June 2000 Uncut Magazine
Joe Strummer: Brixton Academy

Brixton Academy, Saturday night in south London. A little over 24 hours since Ken Livingstone swept into power as the capital's first elected mayor, and here we find another anti-establishment icon back from the brink to complete his own particular career resurrection.

While Ken seemed to target the youth vote during his campaign, Strummer here is setting himself as much on former glories as the strength of last year's comeback LP. Rock Art & The X-Ray Style. arriving onstage to tear through an amped-up version of London Calling" (Kens opening record. natch, when he, ahem, died alongside Norman Cook at the All Back To Ken night in March) before dedicating the first half of the set to the cream of the new album. Everything is noose-tight, the pace frantic, Strummer on incendiary form.

The front hall of the Academy becomes a scene from Dante's Inferno. all flailing limbs and seething bodies. Even the reflective "Road To Rock `N' Roll" encourages the crowd of mostly middle-aged men to neck their CaTs and relive their youth. pogoing and punching the air
briefly, ecstatically, 17 again. As well as the new material
"Tony Adams". -Sandpaper Blues". "Nothing About Nothing". each magnificent
inevitably. the best responses are reserved for the Clash material. ti songs-worth ranging from -White Man In Hammersmith Palais" (dedicated to Primal Scream, playing across town in Shepherd's Bush) to a particularly visceral "Tommy Gun".

Maybe it's because Topper and Jonesy are apparently in the house tonight. but the Mescaleros are playing like they've got a gun to their collective heads
guitars like artillery"fire, drums like a creeping barrage: this is combat rock. We get "Rudi Don't Fail", "Safe European Home". "Pressure Drop", and then Strummer closes the show with -Straight To Hell"
still one of the most savage political songs ever written. An encore follows, "London's Burning" and "White Riot". a blistering assault of musical Napalm levelling everything in its path. Strummer
hero, poet, rebel: a punk soul brother for this or any other age.

Michael Bonner