You Am I: And thereafter, you put the needle to the (Live) record...

You Am I

All Onboard

The You Am I Set Pty Ltd

 

In which the finest guitar band in Christendom attempts to deal with two of Australia’s great rock and roll orthodoxies: “Yeah, they were always better live…” and the ever-popular “We like your old stuff better than your new stuff…”.
  
Thing is, on their night – which is actually now more often than not than it once may have been – You Am I are an absolutely supreme rock and roll band. And there are points across these two slabs coloured vinyl (naturally…) where there is a glorious gasping and grasping energy to them.

Tim Rogers’ and Davey Lane’s guitars dogfight around over Andy Kent’s bedrock bass and Russell Hopkinson’s still superlative drumming to make something that can move an audience or pin it to the wall as necessary. Timmy will probably always half-jokingly despair about his voice, but even he seems more aware of how to hold it together - or when that crack in the note and grab for the next breath is all part of the drama of what they now are.

The second part of the conundrum is a little more problematic. Many in the crowds seeing them on the 2017 regional tour from where these performances are accumulated probably haven’t even listened to much of the band’s 21^st century output, but things like Convicts’ It Ain’t Funny How We Don’t Talk Anymore and Friends Like You can hold their heads high besides the Mr Milks and Jewels And Bullets of the catalogue.

Of course no live album is ever going to truly give a gig’s smell of sweet sweat and beer, but some of the personality of The Australian You Am I Tribute Show does come through - the drumrolls of Rusty’s intro to the towering Trike have a wander through Land Of 1000 Dances, then heads for some chicken tenders at the Colonel’s before it all rips in, or as Rogers puzzles some of the younger souls in the audience by reciting one of Live At Budokan broken English preambles as they cover Cheap Trick’s I Want You To Want Me with the grinning care of true fans.

Apart from all that, All Onboard also has most all of what even the casual observer would require from their peerless back catalogue: Get Up, Good Mornin’, Rumble, that one about a piece of German seating furniture. Get as a souvenir of many nights well spent - by both you and them.