Sort it Out Tour Supported by The Slits

THE SLITS are one of thse groups who've achieved their small portion of notoriety through not making it. A name from the past. While others move on and develop, they remain the same, frozen in time, a relic of how things were.

The Slits are a girl group - which is fine. But the Slits, it seems to me, are trading on the fact that they're a girl group. Which is definitely not fine. Being female is not a justification of your existence. The Slits' playing, most of the time, is merely competent. Some of the time, it's not even that. Their songs are mediocre. They quickly become tedious. If they were an all-male group, I doubt if they'd get a second glance.

It's a shame - I'd love to support girls who are breaking the barriers, who are doing something more than satisf in the business's insatiable appetite for sex symboIs. There are girls who're doing it, slowly but surely, but the Slits, I'm afraid, are not amongst them. If you're attempting to compete with men, the simple fact is, you have to be as good as they are, if not better. If you fail in that aim, not only is your own cause lost, but you damage other women's too. Oh and by the way girls, I don't think a song called `She's A Silly Tart' is terribly helpful to the cause, either. Or maybe I heard the lyrics wrong?

The Clash - ah now, that's a different matter. By the time they came on, the Lyceum audience was transformed from being bored, restless and shifting to a bubbling cauldron of over-excited bodies jostling and jarring in shared anticipation under the Christmas decorations, the lights and the mirror ball (very posh).

They couldn't fail really. It was going to be magic tonight, you could just feel it. The energy was really pouring out of the audience, lifting the group and carrying them along. A glorious shared experience between band and fans, as they tore through one great song after another - I don't have to list them, you all know them by now, don't you? (Y6u don't? Shame on you). Suffice to say, they were all great - and so were the band.

They finished, as always with `White Riot', the song they'll never be able to leave behind - and nor should they want to. As the spotlights hurtled across the expanses above the audience's heads, and the kids collectively roared their lungs out - `White riot, we warina riot' - the night ended on note of total exhilaration

Possibly the best gig I've ever seen Clash do. I can't think of a nicer way of ending `78.

SHEILA PROPHET