Set List, MC5 at Lincoln Park, Chicago, August 25, 1968

1. Kick Out the Jams (MC5)
2. Borderline (MC5)
3. I Put a Spell on You (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins)
4. I Believe to My Soul (Ray Charles)
5. Tutti Frutti (Little Richard)
6. Black to Comm (MC5)

MC5 was the only band brave enough to perform at the Yippi “Festival of Life” on the eve of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The cops looked on, the Department of the Army Special Photographic Office filmed their performance, and Norman Mailer described it as a hippie concert by a noisy “folk-rock” band imitating Black performance styles. MC5 opened with “Kick Out the Jams, Motherfucker” but the entire set list has been a mystery. Historian Patrick Burke, in a detailed analysis of the event, reports: “Extant firsthand accounts … fail to reveal what songs the MC5 played in Chicago.”

Luckily, WFMU DJs Bob Rudnick and Dennis Frawley, collectively known as “Kokaine Karma,” were in the audience. In their column in East Village Other they described the songs MC5 played and the audience reaction, all from an insider’s perspective. This may not be the entire set—guitarist Wayne Kramer recalled playing “Starship”—but it gives an idea of a mix of their own songs and covers of Black R&B and rock ‘n’ roll. On the other hand, this may be the full set list—drummer Dennis Thompson remembered playing “about five or six songs.” Notably, the column doesn’t mention any free jazz compositions MC5 usually included in their concerts.

Source: Bob Rudnick and Dennis Frawley, “Kokaine Karma,” East Village Other, September 13, 1968, p. 11.