing the band performing childish antics like playing handball, swinging at a park, mooning people, or doing impressions of Flavor Flav with a giant clock. They even attend a Magic: The Gathering card tournament while staying at a Sheraton.

Kenny Bridges, the lead singer, steals the show on stage and off. He has a sense of humor that never stops, and his charisma carries over to the live performances as he screams into the mic and jumps around the stage. He acts as the face for the band at all times, but the energy of all the band members adds to their appeal. Their liveliness keeps things interesting.

Their music has the sound of most bands of this genre in the early 2000s: high vocals, verging on whiny, about the wrongs committed against the singer, and guitars that provide familiar power chords. Moneen falls into the same category as Saves the Day, Something Corporate, or The Starting Line (all they really need is an “s” in their name, right?). And just like Panic at the Disco, they also love the long quirky song titles, like “If Tragedy’s Appealing, Then Disaster’s an Addiction” and “There are a Million Reasons for Why This May Not Work…And Just One Good One for Why it Will.”

Their songs consist of those instrumental bridges that were oh-so-popular a few years ago, where the lead guitarist slows down into a two-note melody with no drums and a drawn-out note playing on the rhythm guitar in the background before a sudden break where all the instruments jump back in (usually with the band members jumping, too) and playing their regular parts.

The band’s music videos, five of which are featured on the DVD and come from their albums The Red Tree and Are We Really Happy With Who We Are Right Now?, don’t usually showcase the band playing but rather invent a story with an outside character to act out the song. “The Song I Swore to Never Sing,” however, is a welcome break from the mold, with a pretty piano part and a whimsical synth met with a soft voice and introspective lyrics. Songs like this one can keep them from fitting too perfectly into a stereotype. Even the video differs incredibly from the look and feel of the others, creating a more mature and accomplished piece compared to the teenage woe of the others.

As for their live show, Moneen offers nothing too spectacular, just four guys in T-shirts and jeans thrashing around the stage while they play their instruments with lights of varying color behind them. This particular concert was filmed in Toronto, Canada, close to home, so everyone knows the words and sings along. The band allows this audience participation every once in a while, but this gesture actually reveals that the backup singers, cannot, in fact, sing.

It looks more like they’re giving up than simply letting their fans join in every time someone falls back from the microphone. It does look fun, however, for the people who are die-hard fans and know every song by heart. Otherwise, I would think the show would be no different than anything else you might see at Warped Tour.

Overall, I’d say the DVD is a worthwhile buy for Moneen fans who want a keepsake of the band, but not likely to be anything special to anyone else, at least not besides high schoolers who like similar artists. It might be too much for simply an introduction to the band, and it’s no Some Kind of Monster.