Radio Stars - Something Else for the Weekend (Expanded Version) (2021)

The sound quality could probably be better. So what? The guitar could maybe be a little less metallic. Who cares? The vocalist could be a shade more in tune. It doesn't matter. If you never saw Radio Stars at the peak of their 1977-1978 powers; or if you did, but it all seems like a dream now, Something for the Weekend is the album that proves that everything you ever heard about them was true. They really were that good. Recorded at a handful of stops across the U.K., Something for the Weekend is both the best of Radio Stars and a sharp-eyed reconstruction of a typical performance, at least in aural terms. No, Andy Ellison does not leap off your wardrobe and come crashing onto the floor during a tumultuous "Beast of Barnsley"; no, 2,000 rabid punk rockers do not rise as one leather-and sweat-stinking mass to sing the chorus of "From a Rabbit." But "Elvis Is Dead (Boring)" restores the familiar album version to its original lyrical thrust, "Johnny Mekon" still sounds like the best Mott the Hoople song that never existed. And "From a Rabbit" will have you bellowing the chorus at the top of your lungs and maybe even making a better job of it than the band. Good for you. Whatever you do with it, Something for the Weekend will keep you hopping all week long and, when you do finally collapse into an exhausted heap on the floor, there's a bonus disc of Martin Gordon live in Boston in 2007. Which will soon have you back on your feet again.