PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SHOW HAS BEEN POSTPONED - A RESCHEDULED DATE WILL FOLLOW SOON AND ORIGINAL TICKETS WILL BE VALID.

Motor City Five or MC5 for short are a hard rock band that formed in 1964 in Lincoln Park, Michigan. The original line up of the band consisted of Wayne Kramer (guitar) Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith (guitar) Michael Davis (bass) Robe Tyner (vocals) and Dennis Thompson (drums). They are often cited as one of the most important and influential American hard rock groups of their era.

The history of MC5 runs back to when guitarists Kramer and Smith were teenage friends and fans of R&B, blues, Chuck Berry, Dick Dale, The Ventures and what would later be known as garage rock. Both Kramer and Smith formed bands, The Bounty Hunters and Vibratones respectively. As members of both groups gradually began to leave either for college or other jobs, the remaining members of the two bands united under Kramer’s leadership and the Headhunters name. The band became extremely popular in Detroit and was successful enough to make a living from the group.

Rob Derminer swiftly joined the band as their lead vocalist. He had a commanding stage presence and a booming baritone voice. Derminer renamed himself Rob Tyner (after Coltrane’s pianist McCoy Tyner) and he also came up with the band’s new name MC5.

Under the guidance of John Sinclair (who refused to be categorised as a traditional manager and dubbed his enterprise ‘Trans-Love Energies’) the band were soon involved in left wing politics; Sinclair was active with The White Panther Party and Fifth Estate.

In the MC5’s earlier career the band had a highly politically provocative stage show. They would often appear on stage intoxicated with LSD and marijuana toting unloaded rifles and at the climax of each performance an unseen ‘sniper would shoot down Tyner.

With their massive following in Detroit, MC5 were selling out shows regularly at large capacities. Contemporary rock writer Robert Bixby stated that the sound of MC5 was like ‘a catastrophic force of nature the band was barely able to control’.

After the release of their debut single in 1968 the band toured the US East coast, garnering a much stronger fan base. The group often overshadowed the more famous acts they opened up for.

MC5 soon became one of the leading bands in the hard rock scene and were lauded with interest from a plethora of record labels. Danny Fields of Elektra Records came to Detroit in 1968 to see the band in action and was so blown away by their performance that he signed them immediately.

MC5 then went on to earn national attention with the release of their debut full-length album ‘Kick Out The Jams’, which was recorded live in order to capture the bands energy. The album is generally regarded as one of the best live rock and roll records to date.

When Detroit based record store Hudson’s refused to stock the bands debut due to their obscene language and behaviour, the MC5 responded with a full page advertisement in a local magazine saying ‘F**k Hudson’s!’ and prominently including Elektras label in the ad. As a result of this Hudson’s pulled all Elektra records from their stores resulting in a loss for themselves. Jack Holzman, the head of Elektra dropped the band from their contract and MC5 then signed to Atlantic Records, which ironically is now part of the same company as Elektra.

The band’s sophomore ‘Back In The USA’ was produced by future Bruce Springsteen mentor John Landau and sounded somewhat radically different from their debut.

The bands third release ‘High Time’ was quite poorly promoted and failed to sell well which is a great shame as it received rave reviews and proved to be very influential on other hard rock bands such as Kiss and Aerosmith.

Both ‘Back In The USA’ and ‘High Time’ lost money for Atlantic Records, who as a result dropped the band. In 1972 Davis was forced to leave the band due to his heroin addiction and shortly after this MC5 disbanded.

After the band’s dissolution Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith formed Sonic’s Rendezvous Band and married singer Patti Smith. Kramer was incarcerated for drug offences but after his parole in the early nineties he returned to concentrate on music and has since released several well-received albums. Tyner went on to become a successful producer, promoter and manager in Detroit.

2003 saw the reunion of MC5 as the three surviving members, Kramer, Davis and Thompson performed as MC5 at the 100 club in London. Nicke Andersson of The Hellacopters took Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith’s place as he sadly passed away in 1994. David Vanian of The Damned, Lemmy of Motorhead, Ian Astbury of The Cult and singer Kate O’Brien, also accompanied the MC5.

Mc5 will be performing live at Manchester Academy 3 on Tuesday 15th July.