Anniversary Cheers: The Blasters re-release “Over There – Live at The Venue” and celebrate their 45th birthday

Liberation Hall 2024

45 years after their formation, The Blasters re-release the full concert at The Venue in London, with 11 additional tracks.

Back in 1979 in America, a new band formed, gloriously ignoring the current musical trends of the time – new wave, synth music and the like. Brothers Phil and Dave Alvin, together with friends John Bazz on bass and Bill Bateman on drums decided to carve their very own distinctive musical niche – bringing together elements of rockabilly, rhythm and blues, country and roots music generally. Their grounding was a strong one musically, as their family home was ringing to music of all generations from the moment they were born.

The brothers went from their Downey, California home as young men to some of the Los Angeles blues clubs to watch their heroes – and what a musical education they had. Their wonderful mother took them to numerous gigs – the likes of T-Bone Walker, Joe Turner, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee – indeed so entranced were they with these music icons that Phil managed to get harmonica lessons from Terry. They were also introduced to sax legend Lee Allen, who was to eventually play with them live and on this album.

After initially recording an early debut album for a small local Downey label in 1980 – Rollin’ Rock Records – the album “American Music” was released to modest sales and reaction. It was, though, a cracking record and showed the combination of their historic musical knowledge and their brilliant songwriting.

In 1982 they managed to get a record deal with independent label Slash Records and so strong were the sales of this that they managed to get a wider distribution deal with Warner Bros Records. This was a really strong album – garnering amazing reviews – Time Magazine rated it among the Top 10 Albums of 1982 and it went into the Billboard Top 40 album chart. In the UK it was released on the F-Beat label and the quartet was expanded to include Gene Taylor playing piano and the aforementioned sax legend Lee Allen playing with fellow sax guru Steve Berlin.

This was a formidable seven-strong line-up and to promote the album they came to the UK for a tour and for a historic night at London’s The Venue in Victoria, to record a truly extraordinary night of blistering roots music.

They had come to the UK to support fellow F-Beat artist Nick Lowe on his four-week British tour and this headline gig for the band was really important. So the band took the stage on 21st May 1982. Back in 1980, Shakin’ Stevens had somehow heard the band’s song ‘Marie Marie’ – and it became a Top 20 hit for him. So UK audiences and the crowd that night had some knowledge of the band – but they were far from household names.

Supported by rock’n’roll group Roddy Radiation and the Tearjerkers – the band realised there was a really special party atmosphere – drummer Bill Bateman remembers. “Man, we were hanging with so many people backstage. Elvis [Costello] was there and all his bandmates, and others — all these British [rock] royalty guys… It’s hard to remember everything, because the party was so intense, and I wasn’t fighting the mood or anything”.

The Venue was a considerable step up from the modest venues the Blasters had been playing. Dave recalls that the place, now defunct, boasted a capacity of somewhere around 1,200 people, approximately the size of the then-popular Hollywood venue The Palace. “It was like the groovy place at that time”, he says.

The wild, spirited set crammed nearly two dozen numbers into a mere 67 full-tilt minutes. Bateman recalls, “We were movin’ — that was fast. The versions were high-tempo”.

For their part, the nearly sold-out Venue crowd responded enthusiastically, and brought the band back for two encores. “They were screaming”, Bateman says, while Bazz adds, “The audience was thoroughly into it”.

The 23-song set opens with a magnificent rendition of Alvin’s ‘This Is It’ and you can tell the band are on fire. This is followed by ‘Crazy Baby’ a blistering version of a song written by Rockin’ Ron Wernsman, who had originally released their debut album and Dave Alvin’s guitar work is already shimmering. His guitar playing is so good on this recording – you can feel him responding to the atmosphere the band have created and how the audience are going crazy.

No Other Girl’ is another Dave Alvin-penned song and gives the phenomenal Taylor an early chance to shine. Allen and Berlin come to the fore on Allen’s ‘Walking With Mr Lee’ – a wonderful instrumental, with both players on storming form.

Later on we get three of their most recognised tunes in a row – ‘Marie Marie’, ‘American Music’ and the superb ‘So Long Baby Goodbye’ – all of them being some of the best recorded versions of these songs ever.

One of the main strengths of the band was Phil Alvin’s quite extraordinary vocals – his virtuosity and flexibility are shown so well in this set – he could do rockabilly, classic soul, R&B and rock’n’roll. One of the set’s highlights is their version of Otis Redding’s ‘These Arms Of Mine’ and Phil’s vocals are breathtaking – eliciting the most effusive response of the night from the enraptured crowd.

Gene Taylor comes back to the fore with Allen and Berlin on a simply blistering version of Pete Johnson’s ‘Roll ‘Em Pete’ which must have moved the foundations of The Venue that night. An utter barnstormer.

This album is being released on both vinyl and CD and is part of a series of Blasters material recently released on Liberation Hall, including a Best of – ‘Mandatory‘ – and a welcome reissue of Phil Alvin’s extraordinary album ‘County Fair 2000′.

This is quite simply one of the best live roots recordings ever – a band who were at the top of their game and who showed over the course of 23 songs a mastery and knowledge of the music they were playing that’s breathtaking. It seems amazing that this has not been released in its full version before – but now we have the chance to celebrate the sheer class and professionalism of one the best roots bands in recent years. It’s a must purchase. All Hail The Blasters.

9/10
9/10

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Andy Riggs

Fine review worth mentioning Dave Alvin’s peerless back catalogue following the Blasters.