Good evening from a soggy and pleasantly cold Arizona. Almost makes me think of winter today and definitely has me reflecting on the fact that 31 years ago today (or more likely tomorrow by the time I get this written and posted) I acquired my copy of the only triple album I’ve ever owned - Sandinista! Last year we were all drawn in to the rumour and then soft confirmation that a 30th anniversary special Legacy edition of the 4th Clash album was going to surface with added ‘rare’ material. Speculation was rife that we’d get unreleased tracks or better still an excellent live document of the band circa 1980/1.  However more than a year later that ship has obviously now sailed with Sony confirming it wasn’t to be. Perhaps the 35th anniversary will see the vaults finally opened up.

I mentioned it on Facebook today (the anniversary) and it led to some good discussion as to the merits of the album which are worth a look. As I wrote there I remember clearly buying it on release and being a bit confused, a bit shocked and rather annoyed that this wasn’t The Clash as I knew them or at least expected. I was only 13 at the time and if you asked me then or even a few years later I would have placed Sandinista! as my least favourite Clash album (excluding Cut The Crap – different parameters altogether). As the years rolled by and my maturity arrived the album was revisited time and time again, instead of my initial feeling of five or six good songs, there were suddenly a dozen. A few years later more than half the album was obviously brilliant and by the time the 90′s rolled around I realised that most of the album was excellent – one of the most ambitious, challenging and bold records ever made. You can argue that it’s not the best Clash album but it may well be the most interesting and certainly contains some of Joe’s best lyrics. Beyond all that remember how quickly it was made and so soon after the brilliance of London Calling, also think of how many new barriers were broken down in particular by Mick and Topper. The band released 55 songs plus Bankrobber within 12 months, unheard of output. Brilliant stuff indeed, at a later time we’ll try and determine the best Clash albums whilst remembering there are no wrong answers. Happy anniversary then to Sandinista! and its far reaching, sometimes ugly beauty – an album that will last a lifetime.

Image courtesy WrongEmBoyo

Sorry for the brief detour there, I owe it to myself and to you to share a few more guest contributions about the Justice Tonight tour, specifically the final night in Glasgow which ended everything on quite a high. Glasgow as you all know holds it place high in the list of cities with Clash lore and with that, great affection for the band. There are a number of rumours/quotes doing the rounds about whether this concept might be revisited in 2012 and whilst I naturally have no inside track on that knowledge I’ll say only that many rumours concerning Mick Jones in the last few years have come to fruition. We’ve just been through the most active 3 years Mick has seen since I don’t when, the early 90′s I’d guess. I hope that doesn’t signal the end of that spell but only Mick knows what he’s doing next – what is apparent is that he is thoroughly enjoying playing live. Glasgow then; please join me in thanking Geoff (via Martin who provided us with his summaries of London and Liverpool) for the overview beneath:

Based on the Liverpool start time we arrived at 8.20 only to find The Farm ending their set with All Together Now. Pete Wylie then launched straight away into his set of: Come Back, Better Scream, The Day That Margaret Thatcher Dies, Story of the Blues (with a neat little segued start of Drift Away as a tribute to Dobie Gray who passed away this week) Heart as big as Liverpool and ended with Sinful. I Have to say I was really impressed with his set, fantastic sound and vocals (despite the ‘hometown hangover’ from the previous evening) ably backed up by Joe, Paul and co Mick then took centre stage sharing vocal duties with Pete and James Allan from Glasvegas.

As a side note James Allan was a footballer playing in the Scottish lower leagues including Queens Park (not QPR). (ClashBlog ed: that’s news to me, but then again so is the overall interest in Glasvegas, looking a bit like Joe doesn’t make you Joe).

Immediate set after Pete Wylie was: Train in Vain/Stand by me, Stay Free, Clampdown, White Man (in Hammersmith Palais) – which is James Allan’s favourite Clash track. Then we went into a short break forJustice Tonight speeches and a single Glasvegas song – Daddy’s Gone. This was followed by the return of Mick and Co for Bankrobber, Armagideon Time, Should I Stay or Should I Go and London Calling before launching into All Together Now, at the conclusion Mick shouts ‘see you next time’.

Hmmmm wonder if he meant as B.A.D. who were brilliant earlier this year at the same venue or another cause that is deserving of the Clash set. Either and I’d be happy, just keep getting on stage, Mick. They left the stage to ‘make way for the disco’ only for them to return with Janie Jones. Disappointingly a fair number had left immediately after or during ATN. Another reason you should never leave before the final whistle. (Eds note: Anfield ’89) They’ll never be the same without Joe though I’m sure he’d have approved of the cause. Despite having mixed emotions as I did when the Skids reunited without Stuart Adamson I’d rather see Mick and Paul belting out Clash songs than some tribute band. More please……

Image courtesy mckingv on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/44867841@N02/

Thanks so much for that, a great review I thought cheers Geoff. I also have another short summary from Murray which I liked, he may be a bit more forthright than some but just remember opinions about music are simply that and everyone is entitled to one. After all you’ve been digesting mine for the better part of three years now. Does he like Glasvegas? Read along and find out:

The Farm – I never bought into that baggie nonsense the first time round and other than Altogether Now this just washed over me. Pete Wylie was brilliant, a greatest hits set worthy of the price of admission. The Clash set was great, better than I’d imagined. They took a break and the guitarist and singer from Glasvegas got on to do “Daddy’s Gone” – their one great song it seems ! He didnt get the best reception, while he was havin trouble plugging in the guy next to me was repeatedly yelling “you are a wank” at the top of his voice to much laughter around. He’d maybe win a Joe Strummer lookalike competition, but he was struggling with Bankrobber, fluffing the lines he had to read off the page, but then Strummer was always prone to fluffing lines so maybe it was some kind of homage ! or maybe the event was just too much for him. The night ended with John Robb taking a mic to the crowd for Janie Jones. Good fun and by what Mick was saying onstage I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened again sometime ….

 Thanks for that Murray, I can just hear a Glaswegian punter shouting that at James Allan in my head. Made me laugh I’ll confess, but as a guest I think he merited more class or am I getting soft? Right then I’ve got to go and drive with the lunatics in the rain this morning but please join me in thanking our guest reviewers for taking the time to write. Speaking of John Robb – his tour blog on Louder than War has been exceptional from the first night in Cardiff and provides so much insight you’d be a fool to miss it so please check that out. I’ll be back during the week, things are going to be hectic around here for the next six weeks as it looks like ClashBlog towers will shortly be relocating to new accommodations in California (more on that soon) but I want to keep up the momentum on the blog – we’ve had an exceptional number of visits over the last month for which I thank you and if you ever want to help our your humble blogger there’s a small banner ad over on the right. Thanks so much to those who already have. Also remember you can keep up to date by  Facebook, Twitter or get the RSS feed which will see the blog sent to you directly. Cheers – Tim

Good evening and welcome back to The Clash Blog. It’s a pretty historic night (now 3am) in London as I write and one that I never really thought we’d see again. When I started writing this blog about two and a half years ago I assumed (logically at the time) that the bulk of what I’d be writing and compiling would be looking back to years long gone. Not that there was anything wrong with that idea in the first place, The Clash were important enough that I hoped there would be an audience of people who’d get together to celebrate the music and the purpose of the band. Having a purpose was always part of The Clash and as fans I think many of us found appeal in that and in turn it gave us a bit more purpose to be engaged in the world around us. You could have got very long odds a few years ago on Mick Jones taking a tour on the road playing a huge number of Clash songs to passionate audiences throughout the UK. It hadn’t happened up til then and didn’t seem likely until about eighteen months ago, around the same time a B.A.D. reunion was first rumoured, if Mick would do that then perhaps the right reason would see him playing Clash songs live again. Perhaps it was Mick realising he holds the keys to The Clash now, perhaps it was allowing enough time to pass since we lost Joe, perhaps it was the simple undeniable fact that the Hillsborough Justice Campaign is the right cause for Mick to align himself with. I think it’s probably a bit of all three but all three were needed to make it happen. I’ll write much more about Hillsborough in the next few days as I think that’s appropriate.

Tonight though the tour with so much more headed down to London, a sold out and very expectant audience at The Scala had already seen the tour bring out some remarkable guests. This was London though, might the stakes get even higher? Not a Clash reunion – don’t even use that phrase – but a return of others to the stage alongside with Mick Jones. Eight hours ago I had high hopes and had read and heard lots of rumours, here’s what happened courtesy of a special friend of the blog – Martin who promised and delivered a review of what happened tonight. Let’s hand it over to him….

The Savage Nomads, including Chris Salewicz’s son Cole, opened the night. Very quickly the venue filled up until it was rammed solid. Tickets had sold out in under 3 hours for this London gig - ironically there are still tickets on sale now for tomorrow nights Liverpool show! I did not catch the name of the next band up and after them was the Rotten Hill Gang with Hollie Cook and Lauren Jones on vocals – the daughters of Paul Cook and Mick Jones.Next up were The Farm and for the next 2 hours the Scala rocked, with more or less the whole of the Farm plus Pete Wylie onstage for the duration.Groovy Train | Steppin’ Stone | Love See no Colour and then All Together Now – which saw Mick Jones arrive onstage, not to leave until the end of the night.

Next up was Pete Wylie’s set:

Come Back |You better scream – dedicated to Kelvin MacKenzie, the editor of the Sun in 1989 at the time of Hillsborough | The Day that Margaret Thatcher Dies (ed’s note – soon as possible please) | The Story of the Blues | Heart as Big as Liverpool – dedicated to the 96, a song that Wylie said Sony had warned him not to release as a single as “it will only sell in Liverpool…..well it didn’t even sell in Liverpool!” | You can’t put your arms around a memory (Johnny Thunders song) | Sinful

And then, at 9.30pm, we moved onto the part of the set that everyone had been waiting for – The Clash songs!

Train in Vain
Stay Free
Bankrobber – with Hollie Cook on vocals who needed help from Peter Hooton and Pete Wylie with the words
Clampdown - with Richard Archer from Hard Fi on vocals – a Brentford fan. He did a good job
White Man (in Hammersmith Palais) – with Peter Hooton on vocals
Should I stay or should I go – should have been Rex from the Rotten Hill Gang on vocals but he forgot the words and again Wylie and Hooton had to come to the rescue!

There was then a short break and Bobby Gillespie plus 2 other members of Primal Scream join the band on stage PLUS PAUL SIMONON!

Rocks Off
Jail Guitar Doors
Brand New Cadillac
Guns of Brixton – sung by Paul
Armagideon Time – calls for Don Letts to join them onstage but he had vanished after being seen earlier
London Calling
Janie Jones – with John Robb, who spent most of the song crowd surfing!
All together now – a final rousing rendition of The Farm song and then it was good night…..or was it?
Rush – one last song, the Big Audio Dynamite song closed a fabulous, never to be forgotten night!

Roll on Liverpool!

Thanks so much Martin, I can’t even imagine how brilliant it would have been there and to see Mick and Paul sharing a stage.

Simply an amazing setlist , so many Clash songs and so many other great tunes. Photos from above are courtesy of our good friend Peter Stevens, I’ll be working on a gallery tomorrow for you. Added to that Paul Simonon and you’ve got a night that can’t be topped. Please join me in thanking Martin for taking the time to chronicle the details. Nice one.

I’m still reeling about this to be honest whilst simultaneously sickened that I wasn’t there. I know we’re going to have some excellent photos and perhaps passable video over the next 12-24 hours so please drop back in. If you’re going to the Liverpool gig you’re in for a treat on what I’m sure will be an emotional night. All the best – Justice For The 96 – Tim

Good morning and welcome back to another weekend at last. I must confess that Saturday’s are much more pleasant now that Arsenal are once again looking like a team who actually have some fight in their stomach, it certainly makes getting up at 5am much more rewarding.

image courtesy Erik the Fish http://www.flickr.com/photos/23662057@N03/

In a quest to keep the blog more current expect to see a few more short posts in the days/weeks ahead. I think if I try and get short updates out as I see them/think of them it might be a better approach. We’ll try it and see. On the agenda this morning is the Justice Tonight tour in the UK next month AKA the ‘Mick Jones Review’. I was surprised to see that tickets are still available at five of the six venues with currently only London on December 8th being sold out. Interestingly the night(s) before the London concert are open on the schedule so perhaps we might see a second night added if a venue can be found as The Scala has another event booked on the 7th. An extra night might also avoid people looking to charge £75 on ebay per ticket. I hope many of you in the UK (sod it, it would be worth a trip over from mainland Europe) are able to get tickets for one of these, I don’t think opportunities to see Mick Jones play perhaps 6-8 Clash songs are going to come along very often. Tickets for the other five nights can be purchased here.

Finally on the same subject, if anyone has a spare ticket available for the London concert please let me know. Someone from Ireland contacted me and desperately wants to make it over only to find the show has sold out, if you can help please contact me and I’ll match you up. That’s all I’ve time for right now but more later I assure you, in the meantime below the video below might make you go and get a ticket.

Mick Jones ‘Train in Vain’- Liverpool 24/9/11