Rollerworld: Live At the Budokan, Tokyo 1977

Album Review

In Britain, Bay City Rollers reigned supreme for something less than two years, and in America, they were tops for a little more than one. Only in Japan did their fame sustain for anything more than a couple of blinks of an eye and, by 1977 — just three years after "Shang a Lang" topped charts around the world — that land remained the Rollers' last stronghold. But what a stronghold it was, repository of some of the wildest hysteria in the entire Rollerworld. Hence the title of this collection; hence the unrelenting undulation of screaming and joy that forms a backdrop to the main attraction. Rollerworld is the Rollers' first and only live album, but it lacks the band's greatest hits. "It's a Game," the last of the Rollers' even vaguely memorable 45s, opens a show that has Serious Musicians stamped all over it. The surviving handful of "oldies" are, without exception, the ones that have a degree of classic class stamped on them. "Wouldn't You Like It" and a triumphantly stamp-along "Saturday Night" alone hail from the days of true tartan terrorism; "Rock 'n' Roll Love Letter" and "Yesterday's Heroes" represent the Dedication album; and "Money Honey" and "I Only Wanna Be with You" are the only prime-era hits. There's also a sterling version of David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel," spiraling out with even more aplomb than its studio counterpart.