Valuable as a historical document it may be but you have to question the release of a film that was presumably for personal use only. Shot from the balcony, probably on a video camera by the looks of the faintly fudged picture quality, the only view you have of the show is from the side, which can be a tad irritating.

However, casting my grumbling cap onto the couch, it is also notable, possibly more-so than it featuring Arthur Kane’s last dance with Johnny and Jerry, that it captures Thunders on dizzyingly exquisite form, seemingly sticking to a New Year’s resolution to straighten up and stretch out. Those four days at least seem to have done him good, as clad in pirate garb he poses, pouts and puckers up with that old Les Paul Junior, pounding out ‘Pipeline’ and tearing through ‘I Can Tell’, which features a little segment of Thunders in prime-time punk-blues picker role, rather than that of addled pavement junkie which certain people have seen fit to release of late.

Hell, he even dances, of sorts, on ‘In The Midnight Hour’. Well, he does a strange little jig that might be some secret Sicilian version of Morris dancing. Whatever, he looks funky, fine and in unusually full-throated voice too, shorn of the usual smack-induced indifference, often going into his approximation of being a 25-stone blues belter in a Louisiana dive bar Big Bopper style. It would appear he’d been keeping an eye on Stevie Ray Vaughan too, the hat he wears towards the end decked out like one of SRV’s bandito hats.

The best moment by far though, despite strong competition from a raging ‘Born To Lose’, is during the acoustic section where he starts to comb his hair then starts playing another song, forgetting all about the comb.

If you get by on the voyeuristic aspect of watching Thunders fucked up, fumbling and falling over then you won’t like this, but that’s all the more reason to get it, as it’s a testament to what all the smart boys always knew - that the guy had a torrent of talent and an innate knack for Rock’n’Roll. Unfortunately, due to that knack being so innate, much of the evidence of it is in documents like this, as scrappy as his lifestyle but having a curious charm nonetheless.

_______________________________________________________