Earlier this year I posted what I described as the “second best” Cramps footage out there and owing to the reaction, I think that many of our readers agreed with that assessment. The #1 best Cramps footage is them playing at the mental hospital, of course, but that Mudd Club gig that I called to your attention is fucking primo Cramps.

And so is this, what I reckon is the third best Cramps show to be found on the Internet and so far it’s had fewer than 250 views!

This absolutely stunning Cramps show was taped at the fabled City Gardens in Trenton, NJ on November 3, 1982—a smoking hot Kid Congo Powers era set that’s pretty high quality (sound and vision) for something of this vintage that was probably taped on VHS.

Dig the shamanic trickster god (and “most exalted potentate of love”) Lux Interior in the prime of his performing career backed by Poison Ivy, Kid Congo Powers and stickman Nick Knox. The Cramps were always a truly great live band, but at this point (around the time of their classic live Smell of Female EP recorded at the Peppermint Lounge) it still wasn’t completely clear how much of their act was “showbiz” and how much of it was them just being completely insane evil people on bad acid.

No band will ever have an “edge” quite like The Cramps ever again. It’s just a fact. Sorry young people!