The Cramps: RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandXXX (red vinyl) [BIG BEAT]

Why you'll love it

Big Beat's reissue presses it on limited red vinyl. It catches the classic lineup of Lux Interior, Poison Ivy, Candy Del Mar and Nick Knox live in Auckland at the height of their A Date with Elvis era.

This edition

• Red vinyl
• Limited edition

About the album

Most bands save their live albums for the hometown crowd. The Cramps went about as far from home as they could get, to the Galaxy club in Auckland in late August 1986, and brought back one of the wildest nights of their career. Poison Ivy produced it, and it first came out in 1987 on the band's own Vengeance label.

The set leans heavily on A Date with Elvis, the album they'd just made, with "People Ain't No Good," "What's Inside a Girl?" and "Cornfed Dames" tearing along at full tilt. Older favourites "Sunglasses After Dark" and "Do the Clam" get a proper workout, Lux howls his way through "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Chicken," and "Aloha from Hell" and "Birdfeed" bring the curtain down. Ivy's guitar is all reverb and menace, and Nick Knox keeps the whole thing rumbling.

It was their second live album and their eighth album overall, a snapshot of the band at full strength. The title has no spaces in it at all, presumably because they needed every second for the show.

Also at Kops: more The Cramps on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Big Beat / Vengeance (cat# WIKAD 132), a reissue of the 1987 live album.