Album review: BLUE OYSTER CULT – Iheart Radio Theater NYC 2012

Frontiers [Release date 08.05.20]

An invited audience of 200 lucky fans saw Blue Oyster Cult live on stage at the IHeart Radio Theater in New York in 2012. The event noisily celebrated the band’s 40th year together, expertly recorded by multiple video cameras and state of the art audio, now released by Frontiers Records in a combined CD and DVD package.

Blue Oyster Cult’s Wagnerian Heavy Metal transfers well to the live music environment. Their fans don’t expect animated stagecraft, just a bunch of their favourite songs let loose.

The driving, relentless energy of ‘The Golden Age..’, launched by muscled up harmonies; ‘Burnin’ For You’s commercial nous and ‘Shooting Shark’s tragic/beautiful chorus open the set, following ‘RU Ready To Rock’s introductory imperative.

The perfect start. Even this iteration of the band…Bloom, Roesser, Richie Castellano (keyboards), Jules Radino (drums) and the inimitable Kasim Sulton (bass)… has spent years on the road together, progressively tuning and tightening its sound into a weapon of mass live enjoyment.

Roeser and Bloom never look totally comfortable with the obvious audience adulation, (though they’re happy to tease them on ‘City In Flames…’), leaving most of the rock’n'roll moves to Castellano and Sulton, but are clearly at home pumping out their best known material, which just never seems to age.

A roaring, high tension ‘Godzilla’ and the understated majesty of ‘…The Reaper’ light up the second half, seeping into your consciousness, effectively closing the set, and doing it in grand style.

The recording has all the clarity and heft you would expect from ambitious production values, and the DVD comes with a band interview, effectively a bonus track not available on the CD.

Of course it’s only one in a long line of the label’s reissues from the Blue Oyster Cult BOC back catalogue, and more to come…

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)