In the opening minutes of the Beulah tour documentary A Good Band Is Easy To Kill, bandleader Miles Kurosky comes off like a real dick, slagging Bob Dylan and insisting that Beulah's divorce album Yoko is more honest than Blood On The Tracks. Kurosky is more sympathetic in the scenes to come, though that's mainly because A Good Band documents Beulah's last days, so that even when Kurosky pushes his bandmates around and complains about the venues, there's a touchingly melancholic tinge to his attempts to right a sinking ship.
A Good Band isn't a great documentary, though it captures some amazing moments, and Beulah was never a great band, though it made some terrific albums. But while director Charles Norris overemphasizes the dull grind of life on the road—with its turnpike food, merch-slinging, and soundcheck woes—he also catches a lot of the romance. Some days the fans are great, and some nights everything clicks on stage, and sometimes the possibility that sales might spike or a major label might bite seems palpable. By the time Beulah gets to the standard end-of-tour ritual of unloading the equipment and putting it back in storage, stalwart indie-rock fans may feel inspired to rush out and see their own favorite bands before they're gone for good.