1963. MC5’s story starts in Detroit, but their impact shot far beyond it, and MC50: 10 More Live captures that blast of live electricity from the moment the first note hits. Recorded live during the 2018 MC50 anniversary tour, the album tears through ten essential MC5 classics pulled from Kick Out the Jams, Back in the USA, and High Time, with stops in Seattle, Cincinnati, and Hamburg capturing the band in full revivalist roar. “The American Ruse,” “Call Me Animal,” “Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa-Fa-Fa),” “Looking at You,” “Starship,” and their longtime Ray Charles staple “I Believe to My Soul” all hit like they’re still shaking the walls of Detroit’s Grande Ballroom.

Long before any band was calling themselves punk, MC5 were shaping the language of it. In the late '60s, the Motor City’s most combustible export fused garage rock, blues, soul, free jazz, and political fire into a sound that felt radical and dangerous. Their anthems didn’t just rattle amplifiers. They rattled America. “American Ruse” and “Ramblin’ Rose” delivered the kind of truth-to-power that inspired everyone from the Ramones and Rage Against the Machine to the White Stripes and Slash.

That legacy roared back to life in 2018 when Wayne Kramer took MC5’s fifty-year history on the road for the MC50 tour. Joined by Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, Brendan Canty of Fugazi, Billy Gould of Faith No More, and Marcus Durant of Zen Guerrilla, Kramer assembled a lineup built to honor the spirit of the originals while pushing the songs harder and louder than ever. More than revisiting the material, they reignited it.

Arriving on the heels of Heavy Lifting, the acclaimed 2024 studio album produced by Bob Ezrin and released shortly before MC5’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, MC50: 10 More Live continues the band’s story with a live recording that feels both historical and fully alive in the present. It’s a celebration of one of the most influential bands to ever shake the system and a reminder that their uncompromising spark still burns hot.