Description

Limited triple album in a nice tri-folded digipack cover

Live The Agora, Cleveland July 19th 1976
In April of 2015 Joan Jett were introduced to the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame, a ceremony that took place at Clevelands Public Hall. It was quite fitting as the female rock icons legendary career has featured numerous performances in Northeast Ohio right from the very beginning. Jett’s first show in Cleveland came as a member of The Runaways. The all-female band played The Agora on July 19, 1976. It was one of The Runaway’s earliest performances and one of its most talked about among fans as it was a concert that was recorded. The Runaways kicked things off with a performance of California Paradise. You can hear a young Jett (she wasn’t even 18 yet) introducing the band’s song Secrets. During the Lou Reed cover Rock n Roll you can even here the band mention that the show is being recorded upstairs.

Live The Agora, Cleveland March 10th 1977
The Runaways would return to The Agora a few times over the next year, including this show recorded on the 10th of March 1977. The band had just released its breakthrough album, Queens Of Noise, in January and Cherry Bomb was getting decent radio airplay. Cherry Bomb was playing second on the set a year earlier, after becoming their hit it was moved to the encores a year later. The opening act for the March 10th show was an up and coming named called Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Live The Palladium, New York City January 7th 1978
Exactly one week after this show was performed at New Yorks Palladium theater by America’s all-female punk band, the Runaways, the Sex Pistols performed their final show before disbanding at Winterland in San Francisco. It was somehow appropriate that both the key male and female punk bands were breaking down at the same time, because in just over a year, the Runaways would be history, too. This performance, although pretty rockin, shows a band that was in the early stages of falling apart. The initial major-label line up which included singer Cherrie Curie, bassist Jackie Fox, drummer Sandy West, and guitarists Joan Jett and Lita Ford, had now been stripped down to a quartet of West, Jett (now on lead vocals and rhythm guitar), Ford, and new bassist Vicki Blue. The group had also recently broken ties with longtime manager/producer Kim Fowley (a bizarre music industry veteran and hype-master, who helped launch the LA punk scene with friend/DJ Rodney Bingenheimer), as well as its record label, Mercury. Still, the Runaways had a sizable following when this show was recorded. They had just released both a live album (The Runaways Live In Japan) and a new studio album (Waiting For The Night) in 1977, and would soon release And Now… The Runaways when things within the band fell apart and Jett went on to her own multi-platinum solo career, with classics such as I Love Rock N Roll. Among the tracks featured here are Wasted, Blackmail, Youre Too Possessive, You Drive Me Wild, I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are, I Love Playin With Fire and C’mon. The ladies also offer an angst-ridden version of the Troggs classic, Wild Thing, which pales in comparison to their original material. The Runaways would never again have the momentum they exhibited in 1975 and 1976 with Curie at the load vocal helm, and with songs such as Cherrie Bomb. Curie would leave the Runaways to launch a film career (she appeared in films with Jodie Foster and Demi Moore) and a less than successful solo music career (which included her identical twin sister, Marie). Jett became a pop superstar, but Lita Ford would have a limited career that positioned her as heavy metals only notable female lead guitarist. Original bassist, Mickey Steele, would go on to form the platinum band, the Bangles, and her replacement Jackie Fox would enroll at Harvard and become an attorney. The bassist on this recording, Vickie Blue, would continue to record and tour in a number of bands, and eventually become an award winning TV producer and director. Her documentary of the Runaways history, Edgeplay, was a featured special on Showtime. Sadly, drummer Sandy West, who actually initiated the formation of the Runaways with Joan Jett, died of cancer in October, 2006.

Track listing:
Disc 1: Live The Agora, Cleveland July 19th 1976
1. California Paradise
2. Cherry Bomb
3. Take It or Leave It
4. Secrets
5. You Drive Me Wild
6. Cmon
7. Blackmail
8. Wild Thing
9. Dont Abuse Me
10. Rock n Roll-Lou Reed cover
11. Is It Day Or Night
12. Johnny Guitar
13. Dead End Justice

Track listing:
Disc 2: Live The Agora, Cleveland March 10th 1977
1. Queens Of Noise
2. California Paradise
3. Is It Day Or Night
4. Take It or Leave It
5. Dont Abuse Me
6. All Right You Guys
7. Blackmail
8. Wild Thing
9. Rock n Roll-Lou Reed cover
10. You Drive Me Wild
11. Neon Angels On The Road To Ruin
12. Heartbeat
13. Johnny Guitar
14. I Love Playing With Fire
15. Cherry Bomb

Disc 3: Live The Palladium, New York City January 7th 1978
1. Introduction
2. Wasted
3. Blackmail
4. Queens Of Noise
5. Youre Too Possessive
6. Wild Thing
7. You Drive Me Wild
8. Wait For Me
9. I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are
10. I Love Playin With Fire
11. School Days
12. American Nights
13. Cmon