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Eskimo JoeDirector: JT & Various Rating: M 187 mins FMR Eskimo Joe have certainly come a long way from their inauspicious beginnings at the WA Campus Band Competition in ’97. The Perth locals have turned from joke-punk hopefuls to chart-topping mega stars with last year’s beautiful second full-length ‘A Song Is A City.’ So, at this stage - that is, the stage when your success is riding high but you haven’t got the next album together yet to capitalise on it - it seems a good idea to release a DVD. That’s what’s most interesting about the Eskimo Joe DVD - seeing just how far they’ve come, which is at times startling. A myriad of haircuts flash past over the years, as footage spans from the Joe’s first TV appearance (Sweater on the now defunct ‘Recovery’) up until this year’s Big Day Out. Bleached hair and stupid backdrops give way for mussed-up streaks and scarves, and punk blasts for soaring pop anthems. Case in point: compare how tongue-in-cheek the opening to the video for Ruby Tuesday is to how taken-to-seriously the slow motion opening to the DVD comes across. Cynicism aside however, there are some real gems on the disc. The ‘Supergig,’ compiled from Big Day Out ’05 and Homebake ’04 is a testament to just how good a band Eskimo Joe really are, all the hits from ‘Girl’ and ‘A Song Is A City’ holding up superbly in the live format (even despite the annoying fact that the gig is just a compilation of blandly shot Channel [V] telecasts). All of the videos are included as well, including the brilliant Liar - featuring Eskimo Joe dealing with some pretty gnarly looking kidnappers - and Wake Up, the ARIA award-winning clip with cardboard cut-out faces on pretty much everyone in Perth. Combine this with a slew of TV appearances, Easter Eggs and a doco, and you’ve got one chockas DVD. Where things fall apart is the "feature-length" (57 minutes is the shortest movie I’ve ever seen) documentary, ‘Only Just Beginning To Know.’ Yes, it is nicely put together by Melbourne’s Taiyo Films, with some crisp editing designs that match the ‘A Song Is A City’ artwork; and yes, it does cover the whole Eskimo Joe story with some great retrospective interviews with the band; but it nullifies the rest of the DVD! Nearly all of the footage from the doco is video clips, TV appearances and live footage that is found elsewhere on the disc - I found myself watching the same thing over and over. While this is a worthy addition to a fan’s collection, if you’re a casual listener who doesn’t want to hear From The Sea a full 8 times over the course of three hours, you might want to give it a miss.  |
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