CD REVIEW: ROSE TATTOO – Live In Brunswick
CD REVIEW: ROSE TATTOO – Live In Brunswick
Golden Robot Records
February 2017
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
8 ½ /10
Rose Tattoo were, in the early days, a gang as much as a band. Members came and went, sure, but all stayed part of that denim-clad, well-inked gang, and their post-1984 line-ups never recaptured the danger and visceral power of the earlier role-calls.
Recorded in Brunswick at the Bombay Bicycle Club in 1982, The Tatts can be heard riding high on the chart success of We Can’t Be Beaten, and Guns n’ Roses are still in diapers… almost.
One of the classic line-ups of the band – alongside Angry Anderson and the late Pete Wells are Rockin’ Rob Riley, Geordie Leach and the late Dallas ‘Digger’ Royal – they sound completely in control, on the edge of the precipice, in a way that few bands can manage. It’s a balancing act – it could all go tits up at any moment, but it doesn’t. Instead, you can almost smell the beer, sweat and thunder.
The looser-than-loose swing to the rhythm section; the magic of the interplay between Wells and Riley’s guitars; and Angry’s Billy Thorpe growl and take-no-fuckin’-prisoners attitude ensure that these classics sound essential and timeless, and chock full of sheer bloody-minded bad-ass swagger
Angry reminds us how vital he was, railing for the little guy, encouraging people to “listen to the radio, sure – but listen BEYOND the radio,” although the seeds of his more radical anti-immigration political policies can be heard in Revenge.
That is a hurdle to negotiate, for sure, but this is still a great document of a great band, bristling with danger and rocking like they were born to do.
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