How should one start a review about a new live recording from a band that was founded in 1976, thus has existed for 35 years, and had its biggest hit when I was just learning to walk? I could talk about being born too late and how punk rock was only real in 1977, but is that actually true? Isn't punk more than just a trend? Isn't punk primarily the attitude of doing your own thing and thereby being or becoming an underdog, because society often makes you that way, and doesn't accept being different?
THE MEMBERS is the band that wrote the legendary song “Sound of the Suburbs.” A song that sold more than a million copies and still cannot be missing from any punk rock disco today. This band set out in 2010 not only to give a concert at Wild at Heart in Berlin-Kreuzberg but also to have it recorded. Anyone who has ever been there knows that the live sound is fantastic and the place is great anyway. So, what could be more fitting than to combine the beautiful with the useful? The audience is not too often heard, but enough to notice that this is indeed a live recording, and one that is powerful and captivating. This is, of course, also due to the recording and mixing, but also to the band, which you can tell is having fun performing. The band's songs are not pure '77 punk, but rather a mix of '77 punk, classic rock, and melodic rock. The band was known at the time for being one of the first to blend punk and reggae. You can hear little of that, but there are also quiet parts on the record where, with a bit of imagination, you can hear this blend.
In addition to ten original songs, the band also plays a cover of Kraftwerk, specifically the well-known song “Das Model.” It sounds strange at first, but the song comes across well in the guise of the English, albeit in a unique way.
Of course, the only commercially successful hit of the band, “Sound of the Suburbs,” is also played, and it is celebrated accordingly.
THE MEMBERS belong to a generation of bands along with U.K. Subs, The Lurkers, The Vibrators, The Business, and Peter and the Test Tube Babies, who still stand on stage with one, rarely more, commercially successful hit, playing the sound of punk from the very beginning. This is live history lessons and shows that one can grow old cool as a punk. Without the mentioned bands, many bands would not exist at all. Nevertheless, the concerts should not be dismissed as punk rock folklore, but rather as valuable time spent with old heroes who have (unintentionally) influenced several generations of punks and still do.
THE MEMBERS are currently on tour again, just visit the MySpace page or the homepage to see where they are and when to experience their Sound of the Suburbs in your ear canal.
