And that's even more of an achievement than you might expect, because my first glance at the members didn't exactly send my expectations through the roof. The 2006 model of Radio Birdman is more or less evenly split between dressed-down senior accountants and "never too old to rock" Ronnie James Dio types, with guitarist and lead songwriter (and former Ann Arborite) Deniz Tek serving as a kind of happy medium with his untucked Oxford shirt, Roger Waters-esque "mature rock" look. I'm a music fan, though, not a fashion critic, and by the time the show had really gotten underway, I could have given a shit what they were wearing. Despite the fact that their collective ages couldn't have totalled any less than 200, Radio Birdman turned the Magic Stick upside down, tearing through one high-octane classic after another with the energy of men half their age. Lead singer Rog Younger in particular played a truly magnetic frontman role, one part Iggy and one part early Mick Jagger, punctuated with bizarre, twitchy dance moves that were so awkward they crossed right over into charismatic.
Once again, too, the audience was almost as big a part of the show as the band - but unlike with Mudhoney, here the energy was all overwhelmingly positive. Almost the moment Radio Birdman appeared, I sensed a change in the crowd's mood - where before their music-fuelled aggression had turned inward, churning into a mosh-pit mentality, now it was pushing out, straining toward the stage and the legendary band who occupied it. I felt my own body bend forward from the pressure; the experience of watching those first couple of tracks while the audience around me exploded into a frenzy was unforgettable. A little ways into the set, beer flew through the air from behind, dousing the crowd in a crude kind of baptism. Tek kept saying, "It's good to be home." Between songs, somebody in the back yelled, "You guys sound the same!" He was wrong. I've heard the original recordings, and if anything, that night Radio Birdman sounded better.
Article comments
1 - Jasper Borgman
I was at that show. Excellent and Accurate review..