Joan Jett & the Blackhearts - Fireman's Memorial Park, Hempstead, NY, 8-15-1981

I recently saw a TV show about the Runaways, a pioneering 1970s all-female band. That got to interested in taking another look at Joan Jett's solo career, since she had been a key member of the Runaways. That led me to finding this bootleg. It has excellent sound quality from a live radio broadcast.

At the time of this concert, Jett was just starting to turn into a star. After the Runaways broke up in 1978, she had a very hard time getting her solo career started. Record companies at that time weren't interested in female rock and rollers. There had only been a few prominent examples prior to that (Fanny from the early 1970s comes to mind), but it wasn't seen as commercially viable. For her 1980 debut album, "Bad Reputation," over 20 record companies rejected it. She ultimately released it independently. Those sales were so strong that a record company finally picked it up and paid for her to record a second album.

This concert took place while she and her band was recording that second album, "I Love Rock n' Roll." She later said of this time period (June through September 1981): "During the weekdays we'd be in the studio, and during the weekends we'd travel around the New York area, the Northeast, doing gigs. So we were doing both without really stopping. Which was good, I thought, it really kept us together, it kept us sharp." When that album came out in November, it slowly grew and grew into a big hit, thanks mostly to the song "I Love Rock 'n Roll." Not only did that song reach Number One on the U.S. singles chart, it stayed there for seven weeks and became one of the biggest hits of the decade. 

In this concert, I imagine most of the audience didn't know that song, or other songs she would release on that album. ("I Love Rock 'n Roll" wouldn't be released as a single until January 1982.) Furthermore, some cover songs she performed here wouldn't end up being released on any of her studio albums in that time period, such as "Summertime Blues," "Star Star," and "Rebel Rebel." She also did three songs from when she was in the Runaways: "Wait for Me," "You're Too Possessive," and "I Love Playin' with Fire."

Here's her Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Jett 

The bootleg I found of this concert had one problem: the lead vocals were rather low in the mix. So I fixed that using the MVSEP audio editing program. 

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
02 Bad Reputation (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
03 Be Straight (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
04 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
05 You Don't Know What You've Got (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
06 Bits and Pieces (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
07 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
08 Wait for Me (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
09 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
10 Summertime Blues (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
11 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
12 Victim of Circumstance (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
13 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
14 I Love Rock 'n Roll (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
15 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
16 Nag (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
17 Crimson and Clover (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
18 You're Too Possessive (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
19 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
20 Love Is Pain (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
21 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
22 Black Leather (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
23 Do You Wanna Touch Me [Oh Yeah] (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
24 Star Star (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
25 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
26 Shout (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
27 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
28 I Love Playin' with Fire (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
29 Wooly Bully (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
30 talk (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
31 talk by emcee (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
32 Rebel Rebel (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
33 talk by emcee (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zLBbi46s

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/9qgZIbsmw32tpV4/file

The cover image shows Jett in concert in 1981, details unknown. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it.