White Riot Tour with the Jam, Buzzcocks, Slits and Subway Sect

last updated 7 March 2007
updated 28 Dec 2008 - punter comments re: slits plus photo
updated 28 Dec 2008 - added venue poster & new pics
updated 25 December 2014 - added ticket
Updated October 2020 - added lounderthansound link and new photos
updated May 2021 added large poster

Audio - Take it or Leave it LP

Sound 3 - 43min - Tracks 16

Cheat

Take it or Leave it LP

This is the first ever Clash bootleg to circulate and has over the year's as a result tended to be forgotten. When asked whether the band minded being bootlegged, Joe response was always no. In one interview in 78 he commented that the only one he'd heard (referring to Take It or Leave It) was actually rather good.

Relistening to this again you can see Joes point. It is a good audience recording but like the old football cliché, it's a bootleg of 2 halves.

As far as the sound goes, all the instruments are audible and clearish, including bass and drums however the vocals are low in the mix. Generally it suffers probably from a lack of quality equipment at the venue and is a not bad recording considering.

The first side of the LP has quite clear instrumentation and vocals for an old early recording the lead guitar is particularly enjoyable. But presumably during Police and Thieves (which has an edit near the end of the song) the taper either gets knocked to a worse position or the soundman on the desk gets pissed! As a result the second side is fractionally less enjoyable because instrumentation becomes more distant, particularly the vocals and the clarity drops a little.

Chaotic, ferocious and exciting

The LP succeeds in documenting well just how chaotic, ferocious and exciting The Clash were on the White Riot Tour.

This was the hey day of punk (the night before The Rainbow gig* which Joe has subsequently said was his best memory and the night punk broke out of the clubs) before the band wagon jumping and commercialisation. Tensions may also have been running high backstage, as The Jam would play the next night before abondoning the Tour after acrimonious rows with the Clash over monies.

The Jams presence here confirming the date of the Rainbow gig as the 9th and not 7th, which was there final gig of the tour before walking off.

Poster

Tickets

Adverts

those people who don't like wogs, you know where the back door is

An excellent Police and Thieves is introduced by a crude but effective bit of anti-racism "this is a song written by a wog….so all those people who don't like wogs, you know where the back door is".

Remote Control, to be dropped from the set after this tour for this reason "this is the new Clash single by order of the giant corporation, we sold our soul….". With echoes of Magnificent Seven to come, Career Opportunities is introduced by "ring, ring goes the bell on Monday". Some Joe humour before a manicly fast Janie Jones; "I want to take off my shirt but I'm scared to show off my puny body, I ain't Charles Atlas and I don't want to be". Before a chaotic White Riot "this an English pop song that did'nt make it to No.1". A typical 110% Clash early gig that captures the early excitement of the band and punk.

The Clash | Facebook

[1] All FB posts on Clash Official (none currently)
[2] All FB posts - The Clash Electric Circus 1977

The Clash performed at Electric Circus in Manchester in 1977

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Electric Circus fanzine review

Mark Townsend - A page from the electric circus fanzine reviewing the gig....my uncle Chris used to distribute this around Manchester...he Missed the clash but was there for Wayne county the week after and Warsaw the week after that.

Archived PDF

Ghast Fanzine

This flyer appeared in the third issue of Ghast Up. It was created on a typewriter with repeated semi colons using a Roneo stencil, which was how Ghast Up was printed. It was based on the famous NME Cover photo of The Clash.

The full Ghast archive can be found here. A big thanks to whoever put this up.

Page 6 of Ghast Up fanzine Issue 2. Featuring a review of The Clash debut album followed by a live review of the White Riot tour at the Electric Circus on Sunday May 8th 1977.

Page 1 - album review Issue #2
Page 2 - gig review Issue #2
Page 3 - stencil Issue #3
Page 4 - save The Circus #3

Stencil: This flyer appeared in the third issue of Ghast Up. It was created on a typewriter with repeated semi colons using a Roneo stencil, which was how Ghast Up was printed. It was based on the famous NME Cover photo of The Clash.

Page 15 of Ghast Up fanzine Issue 3. Featuring details of an ultimately fruitless campaign to save the Electric Circus from closure. As I recall I received one phone call from a young lady who said she was a friend of Graham Brooks, who ran the Circus with Allan Robinson.

Classic Rock: "Crazy night"

The Clash, Buzzcocks, The Slits, Subway Sect
By Mick Middles, Classic Rock - May 01, 2014

Link or Archived PDF

On May 1, 1977, The Clash started their first ever UK tour. On May 8, they played at the Electric Circus in Manchester. In 2003, Classic Rock reflected on that crazy night.

Stephen Singleton - Great gig , I went to it -

Alan Hinchcliffe - I went, incredible !! The best venue in Manchester, also saw Ramones,Jam,talking heads, slits,buzzcocks and many more there !!! Happy days !!

Blackmarketclash | Leave a comment

Guardian - A northern soul

Online

Thirty years ago, the Manchester music scene was changed for ever. Paul Morley revisits the city of his youth and recalls the sights and eviscerating sounds that transformed the lives of a generation

Factory: The Story of the Record Label

By Mick Middles

Link

Much to the chagrin, not only of the original Ranch Bar clique, but a few other cliques as well, punk in Manchester, buoyed by Morleyís increasingly prominent NME appraisals, began to swell - at times uncontrollably. Suddenly, spotting Half-Cast Paul or Steve Shy or Morley in a crowd became more and more difficult. The gang-like atmosphere, more prevalent among the audiences than the bands, became inevitably diluted.

On Sundays at the Electric Circus, the scene raged, at times rather dangerously, for no one really knew how 1,000 sweat-dripped, arm-linked manic punks would be able to evict the building should something unforeseeable happen. The gigs flashed by as if in a dream. The Ramones supported by Talking Heads, the Damned supported by the Adverts (with Rat Scabies leering from the upstairs dressing room, showering the outside queue with rocks and badges), Buzzcocks endlessly, Drones endlessly, and perhaps the peak Electric Circus experience, the White Riot Tour featuring the Clash, the Slits, Buzzcocks and Subway Sect on Sunday 8 May 1977 - a seething, rumbling mess of a gig. The full sulphate experience and the furious pace of the bands was countered by the DJís constant delving into echo chamber dub reggae, which rather suited the circus.

Unsigned Unscene

By John Winstanley

Link

The only era that the show ignores is the early punk, yet radio 2 is fuckin built round it!

I cannot remember if I met Lee G and there are only a few articles by him throughout the PTIDs issues.

One that caught my eye was his one page recollection of the Clash White Riot Tour gig at the Electric Circus, Manchester on 8ª May 1977. He describes Jo Strummer as "...the thinking manís switchblade and there is a blurred photo of the band on stage. Lee says it was the best gig he ever attended and how he felt everyone there considered the songs as our musicîand how ...we could change the world."

As teenagers you believe that sort of thing, whether its music, peace protests or anything you feel passionate about. That never diminishes - it only gets tarnished as you get older and understand how the world really works and your place in it. Unless you are a Bono, Bob Geldoff or Bill Gates you have no influence other than from the age of eighteen when you tick a ballot paper.

However, I felt, and still do, that Punk Rock and what Roy and I were doing, was a sort of mission to inform what the message was that we all took inspiration from. In Royís interview with UK Nige (vocals and guitar in Sick 56) Nige sums up what Punk Rock means to him:

The Clash performed at the Electric Circus

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Setlist

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16	Londons Burning 1977 Im so bored with the USA Presure Drop Hate and war 48 Hours Deny Capital Radio Police and Thieves Cheat Remote Control Career Opportunities Janie Jones White Riot Garageland 1977