RADIO BIRDMAN – LIVE IN TEXAS

It’s over three decades since Radio Birdman regularly tore the stage apart at the Oxford Funhouse. In the late 70s, alongside The Saints, they heralded the arrival of punk (via Detroit) in Australia. Live In Texas was recorded in 2007 and plays like a ‘best of’, both from their original recordings and two new millennium albums. What Gives, Anglo Girl Desire, Murder City Nights, Burn My Eye … the classics are well represented, along with newer babies like the statement We’ve Come So Far To Be Here Today – subtlety was never a component of the Radio Birdman arsenal. And the album doesn’t disappoint in representing the sheer raw power of the band live, in particular the locked and loaded twin-guitar attack of Deniz Tek and Chris Masuak. While vocalist Rob Younger occasionally shows his age, faltering just once in a while to keep up the frenetic pace, Tek and Masuak play as a unit, feeding off each other’s sizzling six-string attacks. For good measure they throw in covers from The Who, Blue Oyster Cult and The Kinks. There is nothing that should surprise here, little or no in-between song banter, one adrenaline rush after another, a band who can still tear the house down.

*** 1/2