Pearl Harbour Tour supported by Bo Diddley

updated 30 Dec 2008 - new master tape
updated May 2021 added adverts and extra ticket
9 Feb 2022 added new colour photos
updated June 2022 - more info about video
udpated xmas 2023 added ticket adverts
updated April 2024 added HQ flyer

Audio 1 - master

Clear/ok - Sound 3.5 - Time 37mins - 10 Tracks

Safe European Home

Sound quality

Clear but distant.

Taper wasn't sitting that close to the stage and probably didn't have amazing tape equipment. But low-gen or master-ish because the instruments and vox are surprisingly clear once you get acclimated. I'm liking the sound more the more I hear it. I would say better quality than nearly all '78 AUD recordings, par or better for Pearl Harbour tour audience tapes. A good audio edit might make it stand out a bit better into bona fide B range.

Typically scorching hot show for that tour. Pinnacle-era Topper drumming and Mick gee-tar.

Lifetimes 20/20 Video

http://www.clashcity.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=144

BR16ADE_R055E

"Last night I attended the Target Video show at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/film/FN17017). There was a lot of great footage from the '70s & early '80s (Dead Kennedys, Flipper, Black Flag, X, The Nuns, Avengers, The Mutants, Bush Tetras, Siouxsie & The Banshees, etc.), most of which I had never seen before. Target was selling t-shirts (I bought one) in the lobby, and on the back of the t-shirt are logos of bands Target filmed, including The Clash.

I asked Target Video's Joe Rees when and where he filmed The Clash. He replied: a couple of shows, including Geary Temple in San Francisco '79 and at the Target studio on Van Ness. I asked him if the Geary Temple footage was ever released on video in the early '80s, and he said "yes," but I've never heard of that release. One would think it would've showed up on bootleg videos/DVDs, on YouTube, etc., and also Graham doesn't mention the existence of the footage on BMC. It must've been available for a very limited time in '84 when Target Video started releasing videos. Anyway, I told Joe that I hope that Target Video's footage of The Clash will be released on DVD.

Target Video's site: http://www.targetvideo.net
Target Video's MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/targetvideo

The last time I saw Joe was in 2015. I recall him saying that he shot the footage while on the balcony, which was shaking a lot. The floor boards below were bouncing. As a result, the footage looks very shaky. He mentioned something about trying to fix the shaky footage. He and I are friends on FB. Maybe I should ask again."

The CLASH in San Francisco

The Clash played their first show in the US on February 7, 1979 at the Berkeley Community Theater. Bo Diddley opened for The Clash that night. On the following night, February 8th, The Clash played a benefit gig at for New Yooth in the Fillmore.

I have an original flyer from that show and will make copies of it for anyone that has other Clash flyers to trade. You can send me an email to mailto:jchensf@yahoo.com.

I was working for the sound company at UC Berkeley and was given a stack of flyers to post around campus. I just found them after almost 30 years. The Clash also did an album signing at the Tower Records on Durant. I got my album and record sleeve signed by both Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon. Years later, I also got Sandy Pearlman (who produced the album) to sign the record for me. I also found my ticket from the show ($5.50), three reviews from the newspapers, a listing of shows from Bill Graham Presents (The Clash, Elvis Costello, and The Police all within a month) and a newspaper clipping of Joe's death. The flyer is a very RARE document from The Clash's original assault on the United States.

We turned up the following night and Mick was delighted to find we were playing at the old Filmore West, a fine, ramshackle wooden building. The people running it were ramshackle as well. I warned the band about the Acid Test. Who better for a spiker than a star catch? The stage would not have passed our London health and safety man. Who cared? The joint was jumping as Coon muttered darkly about the ‘ramifications'. The lack of organization was made up for by enthusiasm. It was a astorming gig from the second the band ran on to the disintegrating stage. The Clash rocked out and the crowd was with them. Joe's delirium showed. He climbed from the stage into an opera box, waving and twitching.

Wheeling down the freeway later, we agreed we had don eit right, happily discussing our free show."

They had been in the San Francisco Bay Area earlier working on GEER

Clash City Collectors | facebook.com

The Only Band that Matters as they touched down in Berkeley, California! This wasn't the first date of the tour which happened in Vancouver, BC, Canada. But it was their first show ever in the USA.

They had been in the San Francisco Bay Area earlier working on GEER with Sandy Pearlman. Sandy Pearlman was a dear friend of mine and had some great stories about his time with The Clash.

He mixed the beginning of the tour and brought along some of his studio gear. He mixed the first half dozen shows and when he left, Mick Jones said "Well, there goes my guitar sound!"

The Clash were students in the recording studio and learned a lot from Sandy which led them to create London Calling. When The Clash hit the stage two things struck me. First, was the international flags as the backdrop. And second was the fury and sheer volume of the sound. The band was very tight and it was like a jet engine taking off.

Clash Tour US with Bo Diddley

The Clash Official | on February 7, 1979. | Facebook

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Adverts

Ticket, adverts

Tickets

Clash City Collectors | facebook.com

An original Ticket & great Back Stage Pass kindly shared by Johnny Kardash

Photos

Berkeley Community Theatre, Berkeley CA

It was designed in 1938 and construction began in 1941, but was not completed until 1950 due to delays from World War II. 1

The Art Deco-style theater has 3,491 seats, including a balcony section, and a large stage extended by an orchestra pit. 1 3

It is listed as a Berkeley Landmark (no. 179) since 1992 and is part of the Berkeley High School Campus Historic District and the Berkeley Historic Civic Center District. 1 3

The theater is known for hosting many notable musical acts over the decades, including Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, and Metallica with the San Francisco Symphony. 1 4

It also has a large Wurlitzer pipe organ, one of the largest and finest in existence, maintained by the Nor-Cal Theatre Organ Society. 1 4

The theater underwent renovations in the 2000s and 2020s to upgrade its aging systems and facilities.

From "A Riot of Our Own, Night and Day with The Clash"

By Johnny Green and Garry Barker

Joe: This is Frisco, right? That wild show we did for that new youth movement… a charity show for this youth organization. It was kind of like a squatters' beatnik neighbourhood scenario, this.

Bob: In San Francisco the group played a benefit gig for the homeless. There was a lot of trouble with Bill Graham over that - Graham was promoting the official San Francisco concert, but they had this alternative gig going on as well. It's interesting that the first show The Clash played in the USA was a benefit.

Caroline: Part of the policy in every town to which we went - and to persuade the record company of this was a nightmare - was to play a benefit gig for whichever youth group in the town needed a benefit, and then do the commercial gig. We tried to do it as often as possible, and get the local bands to play as well.

Mick: We played a benefit at the Temp, next door to Jim Jones's temple - the guy who went out to take Kool Aid with his followers in Guyana. There was lots of trouble with that, because Bill Graham didn't want us to do it. It was great that night.

When we first went to San Francisco, Joe and I, we went to that place where we played the benefit, and it was like the last vestiges of a real hippie night: with a little imagination you could see what it must have been like.

From "The Clash. Photographs by Bob Gruen"
By Bob Gruen

A Riot of Our Own pg132 & 136+

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Melody Maker review

Link or link

Clash concert provides both relevance and good music

Oakland Tribune - 3 March 1980
References this gig at Berkley

What a line up

Clash City Collectors | facebook.com

New Wave Rocks Into Berkeley

Clash City Collectors | facebook.com

The Clash Official | Facebook

The Clash Official | Facebook

Song Smiths | Facebook

PHOTOS: Berkeley

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Photos

Paul Simonon playing his '70s P-Bass that met it's doom on the iconic cover of 1979's London Calling. C. R. Ressmeyer, R. Ressmeyer

Photos Other

WE LOVE THE CLASH | facebook.com

The Clash at the Berkeley Community Theater, the band's first show in America, Berkeley, California, February 7, 1979

Paul Simonon playing his '70s P-Bass that met it's doom on the iconic cover of 1979's London Calling. R. Ressmeyer

Photos Other

THE CLASH ON PAROLE | Beekeley Community 79 | Facebook

Photos from gig courtesy of www.jneomarvin.com/
1.. 2.. 3..

Courtesy of www.jneomarvin.com

Photo 1-3: The Clash at the Berkely Community Centre
Photo 3: Topper Headon looking sleepy backstage at the Berkeley Community Theatre, along with Pearl E. Gates and some other characters.[photos 4-7 from the next night at the Geary Temple]

Setlist

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10	Complete Control I Fought the Law Jail Guitar Doors Drug Stabbing Time City of the Dead Safe European Home White Man In Hammersmith Palais Tommy Gun Clash City Rockers English Civil War