Page 8 - The Diamondback - arts & leisure

Punk music lives!

The Clash brings surly presence, pure energy to Ritchie Coliseum

Joe Strummer, guitarist and vocalist for the Clash, is not nice to his guitars or his vocal cords. Only three songs into the group's concert at Ritchie Coliseum Saturday night, he had angrily ripped apart both with his frenzied, driven style of rock 'n' roll.

Before a jam-packed audience of the curious and the crazed, the Strummer-led Clash, one of England's few surviving original punk-rock bands, overcame horrendous acoustics, steamroom-like heat, and several delays to deliver an exciting and powerful performance.

Delay upon delay added to the chaos of the mob-like scene at Ritchie as the audience had to first wait until nearly 8:30 p.m. to be admitted to the show originally scheduled for 8 p.m., and then sit (or stand) through two less-than-inspired opening acts.

Four Out of Five Doctors, a four-man new wave group, opened the show and roused the partisan Clash crowd on only a couple of numbers, most notably "Daddy Drives a U.F.O." They left after 30 minutes with no encore. Then, Screaming Jay Hawkins and his band of blues musicians came on to another luke-warm reception. Hawkins screamed and crooned and his talented band wailed and thumped, but they too were dismissed by the restless crowd without an encore.

Then, after another lengthy delay, the Clash hit the stage at 11 p.m. to tremendous applause and opened with "Safe European Home," a track from their latest album which deals with a trip the band took to Jamaica last year. As the lyrics indicate ("Sitting here in my safe European home, I don't want to go back there again"), the trip wasn't what they expected.

Strummer, wearing a pink shirt laden with mock medals, was flanked by Paul Simonon, the band's bass player, and Mick Jones, the lead guitarist, looking lean and mean in their black leather.

Jones was especially surly in appearance, his black hair cut short and slicked back Robert Gordon-fifties style. Nicky Headon thrashed away at the drums, providing an awesome back-beat as the others pounded chord after chord.

With one tune safely under its belt, the band immediately followed with "I'm So Bored With the U.S.A.," a crowd-pleasing oldie.

Following this, the group launched into several unrehearsed songs. Disappointingly, none of these contained the uplifting rock thunder of the earlier numbers, and the response lagged noticeably. Still, the band was entertaining, with Strummer incoherently growling his message and Jones and Simonon hardly standing still as they cris-crossed the stage.

It was during these songs that Strummer snapped a string on the guitar, which sported a sticker that said "Ignore Alien Orders." He was given a second instrument, also carrying a sticker, which read "Killer" and he was off again, beating the strings senseless with his destructive style of musicianship.

During each song, the band was all over the small stage, switching microphones and positions, leaning and leaping, and generally behaving like caged animals.

Near the end of their planned set, Strummer victimized another guitar, its bridge destroyed by his frenetic pounding. He heaved it to an off-stage roadie and went on without an instrument, only a hoarse growl left for a voice. Jones and Simonon helped with the vocals throughout the concert, and each performed one solo.

The band was summoned quickly on stage for an encore, and, saving the best for last, they performed "What's My Name," a song about an identity crisis, and their most revealing tune, "Garageland," with the line: "We're a garage band, We come from garageland." While most bands are constantly trying to transcend their lowly beginnings, the Clash prefers to accept and even glorify them.

With their second encore, the Clash almost literally brought the house down. With the sound system turned beyond its limit, the band ended with "White Riot." Strummer, defiantly twirling a shredded American flag, darted about the stage, at one point jumping on startled Mick Jones' back. By this time, the sound system was almost shot. The guitar was inseparable from Strummer's strained vocals, and the bass and drums seemed to be a constant wall of muffled pounding.

But all this didn't seem to matter to the packed house. Despite the flaws in sound, the crowd was happy with the evening's show. The Clash is not a virtuoso act by any means, but for visual and audio power, they are hard to beat. As a punk rocker dressed in ripped leather and safety pins said as he left the coliseum, "It's like placing your head into an electric socket."

-Roman Porter