Good morning, how are you? You lucky people who were in Cardiff last night for the Justice Tonight gig got your fill it seems. I’ll be back later with a special guest review of the concert, some extra information about last night and the rest of the tour and more. It’s going to be great wherever you catch it, that much I’m sure of. Mick Jones is unable to stop smiling.

I think seven Clash songs were played and the reception and atmosphere were electric, ‘like being back in the 80′s’ said more than one observer.

For now I wanted to post a few videos of last night, the audio isn’t great (turn down those speakers) but it certainly gives you a flavour of proceedings in case like me you’re completely unable to attend one of these historic nights. Have a great night in Manchester if you’re going and I’ll be back as soon as I can with much more. Sorry this is so short and frankly, sloppy. Tim

White Man (in Hammersmith Palais)

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Good evening, hope your day was a good one. I just ate far too much Thai food and feel like sleeping so let’s see if I can finish what I started as soon as I opened this post. You join me on a fairly special night as this marks the 800th post on The Clash Blog since I started writing it in late June of 2009. In fact it’s now 876 days since we began this daft idea so 800 posts in 876 days isn’t too shabby. That means something like 700,000 words have been written so far and at the time of writing there have been 636,000 individual visits to the blog. Thanks for your continued visits and support of the blog. All my worries about having enough to write about were completely unfounded as I usually feel a good few items behind. So I’ll bore you with one other number – on average I spend about 2-2.5 hours researching and writing each post so over the course of just under two and a half years that’s about 1,800 hours of time working on the blog or (sadly?) just over 10 weeks of my life during that time. Blimey. Here’s to the next 800! (apologies I like numbers) Thanks to everyone who takes time out to read and circulate this stuff and to the band of course without whom I’d just be chatting about any old nonsense. Or perhaps I do anyway.

image courtesty summerisoverblogspot.com

In the excitement of the Paul Simonon undercover with Greenpeace story some of actual details of The Good, The Bad and the Queen concert in London were somewhat overlooked. It would seem that the band plus string section clicked again as if they’d never been away and if you’re a fan of the album you’ll know that the music itself is so organic and haunting that I can see how it would be like slipping back into a comfortable pair of shoes. The good news as far as I’m concerned is that I have it on fairly good authority that there will be another album to come from the band and as far as I know from the original four members. It’s something I’d look forward to as I think it really does work, in reality it’s probably primarily Albarn’s numerous other ventures that have kept it from happening. Don’t forget it was Paul Simonon who said he wanted to stagger his schedule so that he had a music year, an art year and then a music year. 2010 was his lengthy commitment to Gorillaz, 2011 was his art year and of course his time in jail which may mean 2012 will see him back on the road. Whether it will be with TGTBaTQ remains to be seen, I’d say it’s a decent outside bet. Back to last week’s concert in London though, I wanted to share the video clips I found which are of various levels of quality. While the quality isn’t always stellar it is really great to see Paul back on stage with the guitar strap hanging around his waist, here’s some to get you going.

‘On Melancholy Hill’ (different angle)

‘Northern Whale’

Performing on the Greenpeace boat (from afar)

‘Herculean’

‘The Bunting Song / Nature Springs’ (features annoying bastards talking over the end of the first song)

Naturally all of these sound better on CD – so if you don’t own it jump over to Amazon over on the right —> (hint hint) and your Clash Blogger will get a few pence. I’ll be back very soon, have a brilliant Thursday. Tim

Good morning Clash people around the globe and welcome to another Monday. It’s a better Monday this week as it’s apparently a holiday for something or other, perhaps it is to honour idiots like me who live in a climate as hot as Phoenix? A short update this morning and then more tonight is the plan and I thought I’d reintroduce Video Clash as I haven’t done that for quite some time, the idea being that we feature some of the more recently uploaded Clashcentric videos to be found on the internet. I can’t guarantee they will all be new to you but if some or most of them aren’t I’d be failing miserably. Cover versions, odd clips and sometimes rarities stumble into the mix so let’s see what we have today. I need to do this twice per month, I’m going to try for the 5th and 20th, so remind me.

Festival cover versions (strummer festival season). I don’t think it’s my imagination but it seems more and more bands are covering Clash songs in their live sets. I’ve no problem with that especially if a fan of that band decides they might then want to go back and hear/buy the genuine article. The appeal of cover versions depends greatly on your ears I suppose, for the most part I struggle to hear a Clash song without either Strummer or Jones being on hand to deliver the vocals but that shouldn’t detract from the effort/recognition being paid by various acts in 2012. Beneath is Rise Against performing ‘White Riot’ in Leeds last month and below the video are links to some others, good, bad and indifferent but I’ll let you be the judge.

Rise Against – White Riot – Leeds Festival Aug 27, 2011

I.M.F. perform ‘Radio Clash‘ at ‘Concert for a Cure’ in Ontario. Concert for a Cure is a music-based, family fun day to raise Cancer awareness. A group of youth from Six Nations have come together to bring cancer awareness to the surface in this aboriginal community.

Mighty Mighty Bosstones perform ‘Rudie Can’t Fail’ at the Reading Festival. In all honesty I didn’t realise they were still going (sorry).

Glory Days perform ‘Bankrobber’. Never heard of them before but I like the acoustic version all the same, the band Glory Days (no shock) hail from New Jersey. What bands are named after Clash songs, what Clash song would be a good name for a band? I’d go with Hitsville UK or The Ghetto Defendants.

Japanese Band cover ‘Career Opportunities’. I love this mostly because it has such a nice raw sound, sadly I can’t provide much information because needless to say I don’t read Japanese but I know we got a lot of visitors from Japan so please provide some information if you can – I’d appreciate that.

‘Career Opportunities… in Osaka’

‘Lost in the Supermarket’ on piano. Just like it says on the packet, for whatever reason this song lends itself really well to piano and the emotions of the lyrics translate well to the single instrument rather well. If you can listen to this and not sing along or at least here Mick and Joe in your head then you’re a better man/woman than me. All I can tell you about the upload is that it’s from the UK.

Lost in the Supermarket – piano version

Mick Jones covers Elvis (not Costello). Just to make a change here we have Mick covering someone else rather than vice versa, I’d appreciate more information on this clip?

Mick Jones covers Elvis Presley

That’ll be enough for now, please furnish more information, comments and your favourite video from this batch below. Thanks! Tim