Vinyl Record

INXS - Recorded Live at the US Festival 1983 / Shabooh Shoobah

INXS - Recorded Live at the US Festival 1983 / Shabooh Shoobah on LP vinyl. A 1982 record available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel, Ireland.

LP · 1982

Available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel.

Buyer notes: 1982 LP, currently available from the Kilmorna Collection vinyl shelf. Pay for pickup in Listowel or ship within Ireland for EUR 5.50.

Recorded Live at the US Festival 1983 / Shabooh Shoobah is built around a perfect hinge in the INXS story. Shabooh Shoobah, first released in 1982, was the album that carried the band beyond Australia and gave them The One Thing, Don't Change, To Look at You and a sharper international profile. The US Festival performance from May 1983 then placed those songs in front of an enormous American crowd, with INXS still young enough to sound hungry and already confident enough to make the scale feel deserved. That contrast gives this release its charge. The studio album has the clipped, restless energy of early-1980s new wave colliding with pub-rock muscle and dance-floor instinct. The live material shows what happened when those songs left the studio and hit open air: tempos feel urgent, the rhythm section leans forward, and Michael Hutchence's stage charisma is already more than a promise. The set does not simply repeat Shabooh Shoobah; it demonstrates why that album could travel. For collectors, the pairing is valuable because it refuses to separate the record from the moment that proved it. Shabooh Shoobah is often treated as the pre-history to Listen Like Thieves and Kick, but that underrates how decisive it was. It established the Farriss/Hutchence writing engine, clarified the band's fusion of rock, funk and new wave, and gave them songs with enough tension and melody to cross borders. The US Festival side makes that argument physically: here is the band, not yet polished into late-decade superstardom, already sounding like it belongs on a much larger stage.

This title matters because it frames Shabooh Shoobah as the launchpad rather than a footnote. The album marked INXS's first truly international push, and the 1983 US Festival recording shows the same material becoming a live calling card. It is the sound of a band crossing from regional momentum into global possibility.

This is the INXS record to reach for when the shelf needs the early breakthrough, not just the later blockbusters. It sits naturally before Listen Like Thieves and Kick, but it has its own identity: rawer, sharper and more angular, with Don't Change and The One Thing showing how early the band's melodic instincts were already locked in.

Early-1980s new wave rock with taut funk rhythms, ringing guitars, wiry sax and keyboard texture, and live energy that pushes the Shabooh Shoobah songs into open-air urgency.

Recommended for: INXS fans tracing the band's pre-Kick ascent; Collectors who value live context around classic studio albums; Listeners drawn to angular new wave with rock and funk muscle.

Why is Shabooh Shoobah important? It was INXS's third album and the record that helped move them onto the international stage, led by songs such as The One Thing and Don't Change. When was the US Festival performance recorded? The live set was recorded in May 1983 at the US Festival in California. Is this only for completists? No. It is especially useful for anyone who wants to hear the band before the later stadium polish, when their new-wave and funk-rock instincts were still raw and immediate.