Live at the Roundhouse London

X-Ray Spex | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 1, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Future Noise
• ASIN: B002OBY6FS
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #331,161 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Oh Bondage Up Yours!

2. Art-I-Ficial

3. Obsessed with You

4. Warrior in Woolworths

5. Crystal Clear

6. Let's Submerge

7. I Am a Cliché

8. I Can't Do Anything

9. Identity

10. Melancholy

11. Genetic Engineering

12. Highly Inflammable

13. I Live Off You

14. I Am a Poseur

15. Germ Free Adolescents

16. Junkfood Junkie

17. Bloody War [#]

18. Cigarettes

19. The Day the World Turned Day-Glo

20. Oh Bondage Up Yours! (Encore)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Styrene's Triumphant Return!, December 7, 2009

By 

John Kearney (Montreal,QC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Live at the Roundhouse London (Audio CD)

Always on the edge of success but not quite, the X-Ray Spex stormed the mid-seventies with their own brand of sax laced punk fronted by the very chemically challenged Poly Styrene. Loud, brash yet very commercial their anthem "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" opened the doors for live gigs and led to a sizeable following in the UK. "Germ Free Adolescents", their initial LP spawned more classics like "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" and "Warrior in Woolworths".

Unfortunately, success was short lived with rumours abound that Poly (real name - Marion Elliott) was a schizophrenic and therefore unstable and unreliable to be a part of the paranoid world of the music industry.

It wasn't until 1991 that she was properly diagnosed with bi-polar disorder - in itself never known to be a handicap with countless Hollywood actors and musicians, but none the less stalled the career of Ms. Styrene. Bad contracts didn't help either so Marion dropped from the music scene to join the Hare Krishna's.

Thirty years or so later she regroups her old band to produce a CD/DVD reunion concert at the rock-historic palace, The Roundhouse, in London. Rehearsing for the good part of a year she was warned by her doctor that the stress of such a reunion could lead to a bi-polar episode.

...but I think.... Bi-Polar Up Yours! One, two, three four the X Ray Spex are back and have never sounded any better!

I've been a fan of the band since Bondage so this reunion CD/DVD was eagerly anticipated after reading an interview with Ms. Elliott in Record Collector. Ironically, my son was in the hospital at the time due to a bi-polar episode.

Would she be able to pull it off? I reserved a copy of XRay Spex Live @ The Roundhouse London 2008 (CD with DVD). I didn't know what to expect.

Looking twenty years younger than her age (she's 52) Poly Styrene has lost none of her energy, vibrancy and puts on one of the most exciting shows I've seen in years. The band is tight, the year of rehearsals has paid off and the sound is crystal clear.

Kicking off with Oh Bondage, Up Yours the band keeps up the momentum with 18 tracks including most from their Germ Free Adolescents LP. They reprise and finish the show with an even wilder version of Bondage.

The set contains a CD as well as a DVD of the concert along with a Diary Of The 70`s (lyrics included) written by Poly Styrene.

A true comeback for X-Ray Spex and Marion Elliott both professionally as well as personally.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars GREAT REUNION GIG !!!, April 1, 2010

By 

JUAN MARTIN GABASTOU (Weston Hills, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Live at the Roundhouse London (Audio CD)

The other reviewer did a great job and I want to complement it reviewing this release as a product, and also higlight some virtues and some flaws.

The CD/DVD comes housed in a bulky book-like double cd digipack with thick, glossy pages printed with an extract of Poly's book and the lyrics to the songs over day-glo motifs. The inner side of the hard covers house the discs conferring the package a sturdy look. I would have taken a double amaray plastic housing with a separate, bigger booklet anyday but this one is way better than your nowadays, trendy,usual crappy digipack I can't come to terms with, but hey, that is maybe just me.

The gig has a great atmos and Poly looks laid back and confident. Her vocal register is EXACTLY like that on the old LPs; incredible !!! Her looks have improved proportionaly to her age, and not the other way around as is usual with people !!

The picture and filming is nothing to write home about, mind you; this dvd seems to have been produced (by Poly according to the final credits) on a shoe-string budget with limited camera angles and excessive takes from the back of the theatre (way too far if you ask me), without all the close-ups I would have liked, and the bassist gets no exposure at all, except from his....back !! But don't let this deterr you from this GREAT buy, it's more than worth the money for the fans. 20 songs in 66', in widescreen .

The sound, if only dolby digital 2.0 and a bit bottom-end shy (which can be easily corrected) is mega-loud and crystal-clear, with great guitar and sax sound, energetic drumming and strong bass lines, and of course Poly's vocals on top of it all; loud, but never burying the instruments. The grand finale is an encore of Oh Bondage with Zylah Minx from Rubella Ballet as guest vocalist. Something really particular about the mix is that the guitar is on the left channel and the sax on the right one, constantly counterpointing and complementing each other in a gorgeous way.

There are no extras whatsover; I would have loved at least an in-depth interview with Poly, but hey, maybe she didn't want to !

If you are familiar with her early material you will drool all over this, but it maybe not be an ideal starting point for newcomers to this legendary punk band.