ATN New Zealand correspondent Marty Duda reports: Urge Overkill brought their

"Exit The Dragon" tour to New Zealand on Tuesday (Sept. 26th) at the Power

Station in central Auckland. The Power Station, a club with a capacity of

just under 1,000, provided the two necessary ingredients for a good show: a

stage and a bar. The mainly early 20's crowd was ready for that 70's retro

trip. Myself, nearly twice as old as the average rocker in attendance,

experienced the 70's in it's original configuration, Frampton in '76, Cheap

Trick in '77 and the Black & Blue tour in '78. That's Black Sabbath & Blue

Oyster Cult (or was it Black Oak Arkansas & The Blue Ridge Rangers?) Never

mind.

The show kicked off with Kiwi rockers King Loser. Three guys and one

woman perfectly suited to open for UO, offering up a sound reminiscent of

early

B-52s, Iron Butterfly and The Cramps [Editor's note: B-52s, Iron Butterfly

and the Cramps--we gotta hear this], with karate moves thrown in for good

measure. And more wah wah pedal than I'd heard in 20 years. Syd Barrett

would have been proud. If this sounds appealing check out their Flying Nun

release You Cannot Kill What Does Not Live.

During the 45 minutes it took to set up for UO, the place filled up pretty

good for a Tuesday night. The band hit the stage running with "Positive

Bleeding" from

Saturation . The crowd was with them from the start, with plenty of

stage diving to keep things interesting. The guys were looking good, with

Nash and Eddie up front along with touring bassist Scott "Fever" Evers

(gotta have a nick-name to play with these guys) and Blackie O. holding

things down on the drums. Blackie has got to be one of the coolest drummers

in rock & roll these days. Nash Kato was going for a major image change. He

wasn't wearing his omnipresent shades, and he was smiling! These guys were

having a great

time just being on stage and rockin'. The good vibes were contagious. Even

the stage divers and security seemed to be getting along with a kind of

friendly cat and mouse game going on, more concerned with making sure

everyone up front was OK than copping the tough-guy attitude.

The main body of the show was a 50/50 split between new songs from

Exit the Dragon and selections from Saturation including

"Crackbabies," "This Is No Place," "Monopoly" and "Bottle of Fur." The

new tunes were stripped to bare riffs, dismissing the more serious mood they

project on the album. Smart move. The crowd had come to have a good time.

The set revved to a close with Eddie taking the vocals on "Take Me" from

Dragon and then Nash ripping into "Sister Havana." The place really

"hotted up" as they say down here, when they heard the first chords to

"Havana." I was moved to some retro-dancing of my own, a little late 70's

pogoing.

UO left the crowd screaming for more and came back with the new single

"Somebody Else's Body," "The Break" and then with visions of Uma dancing in

our heads, their brilliant remake of "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon." The

energy level of the show was so high, I wasn't sure if they would be able to

bring it down enough to squeeze that in. But "The Break" proved the perfect

setup for "Girl," with some moody lighting from behind the drum set helping

out. This did not deter several hardy stage divers, who continued

right through the Neil Diamond classic, prompting Nash to speak what was on

everyone's mind after the song, "Hey, is that a ballad the band is playing?

I think I'll land on my head."

The guys came back for one more. With Evers taking over the drums, Blackie

O. took center stage to sing "Dropout" from Saturation. With just a

little

"urging," he wooed a number of female members of the audience up on stage to

dance with the band. Somebody else's body indeed.