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

Hello again and thanks once more for stopping in at The Clash Blog. Tuesday night here as I begin this one but I’m not certain I’ll finish it tonight as it’s already rather late, I could put some coffee on but that might result in me staying up until the stupid hours so I’m not completely sure what’s best to do. I’ve also made a fatal blogging mistake by starting this post without being entirely sure about what I plan to cover which may deter you from lurching on with me to the next paragraph but go on, if you take the chance I’ll keep writing.

Some semblance of focus might be best so that I don’t ramble on endlessly, so that will be my approach. I do have a quick question aimed at those who collect a lot of Clash books and there are more now than you can probably justify so I’m getting a little more picky about what I need to add to my collection. In late 2009 a book titled ‘The Clash : Essential Interviews’ was released I believe in paperback only. I sat on the fence at the time about grabbing a copy and now it seems it has gone out of print and with that reached insane prices. My understanding was that it compiles many of the major interviews that the band gave the major music press; NME, Melody Maker, Sounds, Rolling Stone etc. and reproduced those exchanges in full. While that’s not a bad overall concept for a book many of those interviews have seemingly already been reproduced online or in magazine specials (much like the new Uncut one that just came out). If you happened to purchase the book let me know what you thought and whether it was worth the cost/time and such, incidentally here’s the link so we’re on the same page. It does run to over 300 pages so there’s some depth in there regardless.

Speaking of books, in 2012 I am going to add a section of permanent pages to the blog that review DVDs and books that are fully or partly devoted to The Clash/Clash members. If you might be interested in helping out with that please let me know as the help would be greatly appreciated. Ideally I’d like to add a three hundred word synopsis and review of each book and DVD that might be of interest to your average Clash fan. Ideally we’ll also be adding interviews with some of the authors of the better stuff, which is also on the cards for coming months should all go to plan.

At this point you’d wonder if more could be written about The Clash but the excellent work of authors such as Chris Salewicz, Kris Needs and Marcus Gray show that there’s layers to the story that merit more understanding and analysis. The very existence of The Clash was really quite brief but that doesn’t limit the interest shown in that era which says so much about the evolution of the band and it’s components that I’d place it in on level pegging with that famous four from Liverpool in terms of where the story takes you in such a short time. Perhaps the complexity of The Clash was the only thing that clarivaled their brilliance. Summer of 1976 to Summer of 1983 is all you really have to work with and yet I feel there’s still much more to understand even though I feel like an anorak just typing those words. The good news, we still haven’t seen a book with Mick’s, Paul’s, Topper’s or even Terry’s version of events which would certainly add even more colour. I’m sure we’ll see at least three and perhaps all four of those take shape in the near future with two already on the cards (more on that soon). As for Joe’s story of course we can’t get closer than we already have with the excellent “Redemption Song, The Ballad of Joe Strummer” by Chris Salewicz. In my opinion that is the definitive story of Joe Strummer and if for some reason you haven’t already read it then I suggest you address that immediately.

Right then, from a starting point of asking about a book I’ve prattled on for a while about ‘Clash books’ but please take the time to build that library if you haven’t. There’s a lot to be said and written about a band that were so busy making music that they were never properly chronicled when it was all taking place. The other funny impact of history is that Joe was barely given the time of day and The Clash were seen by so many critics as a sell out from 1983 through to the early-mid 90′s that the very thought of reviewing just what the band meant was considered fairly inane and with a limited audience. The reverence that is so often attached to the band today wasn’t the norm after they broke up. We knew best yes, but then again we were fans of the band at the time – not critics or assessors. On the positive side of that we’ve had that much longer to enjoy the band than the press who now venerate them. Odd that isn’t it? Goodnight for now. Tim

Good morning and thanks for stopping in at the blog, now rapidly heading towards the 800th ever post. Blimey! You find me on a Thursday morning with a full mug of coffee and listening to Diamond Dogs by David Bowie, I’m not quite sure why. That midlife crisis thing may actually be sneaking up on me. I have to pack for a few nights away today so I thought a short update prior to a day’s travel through the desert would be in order.

Not much news comes immediately to mind, I image that Big Audio Dynamite must have flown from Heathrow today or yesterday to Tokyo for their Friday night appearance at the Fuji Rock Festival. I know we get an awful lot of readers on the blog from Japan so I’m quietly optimistic that we may receive photos or some notes about the gig from a few of them. Speaking of the festival they have a rather brilliant lineup of bands appearing over the three days although of course I’m not including Coldplay in that description. Arctic Monkeys are also there and I happened to purchase their new album a few weeks ago, yesterday was my first chance to listen to it in full. Let’s just say I’ve heard better lyrics coming from a random search of the dictionary, which based on the album may have been exactly what he did when writing these songs. Does the music make up for the lyrics? No…sorry. As for B.A.D. I’m pleased to see not only will the band not be playing in broad daylight but they will be headlining on the smaller ‘white’ stage. They are also scheduled to play a long set (22:20-23:40) and I’m not even sure that they’ve rehearsed enough songs to fill an 80 minute slot. Expect a lot of asides from Mick Jones on the night.

Remarkably it’s only 6 months short of being thirty years since The Clash first played in Japan at the beginning of 1982 – a period of time that is really well chronicled in the Chris Salewicz biography of Joe Strummer. The response to The Clash from Japanese fans bordered on the obsessive which I can do nothing but applaud and I hope a handful of those same fans will be at the Fuji Rock Festival over the weekend. Just to get some of you in the mood here is a link to an entire Clash concert recorded at the Sun Plaza, Tokyo back on Feb 1, 1982. Thanks to the original KombatBlog - ‘Nuzz Prowlin Wolf’ for the upload.

On a local level I’m cautiously optimistic about this dusty desert town as not one, not two but three new live music venues have opened here in Phoenix over the last few months. I’m going to need to campaign hard to try and get the owners/promoters of said venues to get in some of the British/European bands to add this town to the itinerary as they have all too often skipped it. On the plus side though after a few years of various closures it is a good sign that perhaps live music is making some inroads – especially in venues that hold between 300-900 people that we are painfully lacking in. So good luck to ‘The Foundry on 1st‘ – ‘The Crescent Ballroom‘ and another whose name escapes me.

Do you ever use/listen to last.fm? The online streaming music software that does offer a wide selection whilst simultaneously performing an appalling job of ‘predicting’ the bands you might like? As a lazy resort I sometimes use it and just found that you can look up the most listened to songs by any artists. So of course I plugged in ‘The Clash’. You should too as the results will surprise and then fill you with dismay, above all else it shows you what we’re up against. Tracks 1 & 2 (SISoSIG and Rock the Casbah) are exactly as you might fear but tracks 3 & 4 might cheer you up. An alarming lack of ‘listening’ on last.fm to earlier material it would seem. They are close to being banned as a result due to this and the fact that I’ve finally got Spotify but I’ll make a decision next week. When you work from home and spend 6-12 hours a day writing, blogging, building blogs and websites the companionship and rhythm of music is crucial so I take this far too seriously.

Have a splendid Thursday, please share/tweet/comment as you wish. Best -Tim