Ian Dury & The Blockheads, The Clash and Matumbi:

A Concert for the People of Kampuchea

Paul Rambali, NME, 5 January 1980

It could only be cold comfort to them, but this isn’t the first time rock ‘n’ roll has played a distant part in the lives of the people of Cambodia, as it was called then. Let’s hope it’s the last time it has to close ranks against such madness.

In the summer new crops will be harvested. Till then a 1,000 tons of food and supplies will be airlifted into Kampuchea each day. A 1,000 tons a day. If you pause to think of the scale of that operation and then add up the proceeds of four nights of top British rock attractions, the perspective is alarming. They’re four nights that will probably only begin to pay for four days.

The second night promised Matumbi, Ian Dury and a mystery guest… fresh from playing the Acklam Hall over Christmas and making the third dry-run for their imminent tour — The Clash!

Dury’s audience are a rum lot. A surprise appearance by The Clash would send the average crowd of new age rock fans into rapture, or so you’d think. But Dury’s truly iconoclastic music — albeit dressed as vaudeville — seems to draw people who might only go to two gigs a year and only then if they were both Blockheads’ gigs

They are less into the traditional fury of The Clash and more keen to bounce and sway to Matumbi and fall about when the chief Blockhead hits them with his slapstick or lets drop a bit fruity verbiage.

The Clash threw hungry, slack-jowled ‘street’ shapes all over the stage and tried to roar but couldn’t steal the headliner’s thunder. Newly invigorated by either their absence from British boards or by London Calling, or perhaps just fighting back after their Boxing Day gig ended in bad spirits, they shook as much rage out of the songs as their myth could stand.

That myth will be the end of them! The myth of The Clash as urban guerillas with guitars for guns and brilliantine for berets. The more they endure it and the less they live up to it the more I like them. If we’re going to have heroes let’s have human heroes, not just handy vessels on which to project fantasies of revolution as style.

People doing this have made the Clash turn in on themselves — as you might doubt yourself and seek affirmation somehow were you elevated to such giddy heights — and make an indulgent, personal album that ironically exposes all the fallacies of the myth as well as high-lighting its realities. London Calling is a naked record made by a group with a lead guitarist of tireless vanity who writes dippy, sentimental words and a strong, idealistic leader who likes reggae, rhythm ‘n’ blues and George Orwell, and makes valuable propaganda against the clampdown.

Ask them if they are the catalyst that sparks the revolution, though, and they’d have to laugh.

On this particular night the group played ‘Clash City Rockers’, ‘Brand New Cadillac’, ‘Safe European Home’, ‘Jimmy Jazz’ — at which point Mickey Gallagher joined them on organ — ‘Clampdown’, ‘Guns Of Brixton’, ‘Train In Vain’, ‘Wrong ’Em Boyo’, ‘White Man’, ‘Stay Free’ and ‘Janie Jones’.

It was a strain. They always work hard on stage but it’s a long time since they’ve been in a position where they had to. ‘Armagideon Time’ and ‘London Calling’ replaced their erstwhile finale of the seat-smashing song and the first round of what may turn out to be many over the coming months went to The Clash on points.

Ian Dury was wearing his Uncle Jam hat for the evening, taking a cue from the Clinton revue he admires and adding a revolving jamboree of musicians from the supporting cast to enhance the uniqueness of the occasion as well as the confusion on stage.

It appears Mr Dury is floundering a bit these days. His musical director has deserted, leaving him to wonder what a key is if it isn’t for opening doors. His last album and single disappointed him as much and probably for the same reasons as it disappointed his fans, who were very slow to respond to the few newer numbers included and didn’t seem to mind the exclusion of ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’ one bit. And the novel impact Dury had has inevitably waned. Some people even think he was really B.A. Robertson all along.

All of which is rather fickle and trivial when you confront the phenomenon of the man himself.

A not very handsome ageing cripple who shouldn’t be doing this anyway on account of his weak heart, obsessed to the point of lunacy, who comes on stage in front of a Christmas family audience of little kids held aloft, teenagers being teenagers and grown-ups thinking it’s a bit loud after all, saying words that make no sense but still make people laugh, and then lurches into ‘Blackmail Man’ and ‘Blockheads’ — some of the most violent and demented music I’ve ever heard!

The next two songs — from Do It Yourself — Dury performs with his back to the audience, out of self-effacement, shame, sheer perversity, or none of these. He turns around in time to catch the cheer that greets ‘What A Waste’ — which brings home again the superlative musical muscle of The Blockheads. ‘Clever Trevor’ ushers in Dennis Bovelle and the rest of Matumbi and allows Davey Payne — man of the match — to lay on some of his own special brand of ‘kitchen sink drama’.

‘Sweet Gene Vincent’ then allows Mick Jones to show off some fresh poses.

"This one’s got four chords in it, alright Michael?" jibes Dury.

Topper Headon joins in the mayhem and Matumbi and Jones leave for ‘Hit Me’, then Joe Strummer and Pearl Gates aid the ascent into ‘Twenty Flight Rock’. Two Kilburns’ songs and ‘My Old Man’ bring proceedings to a sudden, unexpected halt.

The obvious tension between the demands of the audience and the need to move on from New Boots And Panties was lifted by the crazy circus on stage but still palpably under-cut the atmosphere. We swung from rapt attention to distraction and back like children at a circus.

The encore was slow in coming. When it came, Dury announced that there’s a song that’s been dogging him wherever he went for the last two and a half years –" and this is the very last time The Blockheads are going to play this particular item. If you still want to sing along after that, you can."

No prizes for guessing that the song was ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and that the reading wasn’t what you’d call inspired.

Reflecting on Dury’s present fate made me feel curiously greedy. We should be grateful. If Ian Dury never has another hit and goes back to the pubs he will still be Ian Dury and that will still be more than anyone could bargain for.

© Paul Rambali, 1980