Along the Way

Along the Way is the first live concert DVD from punk band Bad Religion. The concert footage was taken from fourteen different European stops on their 1989 tour for the album, Suffer. It was originally released on VHS in Germany in 1990 (with a different cover) and in the United States in the following year, and on DVD for the first time in 2004, coinciding with the reissues of the band's pre-Recipe for Hate albums. Both the VHS and DVD have the same cover shown on the right, which depicts Jay Bentley with his bass, while the European VHS depicts guitarist Brett Gurewitz and singer Greg Graffin singing along with each other.

The format of the video consists of live concert performances interspersed with short interview clips of the band members. The live footage is mixed from fourteen different shows, and jumps between them for each different cut and camera angle. Although the video remains synchronized with the audio track, it is not uncommon for the band members shirts to appear to change many times during the same song. The concert featured no songs from the band's 1983 album Into the Unknown or No Control, although the latter album was released shortly after the European tour.

Title of the release is taken from the band's song of the same name, which appears on their 1985 long-out of print EP Back to the Known. This song was also played live at the concert.

Brett Gurewitz on his drug habit
One of the interview portions of the video poses a question to guitarist Brett Gurewitz concerning his addiction to crack cocaine and other hard drugs.


 * Interviewer: Brett, you have been an addict to crack.  How do you think about hard drugs today?


 * Brett Gurewitz: Well, I don't do it anymore.  I think crack is probably the worst poison that has ever been introduced to human beings.  I mean, I think personally it's worse than heroin because I experimented with heroin quite a bit, and alcohol, and um, although I guess it depends on the individual.


 * I will say that I'm not, I don't want to sound that like I'm anti-drug, because I'm not anti-drug. I happen to be a drug addict.  And when I take a drug, I can't stop.  And um, or if I have a drink, I continue drinking until I black out.  So, I had to stop.  But, I think that part of that has to do with my, perhaps my environment, but I think a great deal of it has to do with genetic physical causes.


 * I think the central nervous system of a drug addict and an alcoholic is different from the central nervous system of a non-drug addict/alcoholic. And, in fact, medical studies have been done, they've done research on the spinal cord of drug addicts and alcoholics and they find genetic differences between them so there is some kind of inherited trait.  So what I think is that if you can handle it and you can use it, drugs can be good.  They can be good to relax the atmosphere at a party, LSD can be very good to expand your mind, you know?


 * I love LSD, I just don't, I just... And I don't think that LSD is an addictive drug personally, but, I had tried to stop taking crack in the past and I tried to stop drinking in the past and say, "OK, I won't drink, I'll just smoke pot" or "I won't take crack, I'll just drink" and whatever the one thing that I decided I would do, I did so much of it to compensate for not doing anything else because that's how I was. I had to stop everything, you know?


 * But, I think that there are people who can handle it, and I think that for the people who can handle it, it's OK. I don't think there's anything wrong with it.  I just think that, um, when it comes to the point where the pain of using the things are too great than the pain of not using them, then you have to stop.

Tour
The following are the tour dates of the European Suffer Tour of 1989, where the footage was filmed.

Audio from the show in Bremen was used for the live footage.

NOTE: Any date with an asterisk (*) means no footage was filmed there for the documentary, according to the credits.

Personnel

 * Greg Graffin - Vocals
 * Brett Gurewitz - Guitar
 * Jay Bentley - Bass
 * Greg Hetson - Guitar
 * Pete Finestone - Drums
 * Karat Faye - Engineer / F.O.H.