The Living End are Australia’s greatest live act from the crop of bands of the late 90s the rejuvenated the Australian live music scene. This week The Living End played the LA’s famed Roxy.
Since 1998 The Living End have produced a catalogue of seven remarkable albums, all as good as each other but sadly not given equal love. I’m not convinced they are currently with a label who understands the band or the audience and the excellent ‘Shift’ came and went in weeks, becoming the band’s first album ever to not even reach Gold.
Hopefully, the US will pay more attention to The Living End than Australia. The band is spending all of August on touring west coast America and a Roxy gig is a small gig but an important gig. The room has a 500 capacity but being LA you never know who will be in the audience.
When the venue opened on the Sunset Strip in 1973 Neil Young played every night for the first week. The venue was the hang of choice for John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Alice Cooper and Keith Moon. One of them survived.
Many live albums have come from Roxy gigs – Bob Marley ‘Live At The Roxy’, George Benson ‘Weekend In LA’, Warren Zevon ‘Stand In The Fire’ and Frank Zappa ‘Roxy and Elsewhere’ are just a few albums made there.
The Living End’s show was more a greatest hit set than a showcase of the ‘Shift’ album but three from ‘Shift’ made the list.
The Living End, Los Angeles, 19 August 2016
Second Solution (from The Living End, 1998)
Roll On (from Roll On, 2000)
Pictures in the Mirror (from Roll On, 2000)
Staring Down the Barrel (from Shift, 2016)
Hold Up (from Modern Artillery, 2003)
Monkey (from Shift, 2016)
All Torn Down (from The Living End, 1998)
Keep on Running (from Shift, 2016)
Raise the Alarm (from White Noise, 2008)
White Noise (from White Noise, 2008)
Who’s Gonna Save Us? (from Modern Artillery, 2003)
Prisoner of Society (from The Living End, 1998)
Encore:
E-Boogie
West End Riot (from The Living End, 1998)
The Living End will perform next in Australia at the Yours and Owls festival in Wollongong on October 1, 2016.
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