A lesson I’ve been painfully slow to learn is that there are times when you’ve just got to do what you want to do and let conventional views be damned. When I heard that Radio Birdman were reforming for an Australian tour, the second time they’d played together in a quarter of a century, I thought gee, how lucky those people are down under to get to see this. I wished that I could be so fortunate. And as I thought more and more, it slowly seeped into my brain that I could see it, too, if I’d just be willing to pull the trigger and spend the time and money and go and do it. And it occurred to me that in two months time I’ll probably forget the money it cost and the inconvenience it caused with my job and all that, but the shows and the trip I’d remember for the rest of my life. So I went for it, and I’m damn glad I did.

The reactions of my friends and co-workers was nearly unanimous. It reminds me of that line in the old Lovin’ Spoonful song that goes "It’s like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll". They just don’t understand, and there is no hope explaining it. "Now let me get this straight – you’re flying to Australia for one week, to see a band? And what was the band called? What kind of a name is that?" It didn’t help things that when I called the Corner Hotel in Melbourne to book the tickets, the fellow on the other end of the phone was incredulous. "You must be joking!", he said in a classic Australian accent. "Yer coming all the way here to see a band? Let me give ya a clue, mate – save yer money!"

Reassurance came from my core of internet buddies, many of whom also flew in from the far corners of the world to see this band. From Germany, France, and from the UK and the United States, not to mention the Australians who traveled from city to city seeing every show. And when I arrived in Sydney (after the band had already played their first three gigs), reassurance came much faster. The music papers in both Melbourne and Sydney were filled with stories on the Birdmen, and timed as the tour was with the Australian release of The Essential Birdman CD, the reissue of both Radios Appear and Living Eyes in great repackages by Citadel, and the compilation CDs Born Out Of Time and Do The Pop, interest in that older era of Australian music was at a fever pitch locally. And the buzz from my Australian friends who’d seen the first two shows in Sydney and the third in Brisbane made anticipation peak. Jules Normington, who has witnessed most of the Birdmen shows from the very beginning, said that the first Sydney show was one of the five best Birdmen shows he’d ever seen. You Am I drummer Rusty Hopkinson reported that Ron Keeley was right on the money, something a lot of fans were concerned about as there were rumors that he hadn’t done so well in the previous tour. And everybody was raving about how tight and powerful Radio Birdman were.

So after three days hanging around Sydney I flew down to Melbourne for two shows, the first at the Corner Hotel and the second at the Prince of Wales. The Corner Hotel is in Richmond east of central Melbourne. I’d seen the Mad Turks play to about 10 people there in 1991, so I knew what to expect – a comfortable room with bars against two walls and stages against the other two. I walked in early under the Victoria Bitter sign and in one of those strange bits of kismet was greeted by the Fun Things’ classic "When The Birdmen Fly" being played over the club sound system. It’s hard to imagine a more propitious start.

Probably twenty people were there when I arrived, but the room filled quickly after that. Strangely for a country where the punters are known to like a drink or six, the beers were served up in containers slightly larger than shot glasses. I purchased my own thimbleful and soon found myself having a chat with a fellow who had flown down from Brisbane to see the band. Gradually more friends made their way in. Anticipation was building!

The opening band was a group of New Zealanders called D4. Their sound was punchy, driving garage rock and roll that reminded me a lot of the Hives. These guys played a fine set – I’d have been quite happy to have them headline a gig in my own town. But opening for Radio Birdman is a bit like being one of the other guys executed along side of Christ on Golgatha – makes a nice footnote but you’re not the one who’s going to launch a religion.

D4 finished and after a half hour of buzzing conversation the curtain went up and Radio Birdman immediately set out to exorcise old demons by banging into "Hanging On", the downer song Tek wrote when the group was on the ropes in those difficult days back in England, 1978. Half the crowd appeared dead stunned to see the legendary band up there in the flesh. Certainly that was my immediate reaction. Could the band live up to impossibly high expectations and deliver a performance to reward 25 years of anticipation, or would they go limping off into the sunset squinting through their bi-focals and fumbling with their leaking colostomy bags?

Well, as it turns out, the aging codgers showed the young guns a thing or two about how to deliver a knockout set of rock’n’roll tunes. They played a ferocious but well-paced set in which the slow songs made heads bob irresistibly while the fast songs provoked a high risk of severe neck and spine injury.

Behind the band was a worn and tattered Birdman logo backdrop, like some Revolutionary War era flag hauled out of the vaults at the Smithsonian. Well to the left is Pip Hoyle on his Kurzweil, swaying slightly to the music and looking a bit like Bones from Star Trek with his black shirt, red tie and jet black hair. To his right is Chris Masuak, head shaven like Cheetah Chrome and wearing black wraparound sunglasses and a garish cowboy shirt, moving only occasionally as he plays. In back is Ron Keeley, who looks like a bus driver but lays out a cracking rhythm that drummers 30 years younger would struggle to achieve. Slightly to Keeley’s right and somewhat in front of him stands the tall and gaunt former Survivors-Barracudas-New Christs Jim Dickson, the inspired choice to sub for original bassist Warwick Gilbert. Dickson fills the bottom end with solid, fluid bass lines and feels like he’s been in on this from day one. He’s active and into it, with his head bobbing along to the rhythm.

To the right of Dickson stands Deniz Tek with his legendary white guitar, white shirt and dark glasses. Tek plays with his head down, concentrating, intense and powerful. He and Masuak take turns trading off rhythm and lead chores, sometimes both playing leads together. He looks trim and fit and could pass for ten years younger than his actual age.

Radio Birdman came on around 11:30 and again started with a sinuous version of "Hanging On", bringing the crowd up to tempo slowly. The Prince Of Wales set up has the band playing in a corner of the room with the audience curved around them, and it seems like every place in the hall is close to the stage. The band appearance was similar to the night before, except that someone must have had a word with Masuak about that cowboy shirt so he was wearing simple black instead. As a whole, the band seemed more animated this night – they’d been in a Melbourne studio recording three songs for a single during the afternoon and apparently had enjoyed themselves quite a bit. Masuak particularly was moving much more as he played.

The crowd fairly quickly worked itself into a frenzy, with the tired old act of passing bodies around overhead and attempted stage dives happening with regularity. I’m sure the older fans in the crowd spent most of Saturday morning searching for the Motrin bottle to help sooth muscles that hadn’t moved like that in quite some time. The band paced the set well, with a slower song like "Snake" or "More Fun" popping up just when it appeared that a riot was on the edge of ensuing and then once heads had cooled off, driving back in with a "455SD" or "Burn My Eye".

The covers were fantastic again – all the same ones as the night before. "Down On The Street" was just cracking, with Keeley snapping out the rhythm and a tough, tough guitar sound driving it. "Waiting For The Man" was a knockout, and they closed with Roky Erikson’s classic "You’re Gonna Miss Me", which I’m sure everyone will do. When the house lights finally came up around 1:30 AM and the staff began to shovel out the ankle deep debris of bottles and broken glass that covered the floor, us punters stood blinking like owls in the daylight in amazement over what we’d just seen.

It’ll be interesting to see what’s next for the group. Rumor is that Deniz Tek is moving back to Australia this summer, and it may be that there will be quite a bit more activity on the Radio Birdman front as a result. The guys in the band seemed to be enjoying themselves, and with the exception of Warwick Gilbert’s absence, it seems possible that they might want to work together more. Of course, it’s easy to get along in the warm glow of acceptance, but one wonders how quickly the public would begin to take the band for granted if their shows came with a frequency exceeding that of Haley’s Comet and whether the more mundane process of being in a band would make old wounds fester anew.