Short Summer Rock Art US Tour

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros
Joe Strummer: Vocals and Rhythm Guitar
Martyn Slattery: Lead Guitar, Keyboards et al
Anthony Genn: Guitar
Scott Shields: Bass Guitar
Pablo Cook: Percussion
Smiley: Drums

Audio - from taper - very good
Sound 4
74min
mast
16 songs / 16 tracks

Tommy Gun

A nice audience recording, very clear and very exciting/atmospheric. X-ray Style goes badly wrong...take 2

Unknown publication

Joe Strummer at the Irving Plaza on 6/30/99
by Glyn Emmerson

Providing enough cheap thrills, punk rhythms, ska riffs and Giuliani-bashing to offset the last 10 years of his musical sabbatical, Joe Strummer, ex-Clash songwriter, provocateur and leader, tore down the house at Irving Plaza with a rousing fourteen song set of Clash classics and songs from his upcoming release X-Ray Style.

Backed by the Mescaleros and looking worn, gracefully jagged, and slightly ragged, Strummer stormed through a set invoking the best of the Clash's rage and political stances with a smattering of some good old white-boy reggae.

Singing in a forced style and delivery intent on making one run for cover, Strummer played with the passion and rage of an elder-statesman punk, out of exile and back on track, whipping the crowd into a fist-raising frenzy reminiscent of a leftist political rally.

Opening the show with "Diggin' the Law" and segueing into an unplugged bongo-laden intro, Strummer called off all hands and chimed -"This is New York City"- jump starting "London Calling" with its pounding rhythms and howling vocals. "X-Ray Style" was next and followed by "Straight to Hell" with some fine and eerie Edge-like staccato playing by lead guitarist Martin Slattery over the pulsating rhythms of bassist Scott Shields and drummer Smiley.

Moshers took over the floor for "Rock the Casbah" and the rest of the show was a virtual study in the Clash and Stummer's influence on modern music today.

With a style bridging punk, funk, reggae and rap, Strummer and band strategically recreated Clash favorites and set forth the godfather of punk's rock-n-roll vision into the next millenium. Combining musical styles with an overtly political tone against the power elite towards social and economic equality was the message in 1977.

How appropriate that in this era of the Guiliani-directorate, the message for 1977 still resounds in 1999. "I Fought the Law" ended the set and was followed by a lengthy encore of "Techno D-Day", "Tommy Gun" and "Bank Robber". "Techno D-Day" was dedicated to those who fell in the Tiananmen Square Massacre and had the crowd dancing wildly, proving what the Clash bore all along, that politics and rock-n-roll can and do mix.

"Bank Robber" ended the evening with its reggae rhythms setting the spliffs ablaze. After the show I caught up with Strummer and asked him what he'd been up to the past ten years, along with well wishers Matt Dillan, Joey Ramone and Jim Jarmusch, to which he graciously replied -"Hanging out at the farm in Somerset, England"-.

He also informed me that the band would be returning to the area in December and the new album with the Mescaleros has a planned mid-October release date.

Did you go? What do you remember?
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