No Room for Rockstars is about the epic punk rock tour known as the Vans Warped Tour which, for 17 years, has been making its rounds across North America during the summer and bringing joy to all the wild youths who embrace the sounds of punk. In particular, the film focuses on capturing a variety of perspectives that encompasses everything about the tour, from its fans and local bands trying to make it big, to Kevin Lyman’s vision (the founder), its impact on a stage managers life and to a musician whose music goes mainstream while travelling on the tour.
Directed by Paris Patton (Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who) and with over 300 hours of film shot during the 2010 tour, No Room for Rockstars is an in-depth feature told from so many perspectives that it is able to captures the true spirit of what the Warped Tour is actually about while exploiting some its flaws in the process.
I’m not sure how many of you have actually gone to Warped Tour before, but a few years back I had my first Warped Tour experience and there is nothing quite like it. Granted, most of the people in attendance are high school teens, but the vibe and culture is so dynamic and wild that it is hard not to get sucked into its atmosphere and forget all about your cares in life. It’s a place of discovery, emotion, and one of the better spots to go rock out.
The best part of the documentary was watching one of the touring artist’s, Mike Posner, rise to fame. When the tour starts, Posner couldn’t have had more than a few hundred people watching his set but once his single “Cooler than Me” started to spread across the country, all of a sudden he blew up. Now thousands of people were watching his sets on the tour and he was flying out after his performances to play other shows and conduct interviews. Patton got really lucky here as it was the one item that truly made the documentary interesting to watch.
Half the film is spent exploring what it’s like for people to be on the tour, how it affects musicians and how it can take its toll on people. The other half focuses on a band called Forever Came Calling and their attempt to play a Warped Tour Show. The band travels around in a van selling CDs on the way in order to pay f
or their travel expenses so that they can follow the tour because they know Kevin Lyman will give determined, hard working people a shot at something if they show perseverance. Watching the group is very touching because there is a point where it seems as if they’ve been broken. All of them are crying with no other seemingly potential prospects to look forward to except making it in the punk world.
The one thing that bothered me about this film is that while they spoke about bands that made it big, we don’t really get commentary from them discussing their experiences. The synopsis claims that this documentary isn’t just for punk rock fans but, besides Posner’s newfound fame, there is nothing outsiders can enjoy or appreciate here. The biggest name to offer any words was Fletcher Dragge from Pennywise and even that band isn’t big enough for mainstream audiences to relate to. If they could have found a way to speak to Sum 41, Blink 182 or Green Day then they would have had something to cross the barrier so that mainstream audiences could also appreciate the picture.
Overall, No Room for Rockstars is an average music documentary that doesn’t really offer anything new up to those who are familiar with Warped Tour, which is a shame since they are the ones that are most inclined to watch it. For people who are looking for a casual music documentary to watch, this one exhibits some heart but nothing very moving, groundbreaking or extraordinary to make it worth your time.
Rating: Cool for punk fans but it’s really just your run of the mill music doc (5/10)
The film had a one night release on March 1st but if you want to check it out you can view it on iTunes on April 2nd and on DVD from Shout! Factory on May 15th.
Recent Comments