Shane’s Rock Challenge: THE ANGELS – 1978 – Face To Face

Shane | 15 June 2014 | Reply

Shane’s Rock Challenge: THE ANGELS – 1978 – Face To Face
By Shane Pinnegar
8.5/10

Face To Face showed a definite improvement on The Angel’s debut album – put simply, they’d found their sound, and there was no stopping them as they did countless laps of Australia, playing every soggy-carpeted beer barn they could to packed houses screaming “No way, Get fucked, Fuck off” with wild glee.

One glance at the song list of this record is all we really need to say:

Straight Jacket – After The Rain – Love Takes Care – Take A Long Line – Marseilles – Live It Up – Be With You – Outcast – I Ain’t The One – Comin’ Down

Every bloody one of them a stone cold winner. EVERY BLOODY ONE!

An impressive six of these tracks featured on their 1988 double live album LiveLine – and a seventh on the 1999 Digital remaster. Not bad since there had been another five studio albums in the interim.

With the definitive early line-up now locked in place – Brewster-Neeson-Brewster were joined by the rock solid rhythm section of Chris Bailey and Buzz Bidstrup – The Angels took the country by storm, aided and abetted by Neeson’s theatrical stage presence. Refusing to wear the accepted Aussie pub rocker’s ‘uniform’ of jeans and a t-shirt, he took to the stage in a suit and tie, staring wild eyed and manic at the room, climbing speakers, bouncing like a kangaroo and exuding charisma like nothing we’d ever seen before.

RIP Chris Bailey and Doc Neeson