Back to The Clash - Who has seen them and when?

[coffeepotman]

I missed BAD in 2011 at Roseland but did catch them at Brooklyn Bowl, thought it was ok but wasn't knocked out by it.

Ha, I was at Brooklyn Bowl too - drove there alone after Boston/House of Blues the night before, and freaking loved it. Drove to Philly the next morning, to catch them at Electric Factory. At Brooklyn Bowl, I was leaned up against the stage right in front of Don. Possibly the best time I’ve had at a show. Loved that it was such a tiny venue. I remember I had to take a leak but didn’t want to give up my spot by the stage so I just re-absorbed it.

I'm glad you had such a great time, I liked it, it was really good but I wasn't knocked out by it....too many internal comparisons to the old days.

That makes sense. I had only seen BAD II before that, a couple decades earlier when I was about 20, so I was stoked to see the mostly-original lineup again (with Davo of course) after Roseland. The whole reunion tour was completely unexpected when it was announced, and it was great to see Mick and the gang enjoying themselves. Like I said, I went there alone and didn’t know anyone, but it was a weird feeling of being surrounded by friends at all the BAD shows I’ve seen. Also, I talked with Gerry Harrington for about 20 minutes at Brooklyn Bowl, and also met Mick, Don and Leo, so I was in heaven. Felt like I was with my people.

So, I’ve unknowingly had close encounters of the IMCT kind with Weller (Roseland) and Coffeepotman (Brooklyn Bowl) at least. Anyone else here that saw BAD at Roseland, Boston, Brooklyn or Philly in 2011?

Yep, I saw BAD reunion shows at Roseland & Brooklyn Bowl & loved them both. Those were really special for me because it was the first time seeing the original lineup although I had seen BAD II numerous times including highlights Sound Factory ‘91, Roseland on NYE with Moby ‘92, The Stone Pony ‘94 and w/ Ranking Roger at the Academy in ‘95.

Too young to have seen The Clash but I saw the Mesky’s a bunch of times, highlight was definitely St. Ann’s (one of the best shows I’ve ever seen) but Irving Plaza ‘01 shortly after 9/11 was really special… a healing moment.

Also saw a couple of C/S gigs and they were fun too.

That NYE 92 Show at Roseland has a very special place in my heart, that was some show! And that night I'll never forget

[Kory]

Absolutely and without hesitation or even thinking about it the first thing I would do with a time machine.

I like it! Got room to take a friend along?

I'm afraid the spot would have to go to another fan who was born too late to see them!

Perhaps one who shares a taste for progressive pizza toppings?

Pizza was pretty boring back then though, we'll have to bring a pack lunch.

[Sparky]

Absolutely and without hesitation or even thinking about it the first thing I would do with a time machine.

I like it! Got room to take a friend along?

I'm afraid the spot would have to go to another fan who was born too late to see them!

What? Hating on the old guys?

All kidding aside, I would love to be able to go back and see them on their home turf, the US shows I saw were amazing, but I'd be willing to bet there were plenty of even better shows early on in the UK.

[Kory]

Absolutely and without hesitation or even thinking about it the first thing I would do with a time machine.

I like it! Got room to take a friend along?

I'm afraid the spot would have to go to another fan who was born too late to see them!

What? Hating on the old guys?

All kidding aside, I would love to be able to go back and see them on their home turf, the US shows I saw were amazing, but I'd be willing to bet there were plenty of even better shows early on in the UK.

Well maybe not necessarily a younger person, but at least somebody who has never gotten to see them live!

[Kimmelweck]

Absolutely and without hesitation or even thinking about it the first thing I would do with a time machine.

I like it! Got room to take a friend along?

I'm afraid the spot would have to go to another fan who was born too late to see them!

What? Hating on the old guys?

All kidding aside, I would love to be able to go back and see them on their home turf, the US shows I saw were amazing, but I'd be willing to bet there were plenty of even better shows early on in the UK.

Well maybe not necessarily a younger person, but at least somebody who has never gotten to see them live!

If we can build a time machine, we can probably build one to hold 100 or more passengers. Also, theoretically, a time machine would be able to make multiple trips. Dream big! Just sayin’.

[Dr. Medulla]

It's funny/sad that you think you have a chance of riding with Kory. I nursed him to life as a sick calf and paid for his scoliosis brace; he'd take me.

[Sparky]

I like it! Got room to take a friend along?

I'm afraid the spot would have to go to another fan who was born too late to see them!

What? Hating on the old guys?

All kidding aside, I would love to be able to go back and see them on their home turf, the US shows I saw were amazing, but I'd be willing to bet there were plenty of even better shows early on in the UK.

Well maybe not necessarily a younger person, but at least somebody who has never gotten to see them live!

If we can build a time machine, we can probably build one to hold 100 or more passengers. Also, theoretically, a time machine would be able to make multiple trips. Dream big! Just sayin’.

I like your style! Go big or go home!

[HumphreyBear]

I saw them once - 23 Feb 1982 Melbourne - on the Far East tour.

A long set (maybe their longest ever) with 13 songs for the encore, including a couple from the forthcoming Combat Rock.
It was a hot summer night and they were amazing. I have written a long review some years ago that I sent to BlackMarketClash but it never was included. ?Too busy to do it again.

Best gig I have ever seen (and I've seen thousands). That night they moved from being one of my favourites to my favourite.

They still are.

[FarawayTowns]

I saw them once - 23 Feb 1982 Melbourne - on the Far East tour.
I have written a long review some years ago that I sent to BlackMarketClash but it never was included. ?Too busy to do it again.

Just found your review post here in the archive.

"Hi,

I have been a fan of your site for years and firstly would like to thank you for all the work done to make it the fantastic resource it is.

I have been a Clash fan since I was at school in 1979 and a friend lent me the first album. I was a fan from then on until I finally got to see them live when they came to Melbourne. From that day on I became obsessed – The Clash remain my favourite band – not necessarily the only band that matters – but the one that has always mattered the most.



It’s hard to describe just how good they were on that February night. I went along after work and met up with a handful of like-minded friends for a few beers at a pub near the venue. As we approached the venue, I remember lots of political activists handing out leaflets and advertising their cause. Festival Hall was usually a seated venue but for this show they had removed all the seats which made it a huge mosh pit (not sure if the term existed in those days). I have no doubt that this was the best show I’ve seen, and I’ve seen plenty. Listening to the tape doesn't quite convey how powerful it was. The stage was set when the band entered the stage to the Morricone intro. Joe walked out, sunglasses on, leaned in to the mic and said “London Calling to the faraway towns” before launching into London Calling. The crowd went beserk.

You can’t quite catch that on the version I have – you can just hear “towns”.

A few observations from the show that remain clear in my memory.


Ross Hannaford’s Lucky Dog (a reggae three piece) was the support. They played a short set in full house lights

· There were a selection of hardcore punks (very much the minority amongst the crowd) right up the front and we settled in just behind them, about 10 feet from the stage. They were gobbing at Joe and he wasn’t happy about it. They also kept demanding White Riot between songs. From memory (and my tape confirms) Joe actually said “but you don’t know that one shout for White Riot wipes it off the menu straight away!” That phrase has always stuck with us and we still use it occasionally – usually with bad British accent - in homage to the great man.

· The pace of the show was furious – I especially remember Koka Kola segueing into I Fought the Law testing our endurance - and it was long! By the end of the show it seemed that we could not have gone on any longer.


· They had two screens above the stage which they projected images onto during some songs which was very effective. The Skull and Crossbones during Somebody Got Murdered sticks in my mind.


· The “guest vocalist” on Junco Partner was a punter in the front row of the crowd. I doubt that it was Mick’s guitar tech. I agree with your interpretation of what Joe says but I guess he’s referring to Digby coming onto the stage for something – I don’t recall. But the singer certainly never got up on the stage – Joe just handed him the mic (still on the stand) and he sang from the floor.


· There were three encores. As you say, the first set ended with Career Opportunities. The first encore was six songs and included the Gary Foley appearance which you have covered so well. I can’t overstate how important that speech was to me and presumably others in the context of the times. The whole crowd cheered at everything Gary Foley said. He was well known to Melbourne people as an angry, Aboriginal activist. For many in the crowd I’m sure they forgot all about it when the show was over, but for many others the message that we should be concerned about the injustices faced by our indigenous people (as compared to, say, people in Nicaragua) sunk in. At least it did for me.

· The second encore began with Jimmy Jazz. The intro was a real highlight. The band members came out one by one and began playing – Mick first, then Topper and then Paul. These three were all jamming on the intro while waiting for Joe. But when Joe came to the stage, a punter on the right hand side of the stage caught his attention and he squatted down to talk to him for a while. Mick, Paul and Topper were laughing to each other as they improvised an extended intro.

The third encore was the last three songs

I applied to the National Sound and Film archives in Melbourne to try and get hold of the archival material you mention. They invited me in for a viewing/listen. Unfortunately there was nothing on the tapes of any worth. The Clash and Gary Foley stuff was a documentary that used a little of the Foley speech as background. The Interview by Geoff King was not available. A disappointing result

[Kory]

I like it! Got room to take a friend along?

I'm afraid the spot would have to go to another fan who was born too late to see them!

What? Hating on the old guys?

All kidding aside, I would love to be able to go back and see them on their home turf, the US shows I saw were amazing, but I'd be willing to bet there were plenty of even better shows early on in the UK.

Well maybe not necessarily a younger person, but at least somebody who has never gotten to see them live!

If we can build a time machine, we can probably build one to hold 100 or more passengers. Also, theoretically, a time machine would be able to make multiple trips. Dream big! Just sayin’.

I ain't makin multiple trips! You'll just have to sit on somebody's lap.

[amj241]

Absolutely and without hesitation or even thinking about it the first thing I would do with a time machine.

Agreed 100%. I wasn’t born until after they had already broken up so I wouldn't even have to consider anything else.

[JennyB]

Never got to see them, but i did see BAD and the Meskies (not together, of course).

[Chairman Ralph]

I've expounded on this before here (and Black Market Clash, as well), but my one and only time seeing the Clash came at the venue of my future alma mater, the MSU Auditorium (5/10/84), the so-called "missing money" show that earned them a chiding note in CREEM ("Don't worry, Joe, we're sure it's going to some acceptably revolutionary cause or other," I think they said).

That my only time ended up being during this era was a fluke, as much as anything else. I had an opportunity to hitch a ride with somebody in the fall of '82, to see the boys supporting the Who, at the Silverdome -- but I passed. Then and now, I'm not into seeing anybody in any kind of enormodome (or "sheds," as they called them then, I think). Plus I figured, being a support slot, it would just end up being a run through the greatest hits, which didn't really appeal to me, either.

Anyway, I made the '84 trek with a group of friends from Grand Rapids. As I recall, we were less concerned about where the Clash had been, than they where they seemed to be heading -- which is why we pad attention to the handful of new songs that they played, unlike a lot of folks, I suspect.

They played four: In The Pouring, Pouring Rain, Three Card Trick, Are You Ready For War, and Sex Mad War. Pouring Rain and Three Card Trick made the strongest impression, while Are You Ready sounded great to our ears -- though the MSU Auditorium's less than stellar acoustics swallowed a good deal of Joe's vocals -- and Sex Mad War registered the least. We came home thinking, "Wow, if they can just bottle up some of what we saw, and get that energy on a record..." Little did we know.

As far as the back catalogue stuff went, I remember Nick doing a stellar job, vocally and guitar-wise, on Police On My Back, and a lengthy, suitably dread-y, dubb-y, apcocalyptic version of Armagideon Time, being among the highlights of that night.

I also remember the venue being about 60 percent full, which likely reflected a dropoff among fans who weren't keen on seeing a Clash without Mick, and lack of a new record to promote (as Nick suggested, when I interviewed him about all this stuff in '93). But I don't remember the whole are-they-or-aren't-they-the-Clash debate being a reason not to go -- if anything, it was a bigger draw among our circle. You can read some of those impressions from one of my pals here:

https://chairmanralph.com/clashbookdisp ... ?id=4;fa=1

About three or four years later, I ended up getting a souvenir from a fellow journalism classmate who'd worked the show as an usher that night, which I wound up selling down the road for eBay, for about 30 bucks.

CLASH T-SHIRT.jpg (23.07 KiB) Viewed 1498 times

As far as the offshoots went, I saw BAD four times -- the first in the fall of '89, for an MTV taping at the Camden Palace, which was way less than ideal, because of all the starting and stopping they had to do, for the sake of the cameras. The other times were way better, particularly the four nights they did in December '89, at the Subterania, as the original lineup was winding down. I went to two of those.

The last time came in '92, on that 120 Minutes tour, which was cool, though the bill seemed like something thrown together by a guy aiming at a dartboard (or so our group thought). A lot of my recollections of that seemingly tally with this guy's thoughts...

http://tech.mit.edu/V112/N22/tour.22a.html

...and a bit less so, with this guy's:

https://www.deseret.com/1992/4/6/189773 ... ce-concert

As for Paul, I saw Havana 3AM five times -- the first of those were one-off showcases at the Borderlne, in the fall of '89, and two nights in early '90 (1/23+24), when they were still hunting for a record deal. The fourth time was a half-empty snooker hall, of all places, in Fulham (4/5/90), of which I only caught the last 20 minutes, because it took so long to get there from where I lived, at the time, though I got to hang with them for a bit (as I'd done in November '89), which was the compensation, I guess.

The last time was in Detroit, July '91, with Flat Duo Jets opening. They projected a relentless manic energy that H3AM seemed hard-pressed to match, at times, though it was a good night out. I remember thinking that I preferred the electric Simmons kit that they'd used earlier -- that thing made such a god almighty clatter, when I'd seen them the first three or so times! Odd what you remember of these things, which inspired me to put it all down here:

https://www.amazon.com/My-Life-As-Vagra ... B08HJ491Z5

But either way, it's been a lot of a great nights. And a lot of ticket stubs.

[topperville]

Torquay 10/07/78
Exeter 27/11/78
Electric Ballroom 15/02/80
Hammersmith Palais 16/06/80
Lyceum 18/10/81
Brixton 10/07/82
Portsmouth 27/07/82
Brixton 30/07/82
Brixton 09/04/84
Brixton 07/12/84

That’ll do!

[matedog]

Torquay 10/07/78
Exeter 27/11/78
Electric Ballroom 15/02/80
Hammersmith Palais 16/06/80
Lyceum 18/10/81
Brixton 10/07/82
Portsmouth 27/07/82
Brixton 30/07/82
Brixton 09/04/84
Brixton 07/12/84

That’ll do!

Another person I’m insanely jealous of. Thoughts on the shows?