The MC 5 – Live Detroit 68/69

Continuing in my series of MC5 comes Live Detroit 68/69, which essentially speaks for itself! Once again, the quality is none-too-great, but the content is pretty superb! The majority of this comes from a show (I assume that most of this is a single show) from ’68 – about the time of the recording of Kick Out The Jams. Brother Jesse Crawford introduces them and they start out screaming with a blistering “Come Together” with Tyner bellowing his throat out! The distorted recording and totally out of whack balance between vocals and instruments detracts from the experience, but you can tell that the group is going for it at 2000%. “I Want You Right Now” sounds more vicious than sexy here as again Rob is shrieking as if his life depended on it! Showing their soul roots, they mangle (in a good way) Ray Charles’ “I Believe” with heavy guitars and more wails.

This is another bootleg that I have on vinyl, so side two starts with yet another “Black To Comm”, here titled “Come On Down”. They are joined by an unnamed saxophone player for a very avant-garde jazz jam – pure, crazed, anarchic noize! This ends suddenly (actually sounds like the tape ran out) and is followed by their cover of “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” and “Looking at You” that were also included in the Teenage Lust boot, and I believe is from that show instead of the show that the rest of the songs here are from (which I guess this is titled 68/69 - to indicate two shows). Odd, though great versions, so it can be forgiven. I assume the label just wanted to pad out this release as it would have been a bit short otherwise.

Again, the sound quality is pretty poor here, but the performances are extraordinary, so essential for fans but only for true fans.