I have long held the opinion that with every album a band releases, there should be change, evolution, and growth. It's for this reason that there's a lot of people out there who would probably consider me to be a punk rock heretic; but the fact of the matter is, when it comes to Southern California's Bad Religion, I just prefer the newer stuff to the old. This isn't to say that I can't appreciate their classics, but with every album there's a noticeable level of improvement in the quality of the songwriting and the production values. Their standout three-part harmonies only seem to get silkier, and there's no mistaking the overall maturity that is exhibited in their lyrics. Plain and simple, every record is a bit tighter, a bit catchier, and just a bit better than the last. This is the way music should be.

Bad Religion's new concert DVD, Live at the Palladium, does a fantastic job of proving this point. Drawn from the band's recent The Empire Strikes First tour, the concert footage features highlights from that 2004 release, complete with all the youthful onstage energy (and lead singer Greg Graffin's bizarre hand gestures) that fans have grown to expect. This point is especially impressive, considering that most of the members are into their 40s, and guitarist Brett Gurewitz has come to look suspiciously like the decidedly not-so-punk-rock public radio host Ira Glass. Of course, for those who happen to prefer other eras of a career that has spanned over 25 years, there are plenty of other songs from the 2005 concert to please and provide them with the kind of nostalgia that only a genre rooted in adolescent angst can. Indeed, Bad Religion has done a fantastic job of blending their old while promoting their new, and one of the great features of the DVD is that as each song begins, the album cover and title flash on the screen, providing any needed information for the viewer at home.

It's clear that the decision to film this particular show of the tour was the right one. The energy and mood of the band as they entered the Hollywood Palladium for the obligatory homecoming gig was clearly running high. The same could be said of the fans, and the interviews with concert attendees that open the film give the viewer a sense of Bad Religion's impact over several generations, and the feeling of excitement is persistent at the show. The main flaw of video as a medium for live music, however, is that no matter how well-done a concert recording is, it can never fully recreate what it's really like to be at a show - especially something as high-energy as a punk rock gig. It is for this reason that the vast majority of concert DVDs are... mediocre at best. Filmmakers have tried a variety of methods to try and add techniques to circumvent this issue. Take, for example, R.E.M.'s Road Movie, which used one audio track throughout but blended skillfully the video footage from four different shows throughout the tour. Thus, it seems like less of an attempt at recreating the atmosphere of a live show, and more of a promotion of the variation of sound that comes from a live album with visual stimulation. The problem is that such techniques come off more as tacky and irritating than a really well-put together piece of video.