The Clash Live - Finland - Turku, Ruisrock Festival - Saturday 4th August 1979

The main highlight is the only ever live outing for Four Horseman, which Joe introduces with "Ok the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse are quite tired and need a little drink.." The song has a different ending than the recorded version.

London Calling is also of interest as it's a song in development still; musically its nearing the finished article with Mick's guitar solo now in place since Notre Dame but lyrically there are still a number of differences, with "we should be grateful… the midnight shutdown" decipherable. Joe intro's it with " hope you've got your pens and notebooks ready, make sure you get all the wonderful lyrics!, this song is now gonna be called London's Burning"

Janie Jones is edited midway, restarting with the crowd shouting for an encore, so probably loses Garageland and maybe London's Burning.

@bgrrrlie - Youtube - I was there and most probably very close to the person who filmed, as my photos are from the same angle.

@annduroj - Funny. its a picture of me in there. I am usually behind the camera.

Tom Lawery - The Clash filled in for Johnny Winter. They didn't want to take their own gear so they had Johnny Green rent equipment for the one day. Did they rent the equipment from the band ABBA (who wasn't at the festival) and somehow get it to Finland and if so how? [BMC: Abba hae a Clash poster displayed from 1977] I read it in Marcus Gray’s book but wanted to see if anyone could corroborate it. Thanks and “You know what they said? Well some of it was true”

Tapo Leppänen - This was the number one story for me on that Ruisrock. I was right there in front of the stage and it was one of my best gigs.

Kari Marjanen - Facebook - We were backstage before the show. We were wondering about the oscilloscope of a skittaroudar. Joe put the band's beers around for fans. Topper warmed up/stretched for a long and hard time. One of the road drivers was in the closet in Turku. A memorable gig despite all the problems the band had.

Tomi Arvas - I was there. This is where it all started in 1979. Foreign performers: The Clash (UK), Graham Parker & The Rumour (UK), Steel Pulse (UK) and Bram Tchaikovsky (UK). Finnish performers: Clown Million & 1980 and Oksala & Storm Band.

Markku Mäikkä Tuomi - 79 was a good set up. First time in Ruisrock, fence fell down and rock played. The Clash and the Clown

kalevi: I was there and I'm quite sure that The Clash also played "London's burning" because I still remember Joe's quick introduction between songs" That was London burning, now this one's called London calling" and all the awe of hearing an instant classic there and then for the first time! kalevi.pollari[a]yle.fi

Dan Gniewecki: Topper was amazed that everybody he met in Finland were Swedish. Hence the message.

Zäta Zettergren - facebook.com - On August 4, 1979, I saw the Clash play the Ruisrock festival in Turku, Finland. At the party afterwards, all members of the band wrote messages to the readers of my fanzine (Innocent). For these messages they used a pencil and now 40 years on the text had begun to fade. So I printed a couple of pictures from the concert + backstage (by Tuija Hart & Ann Duroj) and added my festival ticket to the collage. Then made a laminate to preserve the messages and the collage forever.

[Extract] But it had to be cash. We owed money to banks, and all accounts had been frozen pending a deal with former manager Bernie Rhodes. The Clash's appearance at the Russrock Festival, Finland, had been set up by Ian Flooks. He had recently set up his own agency, Wasted Talent, and was touting for trade, with a watchful eye on the managerless Clash. I had to impress on him that we were not interested in cheques or banker's drafts, just British pound notes - up front, in the hand.

I conducted lengthy negotiations from the wall-mounted telephone in the corridor of Wessex Studios. Eventually the fee was agreed. That left just one more problem - equipment.

All the Clash's gear had been set up in the studio for the recording session. There wasn't time to dismantle it and send it to Finland. And anyway it had taken three days to get the right sound, and we just couldn't afford the cost in studio time to go through the whole process again.

From phone calls to Scandinavia, I achieved a personal coup through Thomas Johansen, Abba's road manager, who agreed that we could use Abba's PA and sound equipment. Abba were the only group which had ever made me star-struck. I antici- pated the tingle of excitement when I would plug my jack-plug into Agnetha's amp As it turned out, I received more than a tingle.

We flew to Finland with the minimum crew. Rob Collins, a sound engineer whom we had used before, was called in at short notice, and Jeremy Green, the tape operator at Wessex Studios, was recruited on the spot to look after the guitars and amps. With the lift-off of the plane we all felt the lifting of pressure on the band. A kids-out-of-school atmosphere took over, which lasted for the whole trip. We were away from the pressures of recording and our money problems, with the prospect of earning cash-in-hand. We were on holiday!

The festival site just added to the holiday feeling. The changing rooms were some caravans behind the stage, next to a beautiful lake, with fir trees and sunshine. It was a long way from the streets of Notting Hill and the garages of Camden Town the subject matter of most Clash songs. And the band were playing outdoors, in the daytime - almost unknown for them. The Clash had second billing at the festival, after Graham Parker and the Rumour. They hadn't played support for any band since the Sex Pistols on the Anarchy in the UK tour of December 1976. We knew Graham Parker and his gang, and they couldn't understand it: 'How come you're playing support?

How much are you getting paid?'

We played dumb and giggled up our sleeves.

Shortly before the Clash were due to play, the band asked: 'Where's the money?' 'It's OK. It's safe back at the hotel, said the organizers, surprised at the demand.

'No, we want it now, in our hands, before we go on.

I was dispatched to the hotel with one of the Finnish promoters to fetch the money. He found it hard to believe that I was standing in the hotel room counting out £7500 in sterling, all wrapped in £100 bundles. This wasn't the normal way of doing business. The festival was funded by the Finnish government, under a youth arts development programme, so it was unlikely that they would have paid us short. But we had learnt from long experience not to trust anyone. Satisfied that it was all there, I bundled the notes into my atomic pink flight case and rushed back to the stadium.

'We've got the cash, lads. On you go!'

The band prepared to run on-stage when I noticed a buzz from the PA. I rushed on to connect a loose jack-plug, grabbed a mike-stand with my other hand and performed a backward flip across the stage as an electric current took a short cut across my chest. The crowd went mad with excitement. They thought my acrobatics were part of the act. I went mad. Grabbing the microphone, I yelled abuse about incompetent Finnish technicians and generally called for the whole of Scandinavia to plummet into an obscene hell, led by the cheering folk in the audience. They loved this even more, and as I went backstage to resume my grip on the case full of cash, the Clash went on-stage to a huge roar. The band put on a good show, fuelled by the Finnish vodka they'd demanded backstage before the set.

After the set the holiday mood continued. We watched Graham Parker's band from the stage wings, shouting encouragement and taking the piss. I had a cheap camera, and went on-stage and asked Parker to smile for a photo mid-song.

He would sing a line and then say, 'Fuck off, fuck off', to me out of the corner of his mouth.

After the concert all the bands and their entourages went to a huge banquet in the dance hall of the hotel. Everyone was working hard at getting wrecked - Finnish beer is state- licensed, and labelled with one, two or three stars according to strength. We went for three-star. As was my way, I got more wrecked than most, and fell into a stupor, still with a dead-man's vice-like grip on the case of cash.

Eventually Joe and Paul decided to carry me to the bedroom. They told me the next day that they couldn't lift me and had had to drag me across the floor to the lift. My back had the carpet burns to prove it. As Joe passed Graham Parker, pulling me and the pink cash bag, Parker had shouted to him: 'Who is that cunt?'

'He's our road manager, said Joe. 'He's looking after us.

Waiting at Turku airport for our return flight, we were still in high spirits. We felt like we had got away with a bank heist. As photographer Pennie Smith said later: 'Being on the road with the Clash is like a commando raid performed by The Bash Street Kids. During the flight I sat with the briefcase on my lap and handed out wads of cash, making a real game of it.

'One for you, one for you, one for me ...'

Everyone stuffed wedges of notes into their pockets, to the shocked astonishment of the other passengers and flight staff. We had cash at last and wanted to flaunt it. We had bypassed our creditors and the banks, and had been fellow conspirators throughout the gig. Little did Graham Parker and the Rumour know that although we had played support, we had been paid more than them.

We changed planes at Stockholm, and each of us bought a copy of Playboy for Tony Sanchez's exposÈ of Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones. Mick Jones was a 'Keef' lookalike, and he knew it, but his attempts to live a Keef-like lifestyle were better hidden from the public gaze. He leant across and swiped me across the back of the head with his rolled-up Playboy. 'Don't you ever do the same thing to us, Johnny, he said.

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