Debut US Tour

Fresh from recording at Wessex Studios the Rude Boy overdubs and the Cost of Living EP The Clash tour the States for the first time in the now historic Pearl Harbour tour. A band with a mission to “resuscitate a barely breathing US rock scene”, their target the “music to drive by” of Foreigner, Boston etc, etc.

Continuing problems with CBS meant they refused to finance a tour and their US CBS label, Epic reluctantly put up $30,000 and provided little promotion or back up. By way of illustration Epic called it the much less provocative Give ‘Em Enough Rope tour. Epic were horrified at the choice of Bo Diddley as support but The Clash united without Bernie and fired up were determined to do their first US tour their way. Rope had sold 50,000 copies already and 'The Clash' was then the largest selling US import.

The Clash played 9 concerts, and there are recordings of all but the first 2 in circulation.

Flying into Vancouver on January 30th they played a memorable warm up gig there the next night, which went down so well, they played 3 encores, and got canned off stage. Topper’s head was split open in 3 places and in the frenzy Joe split his arm open slashing his guitar strings. The cue for the famous Strummer guard of gaffer tape.

Onto the ex Dolly Parton bus and the long drive down to San Francisco and the least memorable gig of the tour at Berkeley Community Centre on February 7th. Joe “we shouldn’t have played here. It’s a university town. They’re boring snobs”. The energy went all one way with the audience polite and restrained. Billy Graham had the San Francisco rock scene tied up but New Youth, a fledgling organisation had been set up with the aim to keep ticket prices down and find places for new bands to play.

Hearing of this The Clash arranged, against manager Caroline Coon’s advice to play a benefit for them the next night. The venue was The Geary Temple [see poster below], an old synagogue next to the Fillmore. Sylvie Simmons in Sounds (link) wrote tickets were half the price of the Berkeley gig, with no seats in a “moth eaten synagogue, next door to Jim Jones People’s Temple, tacky but majestic, a great venue”. “We’re in church”, shouts Joe from the stage!

Epic

Epic were unhappy; this was not part of the official tour, so it was billed as “White Riot in the Fillmore with the best band ever direct from England”. An accurate description as The Clash were “electrifying” (Simmons), a storming gig from the second the band ran onto a disintegrating stage” (Johnny Green) and the best of the tour yet (The Clash). Joe was inspired, climbing from the stage into an opera box, waving and twitching manically.

Flyers

handbill / flyer

Fanzine

Poster

Link

"down in Hollywood"

The gig like all the Pearl Harbour tour blasts off with I’m So Bored With The USA, another explosive Clash set opener. Joe changes some of the lyrics to suit the location “down in Hollywood…”. All the performances are strong: Joe fired up and Mick inventive in his lead guitar work.

The Pearl Harbour tour has a punkier/r’n’b guitar feel than the more heavy rock Pearlman influenced sound of the Sort It Out tour. Joe inexplicably talks about “monkey wine, why do you whine” before an excellent Whiteman with an extended finale. Hate and War is now back in the set. Mick acknowledges “we’ve had a nice time in San Francisco” and Joe jokes “pay special attention to the guitarists fingers” as Mick plays the delicate slow intro to Capital Radio. This song is extended in a similar vein to the Cost of Living EP version they had recently recorded at Wessex Studios and is the highlight of the set. Joe mimics a record company exec/DJ giving advice on how he should sing.

Janie Jones is brilliantly intense and The Clash charge through to White Riot with the audience roaring their approval.

Did you go? What do you remember?

Info, articles, reviews, comments or photos welcome.
Please email blackmarketclash

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 CLASH in San Francisco

From “The Clash. Photographs by Bob Gruen”
By Bob Gruen

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.”

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.

French clipping US SanFran debut Clash Benefot

French

New York Rocker Gig Review

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.

More.... (text only)

Roadrunner : The Clash : Live in San Francisco

3 April 1979

Photos

Photos from gig courtesy of www.jneomarvin.com/
4.. 5.. 6.. 7..

More photos

Getty Images

Corbis has many excellent Roger Ressmeyer live photos credited to this gig.

4 photos above copyright Dave Seabury

Older graphics