The Clash: The Fillmore, San Francisco
Howie Klein, New York Rocker, March 1979

EXCEPT FOR THE fact that they're probably the best performing band around, there's something almost superfluous to Clashness about the band's shows. Wait a minute  that don't sound right. Ummm... How about: All the socio-political trappings that surround everything the Clash do is rendered nearly superfluous in the awesome light of a Clash gig. No, that's not it either. Uh... oh, yeah: Exactly 15 yearsto the day after the Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time (February 7,1964), the Clash did their first American; show at the Berkeley Community Theater.

The Pearl Harbour tour bus arrived in San Francisco from Vancouver on February 7, amid boundless anticipation, excitement and controversy. Although Mick Jones and Joe Strummer had previously spent a month in San Fran working on Give 'Em Enough Rope with producer Sandy Pearlman, this was going to be the first chance local fans would have to see 'em live. And they were prepared. The album had been Number One on the local new wave charts aor three months straight. Local radio stations KSAN, KSJO and KALX were playing the album with the kind of regularity usually reserved for Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles. Rock super-promoter Bill Graham  the only major concert promoter in the US to give strong and consistent suppor to the new wave  had booked the largest hall the Clash would play anywhere in North America, a 3,600-seater. And if the record were selling throughout America the way its selling in the Bay Area, it would be gold. So you figure the end of this review can just say something like "the band played great, the audience flipped, everybody was happier than pigs in shit, etc."  right? Wrong.

First off, the band gets involved with New Youth, a group of mostly idealistic (like starry-eyed at best, and in some cases, simply psycho) young fans who believe in non-profit punk rock gigs. So they got the Clash to commit themselves to doing a benefit for them at a deserted Jewish synagogue nestled between the Peoples' Temple and the Old Fillmore in the heart of Frisco's Black ghetto. A cheap ticket price and the opportunity to see the band in an unseated funky venue  as opposed to Berkeley's formal, rather intimidating atmosphere  caused a dramatic slump in ticket sales in what should have been the band's biggest and fastest sell-out. As it turned out, the Clash came pretty near to selling out anyway  as well as packing over 2,000 kids into the synagogue the next night  but not before a lot of rock-biz upset between the Graham Organization, Epic Records and Tapes, the William Morris booking agency and Caroline Coon, "sort of" the Clash's manager.

OK  first show. Opening band Pearl Harbor and the Explosions were fucking great. They are great. Pearl was the rock 'n' roll end of Leila and the Snakes, and now that she's free of that cabaret-mold she's been sockin' it to audiences like crazy. The crowd loved her  except for the "One Hundred Punks" (from Billy Idol's song), who stayed in the lobby until the Clash took the stage. The Hundred also hated and ignored Bo Diddley, who was quite boring and... urn, let's say, placid. (Mick Jones says he was great in Vancouver, and I saw the show in L.A. two nights later where Bo showed he was still a rock 'n' roller.) Anyway, just before the Clash City Rockers get up to play, their imported English DJ, puts on There's A Riot Goin' On and history was made at the Berkeley Community Theater  the entire orchestra section abandoned their seats and rushed into the aisles and up to the stage. That's a no-no  but I half the security guards joined the masses (like the Shah's imperial bodyguard joining the Ayattolah's forces in that same week) and the one's who didn't join were at least cool enough not to stand in the way of the inevitable.

How could they open with anything other than 'Complete Control'? Now remember, the song ain't on the album and it's not really even available in the US, but, lemme tell ya, as soon that burst of deliverance come through the sound system, you'da thought everyone in the room was hearing the #1 radio hit in the country. They followed it up with 'I Fought the Law'  so much for album promotion tours! In all, they played 19 songs (7 from Give 'Em Enough Rope) and re-introduced the city of Berkeley to the essential spirit of rock 'n' roll. No one could accuse the Clash of being just another rock 'n' roll band. The intensity alone  without even getting into the sheer quality of the performance  alternates between invigorating and stupefying. Little Richard was great; so were the Stones  but there is nothing like the Clash.

This was undoubtably one of the best shows ever seen in the Bay Area. The people I spoke to who had' already seen the band in the UK  Sandy Pearlman, KSAN's Beverley Wilshire and Rolling Stone's Mikal Gilmore  agreed with my own assessment: the Berkeley show rated a 7 on a 10 scale in relation to' Clash shows, but a 9.9 in relation to rock 'n' roll in general. The next night they were predictably better  infinitely better. They were far more relaxed and had apparently mastered the intricacies of their sound system. Let's give it an 8.5 on the Clash scale. (Same with L.A. the next night.)

The band played, brilliantly and energetically everywhere and the only problems were technical  nothing a little more financial support (from Epic?) couldn't solve. At the Berkeley show, guitars kept going out of tune, which caused the band to shy away from the blitzkreig approach that normally leaves their audiences totally enveloped in the CLASH EXPERIENCE. Still, it was the best rock show most people had ever seen, so what the heck...

� Howie Klein, 1979