The late and legendary Junior Wells at Buddy Guy's Legends (blues club), Chicago. I went to this show on short notice and I only had Tri-X film on hand. This was shot at something like E.I. 12,800 or something nearly as desperate. You can barely see an image in the negative.
By pre-bleach, I meant that I gave the film a pre-soak in a very dilute mixture of pottassium ferricyanide and potassium bromide. That reduces the highlight densities that can burn out in images like this. If, for example, an interior scene is very dark but there is a bright window in it or something very bright like a light, it will help to control that without affecting shadow density. In a case like this, contracted development simply couldn't handle that. I first learned of the technique in articles published by David Kachel. He calls it SLIMT for Selective Latent Image Manipulation Technique and you can find information on it at his website. I never did extensive testing with it. I just go by his basic starting recommendations and it works quite well. Its easy and it takes no more time. It simply replaces my normal water presoak.