MC5
Live
at Beat Forum by Anders Röder
Around
1000 people attended the concert held by Beat Forum in Hoeje Gladsaxe
salen also known as The Kennedy Gym. The doors opened at 7.30 pm. Admission
was Danish Kroner 7,- (US$ 0.85). The announced support band "Day of Phoenix"
had dissolved and therefore been replaced by the Danish psychedelic band
"Alrune Rod". As evidenced in the translated reviews below the majority
of the audience was quite young and presumably much better acquainted
with the support band than with the MC5. But as can be witnessed from
the recording of the concert and the reviews MC5 put on a great show even
without Tyner, getting the crowd on their feet.
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These
arrangements were covered financially against loss by the commune who
would also grant the permission for a place to be used. Regular attendant to the Beat Forum concerts in the period 1970-72 Lars Persson recalls how he and his hippie friends as teenagers would be riding their mopeds the 30 miles from their local town Hilleroed in North Zeeland to attend the Beat Forum concerts. Sometimes they would end up too drunk and stoned after a concert to make it back home having to spend the night freezing on a staircase. He remembers the concert room as being a candle lit room, furnished with practical institutional type of chairs and tables in the back of the room where those intent on romance or preparing pipes of hash would locate. Between the tables and the spotlighted stage the audience would be attending the concert sitting on the floor.
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While
"big" acts like Alice Cooper and Tina Turner, who played on the 20th and
24th of November respectively, was booked by some of the big established
"capitalist" bookers to play in the large concert hall "KB Hallen" just
outside Copenhagen it seems only natural that it was the counter cultural
milieu of Beat Forum with their large attendance and hall that would be
in charge of booking MC5 to the Copenhagen area. As Beat Forum was considered a local event according to the agreement with the Hoeje Gladsaxe commune the Beat Forum concerts were not allowed advertising outside of the communal border. To bypass these regulations posters advertising Beat Forum concerts would be made as ads for display in local busses this way bringing the announcement of the concert outside the communal border of Hoeje Gladsaxe and into the main Copenhagen area. The MC5 concert on the 23rd of November 1972 did however get mentioning in the concert calendar of the Danish leftist newspaper "Information" on the 20th of November and an article of advance publicity appeared in the politically moderate Danish newspaper "Politiken" on the 23rd of November. The hall itself still exists and while not presently in use for public concerts it is still used as party hall by the schools in the commune of Hoeje Gladsaxe. Anders Röder, Copenhagen 2001/10/20
Notes on recordings of the concert and picture material:
At
least two recordings of the concert were made. One version exists as issued
on the bootleg LP "Kick Copenhagen" (MOW 11). The other recording exists
as a tape copy only. The version issued on the bootleg is the version
which has most clearness in sound. The two versions differs from each
other as the bootleg version has "Louie, Louie" as the last song after
"Kick Out the Jams" which the tape version does not have. The tape version
has however "Tonight" prior to "Kick Out the Jams". Otherwise the order
of the songs is identical on both recordings. < Back to the Library Concert Dates Concert Posters Next page >
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