It soon became apparent to me as a young music lover that with acts coming together and splitting in the rush of explosive creativity in the 60s and 70s, that it would be worthwhile to make a point of catching any tours by US, Canadian and European artists. They each had their own thing going. Among the most exciting was Detroit’s notorious MC5, already renowned as troublemakers by the time the band first played in London at The Marquee Club in Soho’s Wardour Street ,31st July 1970. When we arrived, they were in the bar and Kramer in particular was trying to wind us English punters up, some verbal jousting ensued. But singer Rob Tyner a real Renaissance man was happy to chat to us about shows we had taken in by Otis Rush, Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker. The actual performance by the MC5 was fun, it was explosive, it was daring and man, those two guitars weaving and spluttering. We were instant converts.

Now Wayne Kramer, leader of Detroit’s proto-punk/hard rock band MC5, has announced 15 concerts and 4 summer festivals for Kick Out the Jams: The 50th Anniversary Tour. MC50 includes guitarist Kim Thayil, drummers Brendan Canty and Matt Cameron, bassists Dug Pinnick and super producer Don Was, and 6’7” powerhouse frontman Marcus Durant. With this team, Kramer will be celebrating the landmark anniversary of the MC5’s incendiary debut album Kick Out the Jams as well as the release of his memoir The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities, to be published August 16th by Faber & Faber in UK.

MC50 opens the tour with four shows in the UK in four consecutive nights. “I will come to England, where some of the greatest live shows of my life were performed in the MC5, to play Kick Out the Jams again with these great musicians. Doing so is the best possible tribute to the legacy. To borrow from Claude Lanzmann, there will be ‘No Retirement and No Retreat.’ Let’s rock.” In addition to performing the album in its entirety, Kramer and friends will follow it with an encore of other MC5 material that will change each night. MC50 will have just completed a series of Detroit concerts back where it all began, and where Kick Out the Jams — recently cited by Pitchfork as one of the 50 best albums of the 1960s — was recorded live in front of a raucous hometown audience at the Grande Ballroom on Halloween night in 1968. As Kramer explains, “This band will rip your head off. It’s real, raw, sweaty, total energy rock and roll, like a bunch of 40-to-70-year-old ‘punks on a meth power trip.’ I’m not interested in a note-for-note reproduction of a record you’ve known your entire life. The world has lived with these songs burned in amber for half a century, so we’re going for an energy blast to end all. Let’s bring the monster back to life with supremely talented musicians who will interpret it in their own unique ways.” – Pete Sargeant

The MC50 ‘Kick Out The Jams’ UK leg of the tour will start on 9th November 2018 at O2 Academy Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom and will then stop at Glasgow and Manchester before concluding in London.

The MC5’s sonic thunder continues to reverberate a half-century after they first stormed the rock world, and Kick Out the Jams: The 50th Anniversary Tour is a rare chance to experience the album performed live again. “People come up to me all the time and say, ‘Brother Wayne, Kick Out the Jams changed my life,’” Kramer once said. “I usually tell them: ‘I’m sorry, I can’t change it back.’”

Pete Sargeant