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First off, thank you Freealonzo for: 1) Recording this; 2) Not losing it; and 3) Uploading it here.



My wife and I have been debating whether we were there this night or another one. We went twice during !big-label first album release party week!, for sure on the 5th night (suits and very professional), can't remember if we also hit the 1st or 3rd night. Oh well, I don't think they changed the room much that week. Regardless ....



If this is your introduction to the Replacements, please don't, at least not yet. The audio quality is ... well let me describe the Entry best as I can remember.



Imagine what a live rock n'roll album recorded in something like a storage room would sound like. Actually, there is no need to imagine and its not something "like." The Entry was formerly the storage area for passenger luggage and whatnots at the old Greyhound Bus Depot in Mpls. Vaguely triangular, with just a hint of trapezoid mixed in. Concrete block walls. Concrete floor. Probably a concrete roof, no more than 12 and probably 10 feet high and with possibly with just a trace of asbestos fireproofing left on. Black paint liberally used as sound absorbent. I'm thinking 40 feet from the drummer's ass to the far wall and I'm also thinking that's a little generous. Stagger enough (not difficult to do) and you might be able to go 60 feet across the place along it's longest axis. God possibly knows the legal capacity, but 150 would be past SRO and into P(ushing)RO. No bathroom either.*



And where the recording equipment managed to survive the night, I have no freakin' idea.



So, with that in mind: The audio quality is pretty damn good.



Who would enjoy this recording? Well, others like myself, smiling at reliving a misspent youth. More generally, people too young or too far from Mpls. to have caught the Replacements live. Not just live, but on one of their "drunk and sloppy" nights. The Replacements have become legendary (infamous?) for being too drunk and or stoned out of their minds to walk, much less play a decent set.



That's pure Internet-spread B.S. I saw them 30, 40 times, the first time as an opening band at a Cabooze Wednesday night drink fest, being particularly impressed by a little kid, playing a bass as long as he was while worming around on his back on the spacious (irony there) Cabooze stage (Who the hell is this? The Replacements. Ha,ha. What's there name? The Replacements. Huh. Guess I'll keep an eye for them.) until we left for Seattle in November of 1985. I saw some short sets. I saw them fu*&ed up, saw them pissed off at each other, at the bar owner, at some fan, or at the world in general. But I never saw a bad night. Ever.



This, my friends, is about as terrible and awful and fu(88ed up as you would have ever heard the Replacements. Playing their own songs, playing requests, ignoring requests and playing what the f&&! they wanted. And it ain't bad, it ain't bad at all.



Jefferson's Cock -- OK, that one was pretty awful. But it wasn't the Replacements.



Chris Hebert



*Yes, no bathroom in the Entry. To use a facility, one had to go to the attached 1st Avenue. Much larger venue, used to host big-name, touring acts (P.I.L., the Psych Furs, etc.) and some local guy ... began with a P. ... Just screwing with ya, I'm as down with the Purple One as the Replacements or Husker, but most nights the Ave was the premiere disco in the Twin Cities. Still get a giggle out of the gate policy -- $4.00 to $ 7.00 to see a couple thrashing locals and a touring legend, Big Black, for example, _and_ entry into the coke and groove party down the hall while the better, or at least more expensively dressed, despite a $10.00 cover for the Ave, couldn't get into the Entry. Hehehhe..



Thanks again, Freezlonzo.



And yeah, I gave it a five. You got a better recording from the Replacements "Tim" album release club series? Doubt it. Got a better band than the Replacements? Yeah, sure there are, but not too damn many and on their best nights ...













- May 27, 2011Replacements Live! At the Entry