Cherry Red Records’ generous YouTube channel holds a lot of treasures, but the offerings that have been hogging my attention lately are the handful of Violent Femmes concert clips. Culled from two shows at the legendary Hacienda in Manchester UK, they capture the band at the early height of their powers, when they were touring the material from their first two albums, the immortal self-titled debut full of wrist-slitter singalongs, and the astonishing southern gothic masterpiece Hallowed Ground, which remains the best thing they’ve ever released.
 

 
Despite the austere shooting and thin sound, these clips still compellingly capture a lot of the band’s early angst, though as you’ll see, the ‘83 stuff (the first three seen here) is better than the ‘84. “Add it Up,” especially, absolutely kills. The two entire shows were released on the 2007 DVD Violent Femmes—Live at the Hacienda, but the Cherry Red web site no longer lists it.