As Rose Tattoo played this show, they seemed poised to follow AC/DC’s career trajectory. Having blitzed the pubs Down Under and captured the UK’s imagination, international success looked like a credible next step. And yet the US tour intended as their breakthrough campaign would derail them at their peak a year later.
With no official live album issued during the glory days, this newly mastered radio broadcast fills that gap more than adequately, preserving the Tatts’ onstage belligerence in its rawest form.
Promoting Scarred For Life (1982), the classic AndersonWells-Royall-Leach formation, augmented by new boy Rob Riley, bludgeon the audience into submission with hits (Rock N Roll Outlaw, One Of The Boys), and the pick of the new album.
Riley’s songwriting adds a more commercial feel, with no loss of ferocity on the title cut and We Can’t Be Beaten, making this a welcome postscript to their vintage era.
