Cold Chisel reached their peak in the early ‘80s. Creatively their style was a mixture of rock, blues and rockabilly and back in the day they could draw on four singers in the band, with as many songwriters. Locally, they pulled as big a crowd as Midnight Oil and INXS and live they were (and are) one the best in sync bands ever seen and heard in this country. This CD covers songs from the earliest three studio albums the band produced: Cold Chisel, Breakfast At Sweethearts and East, and there’s something about hearing them live at this classic Manly Vale waterside Sydney venue that screams Aussie music nostalgia.
Despite their South and Central Australian heritage the band always had an affinity with Sydney that is celebrated in this live CD. This venue is a more intimate affair compared to the Swingshift and Barking Spiders live recordings that came out later. I can imagine it was this era, this crowd and this generation that understood the collective talent in front of them and the combined broken hearts when local, suburban die hard venues such as the Manly Vale were no longer available. Apparently now it’s a block of flats. A depressing fact indeed. This is one of three “Live Tapes” CDs, with the others recorded at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion and Melbourne’s Bombay Rock; all a celebration of not only one of the most talented bands we have produced in this country but a record of a time in Aussie history that no history book can ever reproduce.
