June 1976

Guildford – "Pub Disco"

The Clash's firdt gig, played 'a local pub-come-disco'

Updated July 2022, Terry Chimes comment
updated November 2025 - Paul reveals all

Recordings in circulation

No known audio or video

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Background

One man riot!

In October 1976, The Clash played what is widely believed to be the smallest gig of their early career—an obscure show at a Guildford pub-cum-disco, reportedly run by a former member of The Marmalade. According to Joe Strummer, speaking to Sounds in 1980, the band’s audience that night consisted of just “one lone drunk refugee” while a violent altercation raged in the club below, where “the bouncers were having the shit kicked out of them by a bunch of squaddies” .

Terry Chimes recalled the event in his autobiography The Strange Case of Dr Terry and Mr Chimes, describing how the club was eventually “totally empty and absolutely wrecked” following a three-way war between punks, off-duty soldiers from the local garrison, and police. The band finished their set bewildered, unaware at first of the chaos erupting upstairs .

The gig is mentioned in Marcus Gray's Last Gang in Town, where the author recounts the same fracas, noting it was a near-abandoned event with the venue descending into violence. Pat Gilbert also briefly references the Guildford show in Passion Is a Fashion, calling it “half-remembered” and recounting how it was attended by just one bloke while a fight raged downstairs 

Sunday 16 November (Radio Free Pimlico)

Paul Simonon interviewed

Paul interviewed by Terry TopCat on Sunday 16 November (Radio Free Pimlico) said that the mysterious Guildford gig where there was a fight outside and only one guy saw the band play... was before the Sheffield July 4th.

That's a lot of corrections in printed literature!

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I want to ask you, obviously, your first show was in July 1976 in Sheffield. Was that one of your first shows, supporting the Sex Pistols?

Paul Simonon: Yeah, well, there was one we did before, and that was in Guildford. So we just drove down there in a van, set up equipment, and our manager, Bernie Rhodes, came with us. And we started playing and then a massive fight broke out because it was like an army town. So basically everybody went outside and started fighting and we played to nobody except some guy at the bar. And we finished, the police were all outside because the army bloke's fighting. And our manager went up to the bloke, to the bar, and he said, so what do you think of the band? And the guy looked up, he went, what band? We'd just done the show, so. But the first proper show was with the Sex Pistols in Sheffield.

https://www.tiktok.com/@djangelika/video/7573108562793172246
https://www.instagram.com/p/DRKb6WYiPMg/

Radio Free Pimlico

Venue

UNKNOWN / 'a local pub-come-disco'

The Gig

Chimes, Terry. The Strange Case of Dr Terry and Mr Chimes. Chapter 2. London: Blake Publishing, 2007.

From Terry Chimes autobiography, Ch 2

'The Strange Case of Dr Terry and Mr Chimes'

TERRY CHIMES

"Another time we played a gig in a basement in Guildford. During this show the audience started to reduce in number until there were only a few people left. That was definitely not what normally happened. We finished our set and sat there somewhat bewildered.

The manager of the club came over and explained that there had been a battle in the bar upstairs between the punks and the off-duty soldiers (there is a garrison in the town) and then hundreds of policemen arrived to make it a 3-way war.

When we came upstairs the place was totally empty and absolutely wrecked. During 1976 there were punks springing up all over the place and at the same time there was a Teddy Boy revival. Unfortunately, we started hearing about clashes (no pun intended) between Punks and Teddy Boys somewhat similar to the battles between Mods and Rockers in the sixties."

NBC TV Interview, 1982

In an NBC 'Live at 5' Interview early 1982, Paul & Joe refer to this gig and the fact there was only 1 member in the audience.

Greil, Marcus. Return of the Last Gang in Town: The Story and Myth of The Clash, p.156. London: Faber & Faber, 1995.

RETURN OF THE LAST GANG IN TOWN

The band's second trip out on their own, not long afterwards on some forgotten date in October, was to a pub-cum-disco in Guildford, Surrey, run by Marmalade's ex-bass player.

In February 1980, Joe informed Sounds' Robbi Millar that it was the smallest venue the band had ever played. The audience had consisted of ‘one lone drunk refugee from the club/disco below, where the bouncers were having the shit kicked out of them by a bunch of squaddies'.

Terry remembers that the Marmalade man came upstairs while this fracas was taking place and apologised to the band for the low turnout.

Gilbert, Pat. Passion Is a Fashion: The Real Story of The Clash. London: Aurum Press, 2004.

PASSION IS A FASHION

PAT GILBERT, "After the Punk Festival, The Clash emerged from under the wing of The Pistols to headline their own gigs and to support other acts. There were a few unremarkable out-of-town shows – Tiddenfoot Leisure Centre in Leighton Buzzard, Lacy Lady's in Ilford and a half-remembered gig in Guildford, which, the story goes, was attended by just one bloke while a fight between squaddies and bouncers raged downstairs."

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