Max’s Kansas City is famous for hosting acts like the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, Television, Suicide, and the whole downtown punk scene of the mid-1970s, but it also was the venue for an early gig by Bad Brains, the legends of DC hardcore. The original location of Max’s Kansas City on Park Avenue South and 18th St. closed in 1981. It’s said that Bad Brains and the Beastie Boys played the final gig at that location, but the evidence is mixed: this exhaustive page on the venue states that that lineup was scheduled but cancelled.

Bad Brains were there two years earlier, however, and fortunately for us the gig was exhaustively documented. The date for the show is commonly listed as February 1979, but that’s not correct. The date of the show was Sunday, December 16, 1979, a fact that is corroborated by two pieces of information, the poster above and the comment by H.R. during the show that it was drummer Earl Hudson’s birthday that day. (Also H.R.‘s younger brother, Hudson turned 22 in 1979.)

Bad Brains opened for The Mad, an interesting band fronted by a native of Osaka, Japan, who used the name Screaming Mad George. The Mad only put out a couple of singles at the time, but there retrospective CDs were released later on. Screaming Mad George did the poster for the gig. He also transitioned out of punk music into special effects for Hollywood movies, working on such 1980s classics as Big Trouble in Little China, Predator, and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.
 

Setlist:
Don’t Need It
Pay To Cum
Supertouch
The Regulator
I Luv Jah
Don’t Bother Me
Reggae Jam
Banned In D.C.
Big Takeover
Stay Close To Me
Attitude
Jah Calling
Just Another Damn Song
Jam It
Ratbone (Rebel In The City)
I

Here’s a short edited movie (30 mins.) using super 8 footage from the Max’s Kansas City show as well as incidental tour footage.

 
Here’s decent audio of the show:

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Bad Brains live at CBGB 1982: 58 minutes of hardcore bliss