Rock legends hit it home

IT'S official - Cold Chisel can still cut it.

Forget the wave of reality TV wannabes appearing on the Australian music scene, the Chisel boys' performance on Saturday night was a return to the good old days of hard-rocking fun.

For two hours, almost 15,000 fans spanning several generations enjoyed a slap-in-the-face reminder of what good Aussie music is all about.

It may have been an outdoor venue, with Jimmy and the boys mere specks on the stage for those in the back row, but if you closed your eyes it was easy to imagine you were back at your local pub with a beer in your hand and Chisel playing in the back room.

It was classic Aussie rock from a band that proved it hasn't forgotten how to put on a show.

Cheap Wine, Flame Trees, Choir Girl, Star Hotel, Shipping Steel, My Baby, Rising Sun, Merry-Go-Round and Forever Now - there was hardly a Chisel classic that didn't make it onto the night's playlist.

The band's latest songs were sprinkled through the show but it was the classics the crowd came to hear, and the boys didn't let them down.

And when, midway through the night, they powered from the hard-rocking Bow River straight into Khe Sanh, the fans went wild.

There's not many bands, past or present, that can hit their audience with two classics of that magnitude before the encore.

Barnes was at his explosive best - his voice still strong as the Lite The Nitro tour enters the third week of its two-month tour.

He's not 25 anymore and hasn't done his vocal chords any favours over the years but he can still belt out a tune with the best of them.

Without taking away from Jimmy, Don Walker and the rest of the band, it was Ian Moss who consistently stole the show with his sweet, soulful voice and guitar licks that proved he was still one of the best in the world.

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