Gig review: Rose Tattoo at Manhattan Room, NCL Joy, Thursday, March 14 2025

Live review: Rose Tattoo at Manhattan Room, NCL Joy on Thursday, March 14 2025

By STEVE MASCORD

NICE boys stop playing rock’n’roll when they are told and Rose Tattoo signed off in a blur of spit and belligerence for their last ever show in the Americas.

The first Monsters Of Rock Cruise official showed up, black-t-shirted and walkie-talkied, as the Tatts’ allotted time in the Manhattan Room – a converted restaurant on the NCL Joy – was due to expire. A second lobbed as the gig spilled over the black line on the schedule and careered, uncontrolled, into the Caribbean night.

Two evenings before, the Tatts had almost pushed Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach on stage in the hope they would not cut the sound on him as he hammed up “We Can’t Be Beaten”. The mic’s were still cut for “Nice Boys (Don’t Play Rock’n’Roll)” – and it was if no-one noticed.

But tonight is not one for games. It’s no pantomime.

Mick Arnold’s slide sounds like a harbinger of the apocalypse, guitarist Ronnie Simmons proposes to girlfriend Rose while Ango visits his subjects during “Bad Boy For Love” (she said yes) and LA Guns’ Phil Lewis stands on the opposite side of the stage to those security dudes, shaking his head and mouthing ‘yes, yes’ over and over again.

“These will be our final moments together,” Anderson, 77, says at the start of the cruise’s best show, before advising the filling room to dance and sing, because rock’n’roll is king.

Anderson skates close to what would be termed “controversial” with his increasingly news-making between-song banter. For the second show in row, he declared the band “gender specific”, adding “there’s no confusion up here about what we are”.

There’s a callout to see if there are any “Commies” on the ship, the term “left-tard” gets an airing, a cruise identity who pulled the plug on them last time is described by a word Australians use casually but from which others recoil. “The Butcher And Fast Eddy” does not glorify violence, in case any ‘lefties” were wondering, but merely illustrates sometimes violence is necessary.

But just as you might watch videos of this performance – with vocals delivered unevenly towards the end, perhaps – and spot musical flaws, you might read those quotes and assume Angry was on a political rampage – which he most certainly was not. Instead, he declared his undying love for the audience far more often than he pilloried and zeitgeists.

And if there’s a moment that sums up the extent to which the Tatts – with one original member – remain an authentic, untamed, snarling relic from an era unfathomable to this throng of 21st century hedonists, it’s when Ango explains that “Tramp” is not misogynistic because he loved the central character “dearly”.

“But she was a working girl,” he explains, “and you can’t help thinking about what she does at work. You’re only human.”

If there was a single person in the Manhattan Room that night who could identify with that narrative from personal experience, your reviewer would be gobsmacked.

Another moment: “Scarred For Life” reaches its crescendo. Anderson clutches the mic stand with one hand, the other balled into a fist at the end of a bent arm. Tears seem to be fighting to escape. From being one of the first members of the Vigilante biker gang, to the man who put rock and tattoos together creating an industry, through the death of band-mates and loved ones.

It all seemed encapsulated at that moment. Scarred for life indeed; 50 years of Rose Tattoo.

Once, what people did was more important than what they said. Today, we devalue and disenfranchise those with whom we disagree. This 77-year-old isn’t part of that world and – in terms of being a public figure – has chosen to leave it.

At the end of an uproariously ragged “Nice Boys”, Arnold leaves his guitar against drummer Scott Churilla’s kit. Bassist Johnny Martin (borrowed from LA Guns) props his instrument up against his amp and Simmons – finally smiling now his proposal is out there – does likewise.

They exit, leaving the dazed assembly bathed in feedback.

And the darty-eyed, sweating, security guys?

They wait a respectful minute, and turn everything off.