On this powerhouse live set from the summer’s reunion of the brothers Alvin, the Blasters both play it loose and go for broke. Rather than treating their influences or their original material with reverence, the 1980s kingpins of Southern California roots-rock take the music on a reckless joyride. Whatever tensions resulted in the split of the original band spark the spontaneous combustion that makes the interplay so vital, while suggesting why the dynamic that can be so explosive on any given night made it difficult for the band to hold itself together over the long haul.
In chemical terms, these Blasters are an unstable compound. There’s a tension between the teeth-clenched, vein-popping vocals of older brother Phil and the live-wire release of Dave’s guitar, a tension between the more ambitious songs the younger brother progressed to write and the retro style with which big brother continued to sing them. It’s the sort of tension that seems all but inevitable whenever competitive siblings form a band together — particularly when the younger’s artistic maturity comes to threaten the older’s dominance. Though Phil remains the leader and mouthpiece, it was Dave’s growth as a songwriter that established the Blasters as more than rootsy revivalists and ultimately spurred his departure from the band.
At the start of the set, Phil tells the hometown L.A. crowd, somewhat equivocally, “We’re the Blasters, or some incarnation thereof.” The musical selection proceeds to find a common denominator between the bluesy swagger of Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s “Too Tired” and the raving rockabilly of Sonny Burgess’ “Sadie’s Back In Town”. It reflects the depth of Dave’s songwriting from the early exuberance of “American Music” and “So Long Baby Goodbye” through the undercurrents of “Trouble Bound” and “Dark Night”. (Inexplicably, it omits “Border Radio”, while striking a similar groove with the more obscure “Blue Shadows”.) It showcases the rhythm section of drummer Bill Bateman, bassist John Bazz and pianist Gene Taylor as the pistons that drive the music.
Toward the end of the ride, Phil bids the audience a jubilant farewell with “We’re the Blasters!” No further qualification necessary or reservations possible.
