Angry Anderson is living up to his name, after becoming thoroughly miffed at the NRL for giving him the cold shoulder at this year’s State Of Origin opener. The Rose Tattoo frontman’s 1982 sporting anthem, We Can’t Be Beaten, was performed as part of the Origin festivities, but not by him. Instead, it was squawked by original Australian Idol runner-up Shannon Noll and actor Ben Mingay, in what was widely considered to be not a very good performance.
It’s now come out that the NRL didn’t even do Angry the courtesy of asking him if he’d be keen to belt out his own hit in front of the 80,000-strong crowd at ANZ Stadium on Wednesday night. And Angry is not happy, Jan.
“I wasn’t pissed off at Shannon for singing my song, I’m pissed off they didn’t pick me to sing my song,” the veteran vented to AAP. “I thought it was pretty shabby, pretty ordinary.”
We Can’t Be Beaten was co-written by Angry and his Rose Tattoo bandmate, Rob Riley, and while the frontman says he’s bloody stoked that the NRL chose the song, he’s also pretty insulted that they didn’t ask him to sing it.
“It’s kind of like saying get Guy Sebastian to sing Khe Sanh, get fucked, you’re kidding,” he said. “They want to use Can’t Be Beaten, I’m thrilled. Then they get someone else to sing it. Hello! It’s almost like they’re saying he hasn’t had a hit for a few years he must be dead.”
Angry also had a few more stern words for the NRL, serving up an impassioned rant about the code’s long history of overlooking Aussie artists. The pocket rocket singer claims that his publishers previously put forward We Can’t be Beaten, together with his 1990 solo single Bound For Glory, for the league to potentially use as one of its seasons’ theme songs.
But instead, the administrators continue to look to US acts like Tina Turner and Bon Jovi, whose anthem, This Is Our House, was used for the League’s 2011 promotional campaign.
“Rugby League is is a man’s man’s game. Bon Jovi are limp-wristed,” Anderson proclaimed.
“We should be using Australians at Australian events”.
But even being Australian couldn’t save Shannon Noll and Ben Mingay from the storm of social media hate that followed their pre-game performance on Wednesday night. But on the bright side, at least gave blues and maroons fans something to bond over for one shining moment: #hateoforigin.
