What do you think we’d say? Sonic’s Rendezvous Band was truly The One That Got Away. It’s a crime they weren’t signed, recorded and backed to the hilt by a major label and elevated to a household name, but rock and roll is seldom fair. That’s why you need to hear everything you can of this great lost band.
Never heard outside a small circle of alumni and fans, this short but sweet five-song set comes from the January 14,1978 show, on the undercard to the Ramones and the Runaways at the Masonic Temple in Detroit. Maybe.
The opening act was un-billed and surviving band members (that would be Gary and Scott) can’t agree that they played it. All but one song (“City Slang”) has remained in the vaults and the label thought it had issued the gig as part of its splendid box set. But that disc wasn’t even from one entire show, if that makes sense.
No matter. What we have is a fiery, no-filler bracket by one of the best bands of all time, in good to great sound quality. It’s evidently typical of what SRB was doing at the time - Sonic Smith is still sharing centre mic with Scott Morgan in an even split and the hard rock side of the band was, by now, solidly in focus.
The set list is "dangerous", "Song L", "Sweet Nothin'", "Electrophonic Tonic" and "Slang". It’s tough to find fault and to do so would be nauseatingly nit-picking. It rocks hard and you need it.
Packaged in a cardboard wallet so you can slip into into the box set, it’s bundled with other SRB CDs for maximum value at the Easy Action website.
