RADIO
BIRDMAN+ GIANTS OF SCIENCE
+ DEL EMMAS
@ The Metro Theatre, Sydney
Friday, May 24 2002
RADIO
BIRDMAN
+ GIANTS OF SCIENCE
+ DEL EMMAS
@ The Metro Theatre, Sydney
Friday, May 24 2002
Main supports tonight were Giants of Science, down from Brisbane for the evening
and sounding like a weighty collision of stoner, metal and garage/psyche which
I've decided to label "solid flesh" (think loud, brawny, heavy in
a very organic, meaty sort of way and just a bit sweaty - like the sound of
an aggressive rhinoceros rolling an elephant in the car park for its wallet
and anything else it's got stashed up its trunk). Opening act for the evening
was the Del-Emmas, about whom I've said complimentary things in the past and
will do so again in the planned gig and venue round up at the end of the tour.
This will hopefully see all the support bands right and give us here at the
Bar a chance to use up any spare photographs that are still lying going begging.
In the meantime, if last night was Birdman's shining night then so was tonight, only more so. Perhaps it was partly the contrast between the styles of the bands on the bill, but I ended up feeling a little like Goldilocks: this one's a bit light, this one's a bit heavy, this one's just right. Only none of the three bears ever rocked like these six Birdmen.
It was also a lot more crowded than the previous night, despite the fact that it too had been sold out and there weren't any signs that the Metro had shrunk overnight. On Thursday, getting to and from the bar involved only a slightly inconvenient rubbing of various body parts against thirty or forty fellow punters. Tonight it was like forcing your way down a fifty foot birth canal: hot, fleshy, disturbingly moist and tight as... well, perhaps it's not a good idea to take this metaphor any further. Suffice it to say that getting a fresh drink took a major bloody effort and on the return journey I ended up abandoning any attempt to get all the way back to my original position, only to find myself trapped in front of someone who couldn't hold her liquor, at least not judging by the amounts she spilt on me as the evening wore on.
It seemed that the band had taken the recent "essential" Birdman
comp into account in drawing up the setlist and those songs on the comp not
given a run last night got one tonight, along with "455 SD" and "You're
Gonna Miss Me", both of which were incomprehensibly excluded from the "essential"
comp. "Essential my arse", as Jim Royale would say, it's all bloody
essential - why didn't they just make it a double package and re-release everything?
Now of course 
Citadel
is putting out everything on two CDs, with a bonus EP apiece. Fuck me, how many
times do I have to buy these records?
Such questions did not seem to bother others in the audience however, as I noticed that there was quite a throng crowding around the merchandise stall after the show. Of course, if I didn't already have the Red Eye re-releases from a few years back, then I probably wouldn't have been able to leave the Metro without owning a copy of the new re-releases, such was the effect of tonight's performance - and that's despite me not having much time to play either CD since I had an early morning plane to Brisbane to catch the next morning (well, 11am at least, but that is very early for me on a Saturday).
Right before he began to sing "455 SD", Mr Younger had an exchange with someone in the audience, which ended with him uttering the words "under duress", although I didn't catch whether that applied to the circumstances under which he'd sing something being requested from the audience or it applied to the singing of this song. Either way, he certainly didn't sing it like he had any reservations about it!
Other songs making their first appearance on this tour were 
notably
"Breaks My Heart" and a version of "Dark Surprise" which
made me appreciate it in a way that I had never been able to do before. On record,
it's always seemed like there was the potential for a bit of an epic instrumental
upheaval buried somewhere down inside it and just waiting to be unleashed (a
la "Descent into The Maelstrom" and "Man With Golden Helmet").
Of course, both of those songs really shred the upholstery when aired live,
but you know from what you can hear on the record that that's what they're gonna
do; with "Dark Surprise" it's always sounded to me like they tried
to do something similar, but just didn't quite capture the magic this time.
So listening to the record has always required something of an act of faith
from me, that what I think is buried in there, really is there.
After tonight, I have no further doubts; faith has been replaced by belief.
Glory hallelujah - the scales done been lifted from my eyes... and ears! If
there's a "Ritualism II" coming out of this tour, then I sincerely
hope that "Dark Surprise" scores a spot on it.
On the covers front, "Buried and Dead" and "Transmaniacon MC"
both got a run again, along with "Waiting For My Man" and "Stray
Cat Blues" (in slow and brooding "Get Yer Ya Yas Out" mode, not
the fast but throwaway "Beggars Banquet" style). They cooked, but
so did everything else this evening. The band seemed to go at every song just
that little bit harder than the previous night, but there was more to it than
that. Last night was hot and tight, but there was also an air of restraint;
of "let's just keep it together just like we rehearsed it". Tonight
it seemed that any prior rehearsal was not so much a blueprint as a base, a
bare platform and the starting point from which they then stepped out and lashed
out, flexing all their musical muscles.
In particular, the likes of "Hand Of Law" and "Love Kills" really sparkled and showed new facets, as different from the previous night as lifting a diamond in a jeweler's shop off its felt bed and holding it up to the window - the transmitted sunlight glittering and glistening as it passes through the gem and far out shining the light previously merely reflected by the jewel from its supine position on the sales shelf. Shit, sounds like I'm really full of it tonight. Must be time for another one of those quiet lie downs I seem to be needing so much of late.
3/4
