Live Review: Radio Birdman, The Pro Tools

The Gov is an iconic Adelaide venue who host many different genre bands and events in a beautiful wooden pub atmosphere, with friendly staff and drink prices at the tipping point of reasonable.

Radio Birdman are a testament to Australian rock. Forming in 1974, heavily influenced by Iggy and his Stooges, they are the unsung heroes of garage/punk. If you feel sceptical, listen to their first LP release ‘Radios Appear’. You have the internet. Do it. I DARE you.

The Pro Tools first took the stage and pushed it out with gumption. One of the first opening acts I have seen in a long time where the crowd didn’t treat the front of the stage like a bio-hazard zone. Old Adelaide boys showing they still don’t give a toss, so long as they get to rock, and the crowd responded. I took the next portion of the night to walk and talk around to the other patrons who had come to see the Birdman in flight. The legacy they hold was made obvious by the broad age and cultural brackets.

Now waiting at the front to see the punk rock legends, the band notoriously classified as ‘Australia’s most hated band’ for their DILLIGAF attitude and self-destructive performances that ‘corrupted’ the youth of the day, and already I had made a nemesis. A lady decided she had a problem with me taking photos and started punching, screaming, and trying to knock my camera out of my hands (in the name of ‘rock and roll’… at least I think she said something along those lines). It got to the point where I had to bite her to stop her trying to smother me. So two songs in and I’m already bleeding and covered in beer. Hell, this is exactly what I had been waiting for! Radio Birdman living up to their reputation of gnarly music for gnarly people!

Let me tell you right now, for a bunch of ol’ geezers, they could tear the roof off the sucker. The crowd just got more drunk and unruly from there on. I feel blessed that I made it out alive, or at least with my clothes still on and teeth intact.

They finished with their cover of ‘You’re gonna miss me’ by old psych legends ‘13^th Floor Elevators’ and the crowd just blew up with incredible stamina. Then just like a hurricane they moved on, the debris of shoes, torn shirts, blood and copious amounts of beer covering everything left in their wake.