Review: Coheed & Cambria live at the Starland Ballroom DVD

Finally, pre-ordering works out for me - I got my 'Coheed & Cambria live at the Starland Ballroom' DVD yesterday, well in advance of the official 3/22 release date. And I got a swell poster from the fall tour (though mine is unfortunately from a show I didn't see). Plus, you know, I actually got it, unlike when I pre-ordered IKSSE:3 which I never received...thanks Tower Records.
I haven't watched many concert DVDs but I have seen Coheed in concert 18 times, so I'm claiming expert status on this one. The first thing that jumped out at me was one of the things that various forum posters have been complaining about forever: Claudio's voice is totally different in concert. It doesn't bother me, because that's the nature of the live show, but it's very noticable on the Starland segment. I am happy to report that Claudio is not wearing those extremely unflattering brown pants in either live segment, so thank god for that.
Anyway, according to the press release, these are the "definitive versions" of their songs. I'm not sure about that, but I think they're proving some definitive theories of physics. I've seen this before with Coheed: the act of observation (esp. with cameras) substantively changes the observed (see Jimmy Kimmel Live). During the Starland show it seems to me that they're trying so hard to be technically perfect that the performance aspect suffers a bit. Crowd shots/noise are mercifullly kept to a minimum and all the between song talking is edited out. The editing was clearly done by someone who is not a fan because there are some really strange cuts which, quite frankly, pissed me off. The most egregious of which occurs during 'Three Evils' when they cut away from Mic screaming 'Following you across the interstate, walking away' Every. Damn. Time. They barely show him doing backing vocals at all, but to my mind if there is one time to keep your eyes on Mic, that would be it. Bah! The set list is pretty good - nice mix of first and second albums, even though I would personally prefer any of the 'Velorium Camper' songs over the acoustic 'The Light and the Glass' (I kinda don't like that song...but I think the acoustic version is a nice contrast to the rest of the set).
The bonus features are about as extensive as you would expect from a band that's only gotten popular in the last year or so. My favorite segment is of course the footage from Skate and Surf 2004, and not just because that was the singular greatest day of my entire life. The band looks more relaxed and they actually look like they're having a lot of fun on stage. There's also a great shot of that kid in the Pooh Bear costume crowd surfing - I had totally forgotten about that kid! The shots of Josh are a lot better in this segment too - during the Starland concert it looks like they just recycled the same 5 shots over and over. I understand that drummers are hard to photograph and film in action, but really - if the Skate and Surf people can get good shots with two or three cameras during a 30 minute set, why couldn't a whole production crew get any interesting footage during the Starland show? There are great shots of Claudio going apeshit and playing the guitar with his teeth, which doesn't happen in the Starland segment.
The other bonus features include all their 'professional' videos to date and a segment on the making of the zombie-inspired 'Blood Red Summer' video. There are also two interviews - one with a bearded Claudio and unflattering-hatted Travis, where we learn that Claudio's favorite song to play live is 'Everything Evil' (duh) and one with a snowed-in Mic and Josh, who are too funny and Josh avoids telling his Skate and Surf story (which involves insane security guards and thousands of dollars in fines).
The DVD also comes with a CD of the audio from the same Starland show - August 20, 2004. I also have to say the packaging is better than the IKSSE:3 version which included a DVD - my box broke after about a week, leaving the cd and dvd floating around loose and it had that stupid cardboard sleeve thing which is so annoying...
Definitely worth the money, though I don't know if this will hold me over until the next tour.