The Clash - The Only Band That Matters
Orpheum Show on March 9, 1980 opened my eyes, hurt my ears
The records, as good as some of them are, only hint at it. The movies like “Rude Boy” and the bootleg concert videos give you a vague sense of what it was like. There were glowing concert reports, a few tapes and some first-hand recollections that, looking back, sound suspiciously like testimony.
Sitting in the audience at Boston’s Orpheum Theater on a chilly Sunday night in March some 44 years ago, stuffing tissue paper in my ears for the first and only time, the sheer volume, intensity and explosiveness of The Clash on stage was just something you could not be ready for. Or forget.
I’d read about them for a while. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice raved about them. Writer spoke about them in the music press. Their songs were smart, intense, allusive, intended to stir you up. And they did. But could they do it on stage?
The most significant band to come out of Britain’s “Punk” movement — sure, the Sex Pistols’ album was great but it was only one album — The Clash wanted to make music loud enough for the whole world to hear it. When they took the stage, it was serious stuff, maybe not exactly life or death but they weren’t kidding around or trying to make the charts. They were trying to change the world, as corny as it sounds. Like Joe Strummer explained later on, being in The Clash required an emotional commitment from all of them. “We were almost Stalin-esque,” he said. “You had to abandon your friends.”
That catchphrase “The Only Band That Matters” wouldn’t work with any other contemporary unit. But The Clash’s willingness — some would say insistence — on addressing the pressing themes of the day set them apart. And it still does.
Their third album, “London Calling” had been released just before Christmas and included a bonus song (and a great one!) “Train In Vain” that was not listed among the album titles as it was added at the last minute. Since the band was headed for Boston on a tour to support the record, a release the band felt was make or break since the sales of their first two records had been spotty, this was a tour you had to see.
The snarling first album, “The Clash” wasn’t even originally released here at first. When they came out with their second album, “Give ‘em Enough Rope” with buzzards picking at a dead American cowboy while a Chinese Army soldier astride a horse looks on, well, that was what they had to say about American commercialism.
And if the first two records were terrific —which they were — “London Calling” was a double album set that never stopped delivering the goods on all four sides. The principal lyricist Joe Strummer (John Mellor), the son of a British diplomat, found ways to write about political topics over some absolutely thunderous music, delivered in such a relentless way, the record was irresistible. Guitarist Mick Jones was an excellent tunesmith, drummer Topper Headon and bassist Paul Simonon anchored things and when you saw The Clash, it wasn’t as if they were necessarily performing for you as much as they wanted you to enlist, join them in raging against governmental indifference, boredom, racism, drugs, whatever occurred to Strummer that was worth firing off a missive about.
And on stage, they were every bit the firebrands the record promised. At the Orpheum, as opening act Mikey Dread was doing his echoey reggae stuff, Strummer and Jones, dressed in black raincoats, collars turned up, wearing black sunglasses underneath detective homburgs strutted out onto the stage unannounced, dancing along happily to the reggae groove.
The crowd erupted when the two of them hit the stage. When they tossed the hats and glasses aside and strapped on their guitars, the crunching sound was both deafening and earth-shakingly exciting.
They charged through their 22-song set list, playing as if someone might haul them off the stage if they once eased up. So they never did. It was a night to remember, maybe even for The Clash, too.
A couple years later, after their triple album “Sandinista” and the album“Combat Rock” sprang their hit “Rock The Casbah” I caught them again at the Cape Cod Coliseum on August 21, Joe Strummer’s 30th birthday. Sadly, he was in a foul mood.
\ A Boston radio station had evidently done a number on him turning 30 and Joe was upset and played half the show with his back to the audience. The music was still good — they couldn’t fake it — but they were doing a job rather than carrying out a mission.
So it wasn’t surprising to me when Joe took off to Paris shortly after that and the band sort of fell apart. Strummer would have turned 72 a few days ago. He died of a heart ailment just before Christmas in 2002. But The Clash certainly made their mark.
In retrospect, calling them “The Only Band That Matters” seems overblown, record company hype, a genuine exaggeration.
But if you were lucky enough to see The Clash like I did on that frosty March night 44 years ago, you could have believed it.
THANKS TO YOUTUBE, THIS IS A PIRATED VIDEO FROM THEIR SHOW THE NIGHT BEFORE IN PASSAIC, NEW JERSEY, THE SAME SET LIST.