Kick Out The Jams - MC5 in Concert

The passing of MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer this week made me think of the one time I saw this band perform in concert back in June of 1969 at the Electric Factory. I remembered the show very vividly seeing them in that small rock club. They were loud and wild with lots of screaming. The crowd was going nuts too. They were known then as an avant-rock radical political band. I had some friends who were a little older than me and very much into that band. We all played together in a Philly Mummers String Band and they took me with them to a lot of shows in the downtown rock clubs.

The copy of the poster I found from this show was kind of funny in how the folks from The Electric Factory bungled the name of the band. M.C. Five. Really?

I had forgotten who the opening band was that night and all I remembered was that they were loud and terrible. It wasn't until recently when I was researching the shows I attended back in the day that I saw from the concert poster that the opening act had been Alice Cooper. They did not make a very good impression on me at the time. I would see them again in 1973 in Norfolk VA after their string of hits and crazy stage antics including that guillotine but back in 1969 they were just loud and obnoxious. 

I think the Kick Out The Jams album may have been my first live album in my collection. Either that or James Brown. 

I also learned a lot about the MC5, their political activities and their mentor John Sinclair in Detroit during the 1960's from the book Detroit 67: The Year That Changed Soul by Stuart Cosgrove. 

MC5 in my collection:

• Kick Out The Jams, 1969
• Back in the USA, 1970
• Babes in Arms (compilation), 1983
• Black To Comm (compilation), 1994
• The Big Bang: Best of the MC5, 2000
• The Anthology 1965-1971, 2008 (2 CD)