RADIO
BIRDMAN
Thursday, May 23 2002
@ The Metro Theatre, Sydney
WORDS AND PICTURES by
JOHN McPHARLIN
The Lipstick Killers were the support band for this evening and they ripped.
They deserve a detailed review and they'll get one, in due course, but right
now this is not so much a gig review, more like an urgent despatch from the
front line. Captain, our position is taking a real pounding and I'm not sure
if we can hold out much longer! May the Lord have mercy on us!
Okay, I'll be honest: it wasn't perfect; but fuck me, it was still almost two hours worth of hotter rock'n'roll action than the majority of current radio approved toy rockers could produce in their wildest dreams, even at gun point and with their latest albums getting the shit promoted out of them on late night TV. Okay, okay, all old farts say that sort of thing about young bands all the time... and mean it. Sometimes they're even right when they say it. Believe me when I say it, that I am right... not often maybe, but right at this moment I reckon I am.
It has been five years since the last show; Jim Dickson was standing in for Warwick Gilbert; Deniz Tek and Ron Keely were only recently returned to this country, coping with who knows what kind of jet lag and how many rehearsals had they had... a week's worth at most... less? The opening song, "Hanging On", demonstrated that they were doing anything but - they weren't just hanging on, they had it firmly by the throat and they weren't going to be letting go in a hurry. They played a couple of cool covers (a balanced mix of local and foreign material) and a lot of Birdman classics (yeah, yeah, everything Birdman ever recorded was a classic, but some are more classic than others - you know what I mean) and it was magic.
Once again the Metro sound system laid waste all before it, with Pip Hoyle's keyboards being given their proper place in the mix, unlike last year's Deniz Tek solo shows (er, better make that the "year before last" - I'm talking about December 2000) when the keyboards were too often deeply buried and hard to distinguish (none of those shows were at the Metro though). Both guitarists tonight seemed to have no trouble finding their own places and spaces within the Birdman sound either, contrasting and reinforcing each other without conflicting even once.
And that rhythm section! Are you sure Ron Keeley doesn't still do this regularly for a living? Jim Dickson does of course still do what he does fairly regularly (and very bloody well too!) and over the years he has performed with a variety of great drummers (like Louis Burdett, Chris Welsh, Nick Fisher, Nik Reith, etc). Throughout the set, Mr Keely clearly established his credentials and made plain his claim (still) to have a place on that list. Together they were rock solid right from the first beat.
What, you may well ask, of Mr Younger? Well, for a bloke who has steadfastly refused to do Birdman covers in his post-Birdman career (ignoring for the purposes of this discussion the New Race tour and a few of the very early New Christs gigs, when the likes of "Crying Sun" and one or two others might have received a brief run), he did not look like he was feeling any too put out by having to sing those Birdman songs tonight. Completely the opposite in fact - it was like he and the audience were bonded together, sharing the same circulatory system; the harder their hearts pumped, the harder he worked on stage. He looked like he was loving every minute of it.
I
guess everyone will have their own particular high points/favourite moments,
but for me "Descent Into The Maelstrom" was certainly one of them.
It's always been a great song and they nailed it completely. The audience recognised
their achievement too and was drawn down into it, right along with them. Next
highlight? Definitely "What Gives?". If you were there and didn't
know the words and/or weren't singing along, then you were probably the only
one.
For me, "Man With Golden Helmet" was another major magic moment. Shit that rocked. In between, there were plenty of other favourites, like "Aloha Steve & Danno", "Murder City Nights", "Love Kills", "Hand Of Law", "Crying Sun" (Warwick Gilbert's contribution and absence both publicly acknowledged), "Smith and Wesson Blues", "Non Stop Girls", "Alone In The Endzone", "Burn My Eye"... I could go on and on, because the list certainly does, but I'm not just talking about great songs played well; I'm talking about moments when the glow coming off the stage really burned bright - so bright that even those right at the back of the theatre could feel the heat of it on their faces.
Last song of the first set of encores was "New Race". Yeah Hup indeed; things are turning pretty primal for all of us now. Ken Shimamoto wrote recently of rituals, but this was more than ceremony, it bordered on sacrament; like Christmas mass at the Vatican with the pope presiding. I didn't think they'd left themselves anywhere to go from there, but I was wrong; dead wrong. Damn me for my lack of faith, because for their second encore they took us on a trip down good old "I-94". Hey, that's our theme song! Does it get any better than this? Well, that was only the first show of the tour, so we'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I've had too much beer and not enough sleep, so I'm going to have a couple of Bex and a quiet lie down.
