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The Replacements – Not Ready for Prime Time: Live at the Cabaret Metro, 1986 – Double Vinyl Record

The Replacements open this Chicago show with “Gary’s Got a Boner” and get to “Bastards of Young” by the third number. The January 11, 1986 recording catches the original lineup with Tim still new enough to share the set naturally with songs they had been playing for years. What comes next could be a sharp new chorus or a song from the scrappy early records.

“Can’t Hardly Wait” is already in the set, well before the studio recording that appeared on Pleased to Meet Me. It sits next to “Answering Machine” and “Little Mascara” here, a run that shows how easily the band could move from a song built around a single lonely voice to a full-room singalong.

The second side makes room for “Mr. Whirly” and “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out” alongside “Kiss Me on the Bus” and “I Will Dare.” That sequence gives a good idea of the range a Replacements audience could get in the space of a few minutes. There’s a warm, direct tune around every corner, usually with a joke waiting right behind it.

The covers are as telling as the originals. “Hitchin’ a Ride” and “Trouble Boys” come before “Unsatisfied,” with Kiss’s “Black Diamond” and the Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” on the other side of it. Later, “Borstal Breakout,” “Nowhere Man” and “The Crusher” sound perfectly at home in the same encore-length stretch.

Rhino’s 2024 Record Store Day double LP gives the twenty-eight-song Metro show its own vinyl release after its appearance in Tim: Let It Bleed Edition. It preserves the long closing run through “Customer,” “Kids Don’t Follow” and “I’m in Trouble” to the last song, “Go.”

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic