For those not in the know, in the summer of 1979, The Knack broke big with their debut single, My Sharona. Written by band members Doug Fieger (lead vocals, rhythm guitar) and Berton Averre (lead guitar, vocals), this power pop nugget was Capitol Records’ fastest-selling gold single since the Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand.

The song appeared at peak position on Billboard’s Top Pop Singles year-end chart for 1979, while its accompanying album, Get the Knack, sold over one million copies in less than two months and spent five weeks at #1 on the Billboard album chart.

Get the Knack was followed by five additional studio albums before the Knack officially ended with Fieger’s death in 2010.

Recorded in Hollywood on September 25, 2001 — just two weeks after the events of 9/11 — Live at the House of Blues out May 6th, 2022 via Liberation Hall) captures a 70-minute set bristling with urgency and undeniable hooks.

1) Pop Is Dead
2) Baby Talks Dirty
3) Oh Tara
4) Can I Borrow A Kiss
5) Another Lousy Day In Paradise
6) Good Girls Don’t
7) One Day At A Time
8) It’s Not Me
9) Harder On You
10) Siamese Twins (The Monkey And Me)
11) Seven Days Of Heaven
12) Tequila-Break On Thru (To The Other Side)
13) That’s What The Little Girls Do
14) Frustrated
15) (She’s So) Selfish
16) My Sharona
17) Let Me Out
18) Last Train To Clarksville

This quite vibrantly pulsating, wholly atmospheric, and poundingly rock-tastic live album - which includes a set featuring cuts from the band’s recording career with eight tracks from their ground breaking best-selling debut album, Get the Knack - opens on the free wheeling AOR of Pop Is Dead before quickly sliding into their more renowned guitar sound with Baby Talks Dirty, the jaunty pop of Oh Tara, the swirling guitars of Can I Borrow A Kiss and then we get both the foot tapper Another Lousy Day In Paradise and the always fun and highly rambunctious Good Girls Don’t.

Next up is a pair of their unrated cuts in the form of the slow rocker One Day At A Time and the poptastic It’s Not Me and they are in turn followed by the upbeat and perky Harder On You, one of my own personal long-time favorites, the gentle, yet buoyantly frenetic pop of Siamese Twins (The Monkey And Me), and then comes rock of Seven Days Of Heaven, before they take a breath and then power on through a blistering medley of Tequila that bleeds seamlessly into the Doors’ Break On Through (To The Other Side).

After taking the applause as dutifully as they ever could, they keep the pace up nicely with yet another stand out highlight of their career, the smooth pop rock of That’s What The Little Girls Do, they then lead us into the home stretch of the show with a pulsating Frustrated, the revolving guitar work of the stuttered (She’s So) Selfish, before rounding out the show with a frenzied My Sharona, a drum-led Let Me Out, coming to a close with a cover of the Monkees’ Last Train To Clarksville.

Live at the House of Blues features the Knack’s founding trio of Fieger, Averre, and bassist Prescott Niles, alongside drummer Dave Henderson. Henderson also appears on the band’s Normal as the Next Guy and Live from the Rock N Roll Fun House albums.

In his liner notes, Smile Records President Tony Valenziano writes, I was happy and thankful we got to do that night just two weeks after we had been attacked. The event shaped all of us in different ways but all these years later I can still recall, especially when I listen to the concert, how that night buzzed — not just for the show that was being put on, but more because we were all in accord about being strong and united… we were all in this together.

The CD and digital will be released May 6th, 2022 whilst a Baby Blue double-vinyl LP will be released April 23rd, 2022.