Live Review: Dig It Up!: Hoodoo Gurus, Blue Öyster Cult, Flamin' Groovies

There's a swarm of UFOs hanging above the otherwise stately Tivoli stage for the second instalment of Dig It Up! as San Francisco's legendary Flamin' Groovies kick off the first show in over three decades, for this second British Invasion-inspired incarnation of the band at any rate. They're accordingly somewhat rusty at the outset, but soon find a groove, songs like You Tore Me Down, I Can't Hide, Between The Lines and driving anti-drug anthem Slow Death riding on adroit songcraft and melodic harmonies. By the time they close with the evergreen Shake Some Action it's obvious why they were so revered by so many.

Long Island rockers Blue Öyster Cult are an altogether more confounding proposition. The '70s icons start their first ever Australian show with four-fifths wearing sunglasses – so far, so good – but then offer a suite of songs that don't seem to have dated so well. There's plenty of fervent fans, but songs like The Red And The Black, Golden Age Of Leather and Burnin' For You sound tired, while staple Godzilla just seems inane. Their trump card (Don't Fear) The Reaper is still smooth as felt, even when delivered with air cowbells (move over SNL) instead of the real deal. A somewhat interesting anachronism.

Finally Hoodoo Gurus take the stage before a now-packed throng of devotees and proceed to smash through 1985 sophomore album Mars Needs Guitars! in its entirety, the well-lubed crowd belting back the words to tracks like the awesome Bittersweet, Poison Pen and In The Wild with complete gusto. Dave Faulkner is the dapper yin to Brad Shepherd's grungy yang, while bassist Rick Grossman uses the fact that they haven't played Death Defying for 20 years as an excuse for slightly messing the intro, before the crowd goes ballistic for the undying, unbridled rock muscle of Like Wow – Wipeout. Even hardcore fans haven't heard tracks like the country nightmare Hayride To Hell or the slightly tossaway Other Side Of Paradise in the live realm for ages, and there's red faces all around when Faulkner concedes that they'd screwed the order and missed the pleading Show Me Some Emotion, before completing the task at hand with the title track and the brooding She, which seems to have added heft tonight, all ringing guitars and lingering pathos. Of course the Gurus stick around to add some classics – the place goes bonkers for Tojo, nods along to Crackin' Up, sings their hearts out to 1000 Miles Away and then goes wild for I Was A Kamikaze Pilot. There's still time for an encore – Be My Guru, What's My Scene and Right Time all score points – and then we're done, a brilliant night of classic rock'n'roll spanning vast vistas of time and geography. May there be more Dig It Up!s to come.