Gig 063 The Clash / The Specials

The Clash/The Specials
Aylesbury Friars
28 June 1978

 

Everyone raved about The Clash. The press adulation was off the scale, they had amphetamine intensity and political militancy, no question they were the big punk act once the Sex Pistols had imploded; personally I just didn’t think they were all that. Their one album at this time had its moments, notably those where they sounded a bit like Dr Feelgood e.g. Janie Jones, and their take on Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves was charming if a little ham-fisted, but I found much of it rather plodding, back-of-a-fag-packet lyrical agitprop welded to predictable chords. Perhaps they weren’t taking enough speed. That said, the subsequent single Complete Control (produced by Lee Perry, not that you’d know) was a cracking record, as was Clash City Rockers, and White Man in Hammersmith Palais, released a couple of weeks before this gig, was something else again. Lyrically it was streets ahead of their contemporaries, a rumination on betrayal going from disappointment that an audience of black music fans didn’t conform to white liberal expectations, to the futility of ‘punk’ posturing, to the rise of the far-right in the UK; musically it referenced reggae without lapsing into crass pastiche. It’s still kind of stunning now.

 

This was another gig I couldn’t wait to see, not least because scheduled support act on this tour were Suicide a duo from New York who channelled Eddie Cochrane and various horror scenarios through alternately beautiful and nightmarish electronica and were completely out there. So far out there, in fact, that the punk crowd couldn’t handle the absence of conventional musical instruments and shouty ramalama, and canned them offstage at every gig, so they quit the tour (though I saw Martin Rev and Alan Vega hanging around outside the venue). Their replacement was the Automatics, or possibly the Coventry Automatics, who apparently just hours before the gig had to change their name because there was another group called the Automatics who had enjoyed a modest hit with a cracking tune called When the Tanks Roll Over Poland Again. So, we learned from scrawled amendments to the posters, tonight’s opening act were The Specials. They were a good fit with The Clash, playing reggae, rock steady, ska, bluebeat, all with a full-on punk attitude, and they could really play. At this point they weren’t wearing the rude-boy gear and looked if anything a little nondescript, and I think Neville Staple may not have been there to provide a bouncy foil to Terry Hall’s deadpan presence. These days commentators often mention the significance of The Specials’ multi-ethnic line-up as if that was unique for a UK group, though that really didn’t seem much of a big deal; Ian Dury and the Blockheads could claim the same, as could Hot Chocolate, punk-ish group Bethnal and numerous other acts including several on the Oxford scene. Maybe the difference was that with The Specials it was consistent with their militant anti-racist convictions, but that wasn’t so evident at the time of this gig.

 

With the audience hopped up and ready to go, rapturous doesn’t quite do justice to the moment when The Clash hit the stage. When the lights go up over the staccato guitar and bass drum intro to Complete Control you’re looking at a vast backdrop of WWII fighter planes and vaguely constructivist graphics (why?), Mick Jones at the lip of the stage staring down the crowd as he scrubs out the riff, Paul Simonon hasn’t even started playing and already looks like the coolest guy in the world, Joe Strummer barking out the accusatory opening lines, left leg pumping like a piston. When the whole group kicked in the crowd went appropriately mental and I thought the whole venue was about to levitate, this was rock dynamics of a kind I hadn’t seen since The Who in 1975 only more edgy, more confrontational, more in-your-face. For all their professed iconoclasm The Clash loved being rock stars and looked the part, all skinny pouting and scissor kicks, and they were just really good at it. Second track Tommy Gun is all machine-gun snare and righteous anti-military snarl. How can they keep this up? They can’t. Third track is a new one called Cheapskates and it all starts to sag a little; when you start a gig with that kind of intensity, unfortunately there’s nowhere else to go. It’s still pretty good and all that, but once the momentum has gone, it’s gone. Another new one called All The Young Punks has a great title but goes nowhere in particular, and while Stay Free is a great tune it’s a touch too reflective to go over well with most of this crowd. The bass goes out of tune and these being pre-digital days Mick has to tune it for Paul, who for a moment no longer looks like the coolest man alive. White Man is terrific though, and they just about ride out the gig with a few barnstormers towards the end.

 

Tbh I never became a big fan of The Clash, I found their rock star poses and self-mythologising wearisome, and they were prone to musical stodginess. All the same they had their moments and I’m glad I saw some of them. No doubt they improved as a live act, I never saw them again. Gripes aside, this was still a great night.