A warm, loving tribute to the classic sound of the Australian suburbs, Live It Up tells the Mental As Anything story with style and sensitivity. From their beginnings as an art school/pub outfit at Paddington's own Unicorn Hotel, the group described by their tour manager as “the most ambition-less band I’d ever met” finds themselves wholly unprepared to deal with the success of singles like their 1979 debut "The Nips Are Getting Bigger". On tour and in over their heads, the Mentals (brothers Peter O’Doherty and Reg Mombassa, drummer David “Bird” Twohill, guitarist Martin Plaza and late keyboardist Andrew “Greedy” Smith) increasingly turn to the great Australian coping mechanism of alcohol, trying to juggle label pressures for another hit like "Live It Up" against artistic differences within the band.

Director Matthew Walker has jazzed up the Oz-music-doc format with enormous creativity, reflecting the band's own ingenious music videos and the pop-art sensibilities of artist Reg Mombassa (whose Mambo designs you may be familiar with). By focusing on the double-edged sword of a smash hit and its effects on the Mentals, Walker takes a particular moment in Australian pop cultural export history- an era of Crocodile Dundee and shrimps on the barbie that was never a comfortable fit for their spiky, punk-inflected energy. A reflective but never sombre snapshot of a sunny suburban past, Live It Up is a nostalgic trip to remember.