ROSE TATTOO – Live, Perth, 31st May 2013

Shane | 7 June 2013 | Reply

With The John Meyer Band, Wayne Green & The Phantoms
The Charles Hotel, North Perth, Western Australia
By Shane Pinnegar
Photography by Mandy Av | Awakening Vixen

The church of Rose Tattoo is in session, brothers n’ sisters, the Reverend Angry Anderson presiding. Today’s sermon is all about looking after each other, loving each other, loving the greatest country in the world (Australia, natch) and being the best you can. The moral of the story is the power of rock n’ roll, brothers n’ sisters – can you testify to that?!!

Earlier, local veterans Wayne Green & The Phantoms and The John Meyer Band turned up the heat as the mercury plummeted outside, with swinging sets of blues rock that got the sell-out crowd moving and grooving. Guitarist Meyer – himself a member of Rose Tattoo from ’83-’85 – plays some blistering blues, including some incendiary Stevie Ray Vaughan (Pride & Joy) and Hendrix (All Along The Watchtower and Voodoo Chile).

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The Tatts have been a long time absent from a proper headlining show in this town, and the rapturous response they engendered says tonight is way overdue.

No time is wasted: the blistering energy of one riff-heavy hard blues classic after another assaults the sweatier-by-the-minute crowd: a searing opening salvo of Out Of This Place and One Of The Boys are followed by House Of Pain and Who’s Got The Cash, the lesser known tracks tailor made for the many die-hards in attendance.

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Angry jokes and swears and swigs from a bottle of red wine in open defiance of his ongoing political campaign for The Nationals. Some may suggest this excludes him from public office. I say we need more like him – REAL people who care about real people to keep the bastards in Canberra honest and ensure a fair go for all Australians.

Highlights are hard to pick from a 90 minute set without a minute’s flat spot: their cover of Stevie Wright’s Black Eyed Bruiser is blazing; the slow blues of Butcher & Fast Eddy is as heavy as Black Sabbath ever was, although in a completely different way; Rock n’ Roll Is King is one of the ultimate love songs to music; and throughout it all Angry exhorts the crowd over and over to love this country – ‘the only country on earth worth dying for’. He’s passionate and ‘brothers and sisters’ he means it!

“Everything in this life that’s worth learning, we learn through pain” he says as the crack band – Dai Pritchard and Randall Waller trading licks, Paul DeMarco on drums, and surprise guest Paul Woseen (The Screaming Jets) on bass – rip into Rock n’ Roll Outlaw before closing out the main set with a crazy cool Bad Boy For Love and We Can’t Be Beaten.

“They told us to play a couple more songs n’ tell you to fuck off”, Angry tells us as they take the stage again for cult classic Astra Wally – bristling with all the punk energy and mayhem that 1978 could have mustered.

“This is a Guns n’ Roses song” laughs Angry cheekily, as Rose Tattoo – as great a band now as they ever have been since their 1976 inception – launch into the song which Gn’R covered in ’86. Nice Boys is rock n’ roll in its purest sense, injected straight into your veins and as addictive as breath itself. Nothing could have finished the night off in a finer, more frenetic style.

Set list:
Out Of This Place
One Of The Boys
House Of Pain
Who’s Got The Cash
Man About Town
Black Eyed Bruiser
Assault And Battery
Tramp
The Butcher & Fast Eddy
Rock n’ Roll Is King
Man About Town ??
1854
Branded
Scarred For Life
Rock n’ Roll Outlaw
Bad Boy For Love
We Can’t Be Beaten