X-ray Spex: Live @ The Roundhouse

Seminal punk band X-ray Spex release a special live concert film recorded at 2008’s sell-out concert at the Roundhouse through new Future Noise Music imprint Year Zero. The first X-ray Spex live outing since 1979, this performance of their classic album Germ Free Adolescents saw singer Poly Styrene and bassist Paul Dean joined by friends Sid Truelove (anarcho-punk drummer with Rubella Ballet and Flux of Pink Indians), Mark Saxby (former guitarist with Arnold) and Flash (saxophone player, formerly with Rip Rig & Panic, Jah Wobble, Don Cherry and the Slits) at London’s Roundhouse on September 6th 2008 in front of 3,000 raucous fans. In 1976 X-ray Spex were formed by Poly Styrene placing an ad in NME and Melody Maker for "Young Punx Who Want To Stick It Together". For a generation sifting through the wreckage left by punk rock, X-ray Spex truly turned our world day-glo. The combination of tough, razor sharp riffs, kooky sax lines and Poly Styrene’s wonderful voice and incisive lyrics tearing into plastic consumerist society were perfect. Their 1978/79 stay was all too brief - a handful of memorable singles: debut Oh Bondage Up Yours! and the hits The Day The World Turned Day-Glo, Germ Free Adolescents and Highly Inflammable. Versions of all these songs are featured here, alongside previously unreleased new track Bloody War. X-ray Spex transcended punk, influencing a whole new scene of indie kids and post-Riot Grrrl rockers like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Gossip. The band’s innate genius and brilliant song writing makes them as relevant now as they were then. They are that rarest of things, a group that has never dated.