Wayne Kramer brought the MC50 tour to Paradise Rock Club – 9/13

MC5 founding guitarist Wayne Kramer celebrated the 50th anniversary of the classic Kick Out the Jams with his MC50 supergroup at the Paradise on a recent Thursday. 

Kramer, core member of the trailblazing proto-punk unit MC5 for its original run and various reformations, is a legend any way you spin it. And at age 70, he could be forgiven for ceding the heavy lifting of a milestone anniversary tour to a cast of tourmates. But that’s not Wayne Kramer. At the Paradise, the spirit of MC5’s righteous fury was very much alive in every histrionic, windmilling strum of Kramer’s stars-and-stripes-splattered Stratocaster, his kinetic stage presence carrying the set’s momentum well past polite reverence. A nostalgic stroll this was not.

Of course, the star power behind him didn’t hurt. Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, Faith No More bassist Billy Gould and Zen Guerilla vocalist Marcus Durant (who’d make a convincing stand-in for original MC5 vocalist Rob Tyner in some theoretical film) joined Kramer, and sounded as tight and hard-hitting as one would hope for a lineup with such pedigree. Following a surprise introduction from J. Geils Band’s Peter Wolf (who never re-emerged for a guest spot, sadly), the five-piece ripped through the entirety of Kick Out the Jams and a handful of cuts from elsewhere in the band’s brief discography.

And much as Kramer’s passion for the songs clearly hasn’t dimmed over the past five decades, nor have his ideals. MC5 were always a political band, after all, and the evening’s one bit of extended stage banter took shots at Trump and Paul Manafort before admonishing everyone in attendance to vote. It was a kicker that gave the whole evening a sense of thrilling and somewhat alarming resonance.

Check out photos from the show below, including openers The Detroit Cobras.