Impossible Mission Tour
last updated May 2005
updated April 2024 photos, articles, tickets
Audio 1
full gig / better than boot LP - Sound 3 - time 1hr 47mins - low? - tracks 27
Radio Clash
Audio 2 - New Speedway LP edited
Sound 2.5 - time 39min - lp/m - tracks 12
Radio Clash
Audio 3
full gig / better than boot LP - Sound 3 - time 1hr 47mins - low? - tracks 27
Safe Euroepan Home has some serious digital problems
Radio Clash
Audio 4 - Impossible Mission LP
edited - Sound 3 - tracks 11
back stage interview - Mick interviewed
Two audience recordings were made of the concert.
Controradio recording
The first recording according to Ernesto was made by Controradio (www.controradio.it) who sponsored the show and pressed the Impossible Mission Live in Italy bootleg LP (wrongly stating Bologna 81), which circulated from the early 80’s. This now fairly rare LP has 11 of the 27 songs played.
The later New Speedway LP also has 11 songs from the concert although a number are different but has poorer sound.
It also tacks on 3 songs from Paris October 78 from the Clash On Tour LP that are poorer in quality than the full concert recording. Full details on these LP’s can be found on Jeff Dove’s Clash On Stage website.
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Complete tape from this first source
A complete concert tape from this source has better sound than these LP’s. It is a reasonable audience recording with decent clarity, little distortion and some stereo separation. It is rather a thin sound though, lacking depth and suffers echo from the distance of the recorder to the stage. Bass is almost buried in the mix but other instrumentation and vocals come through OK. It is probably one or two copies off the master. There is an edit in Bankrobber, which loses the last third of the song.
2nd complete audience recording
A tape from a second source recording has the best sound of all, although this is maybe a matter of personal choice. It too is a copy or two off the master and so suffers from a drop in clarity and crispness.
It’s winning characteristic is it has a more exciting dynamic sound which captures the brilliance of the performance the best. Mick’s excellent guitar playing is heard very well indeed, bass is quite good and vocals are clearer and less distant. On the negative side there is considerable distortion that gives a somewhat shrill sound at times.
Chat near the taper may be a problem to some but actually adds to the atmosphere of an historic concert and is not detrimental enjoyment-wise. An upgrade to the master would be very welcome indeed as the master recording was clearly a very good one.
Bankrobber is complete on this source but an edit on The Leader loses about 20 seconds. By adding The Leader from the first source to the second source you have the complete concert in the best sound. A very enjoyable bootleg with a sound that is good enough to really appreciate the excellence of The Clash’s performance.
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Bootleg details can be found here Visit these websites for a comprehensive catalogue of unofficially released CD's and Vinyl (forever changing) or If Music Could Talk for all audio recordings Discogs - PDF - webpage For all recordings go to If Music Could Talk / Sound of Sinners
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The last night of the tour?
Firenze was the last night of the Impossible Mission Tour and was probably the best performance of them all. Joe interviewed after the show said “There was great energy tonight. I can assure you not all nights incite us and push us like what happened on stage tonight. You (Florence) can consider yourself fortunate”
Two audience recordings circulate of the concert, neither of which can compare to the excellence of the Milano recording but are of good enough quality to document and convey the brilliance of The Clash’s performance in front of 15-20,000 people.
Poster
Ticket
Ernesto de Pascale
Journalist and radio broadcaster, Ernesto de Pascale saw the concert from stage side, took photos and back stage later interviewed Joe for the Italian music paper Il Mucchio Selvaggio. A vote of thanks to Ernesto for his support, information and offer of the use of the slide he took at the concert. He has also given permission for the use of his article about the concert and the Il Mucchio Selvaggio article both posted on his excellent web site www.ilpopolodelblues.com.
Below: Journalist Ernesto de Pascale
Full transaltion of Ernesto's review
Many thanks also to Ezio Fara (Evair) for the following translation of Ernesto’s article;
From the concert in Piazza Maggiore of the Clash last year in Bologna to today a lot of things have changed in my life. To do it briefly, at the stadium in Florence, May 23rd 1981, to accompany the Clash in that 110 meters that separates the exit of the backstage area, to the stage, together with Kosmo Vinyl there are few others and me.
The day starts soon with the arrival of my Roman friends and the meeting with the new colleagues of "Il Mucchio Selvaggio" the magazine for which I write: Max Stefani, Maurizio Bianchini, Federico Guglielmi and then Giorgio Battaglia and Stefano Battioni. In the stadium the atmosphere pre-show is fervent. Carlo Massarini takes me to the great gate of the covered VIP area with his beige spider (convertible car) and candidly asks to park inside, under the covered area (permission that will be granted him), the promoter has packed the public onto the sides of the stadium that it is a unique breath at 20 o'clock. People are pressed, crowded, the language that you more frequently hear speaking, besides the Florentine, is the Roman while I disappear down.
In the backstage Simonon is playing the bass plugged into a juke box that he sends at maximum volume an old 7" of blue beat, rock steady and early dub, his bass is amplified by the vintage object, very beautiful, powerful. A pungent smell of grass pervades the place and I count something like 200 cans of beer opened. The followers of the group are vast, colored, shapeless and look like people that are participating to a party. The hoarse and powerful voice of Strummer is heard wherever you are in the corridors. I understand that certain business is in the hands of the black [Ray Jordan] that tours with the band while other roles in the entourage are diversified for social classes that escape me for the moment. It is in short a messy coordination that, I reflect, it has to succeed in sustaining a camp of the kind however, where the expenses are wasted rapidly.
The extreme side of the stage that looks at the stadium curve is delimited by an undulated that also acts as a scenography. With the music of Morricone's Mezzogiorno di Fuoco the lights extinguish and on the Stadium of Florence a tomb atmosphere falls, the curve is the first one to applaud when sees the band appear. We go up on stage one by one and we locate ourselves to the side of the area of action, them near their assigned positions. What I see from here gives me goose bumps. I am so proud now to be in Florence, and it seems as though I know all of the thousands of people gathered here today.
After the last notes of the recorded track, Strummer who welcomes with a simple "hello" followed by a more vernacular and dragged "Heee!” Then flows the hard notes of "London Calling.
There is a compactness, a power, a sturdiness that there was not there only one year ago, the group has assumed an international status and the authoritativeness that comes with being a band of international rock stars. What I have seen in backstage, it makes me to think, has to be only the point of a well deep iceberg. "London Calling" is played continuously by the Florence rock radio and not only rock, at the Casablanca (local club) it fills the floor, we played also it in "Combination Sound" on Radio One, without any problem.
The people he is loosening, the song has a special meaning for each of us, even now, some are euphoric, and others embrace each other, some raise aloft the closed fist. It is a hard powerful concert this of the Clash, that leaves those surprised that had seen them only one year ago in Bologna.
Massarini photographs from some wherever with his usual as if he was the master of the world, goes up and down from the stage as if the band was there just for for him and smokes spliffs that he offers to all from a packet of American cigarettes while me, from the left of the stage, I am a stones throw from Simonon. I prefer to hold the position for fear of losing it and continue to take pictures with my Olympus.
"Guns of Brixton", "Charlie Don't Surf", "Magnificent Seven", "One More Time", "Brand New Cadillac", "Jimmy Jazz" and "I Fought The Law", inevitable encore, are some of the tracks played by the band, and they will end up on the rare bootleg LP "The Clash - Impossible Mission - Live in Italy."
Sound mixer does not limit himself even for a moment from the use of echo and the concert is characterized by a shameless and Jamaican use of the unity of reverberation (dub). The effect creates a kind of box within which the public will spend the whole show that the drift punk makes even sharper.
At the end of the show, the band bid their farewells and leave the stage and we are forbidden to follow them. We will just reach them after some time in the backstage area where there is really room everybody. Simonon is lying on a bunk for the massages, while Strummer (the bassman will reach us shortly after) and me begin a long friendly recorded interview, made even more friendly by a spliff of "true" grass that Kosmo Vinyl prepared even before the beginning of the show.
Some bottles of wine are offered, but for the Clash to drink them is a fact of quantity more than of quality and then they seem to me all too drunken to really understand. Jones is surrounded by some girls and will not talk to many people. The party atmosphere goes on for a long time. The show will leave a deeper mark still than that one in 1980 on the dawning Florentine rock and it will be quoted as an example of strength and temperance for punk that by now is called new wave.
I won't meet anymore Joe Strummer in person again but I like to remember him sat in front of me offering me his "spliff", keen to speak to me of new bands, of his first band the 101'ers, of old glories, of Gene Vincent, of pub rock in London before the advent of punk. Of the miracle of Rock'n'roll, in short.
Il Mucchio Selvaggio
Ernesto’s backstage photos are included in the excellent 6 page Italian article which has reviews and interviews from Milano, San Remo and Firenze 2.5mb PDF ... text only
Ernesto's interviews with the band
Translation (a literal one - apologies for any errors), of Ernesto and colleagues interviews with Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon after the Firenze concert 23/5/81;
Going straight to the interview I jump past the afternoon press conference, the soundcheck, the set order, of the curious in search of trophies, the commotion, the 20,000 persons in an indecent space for 15,000.
The place is the dressing room of the Stadio Comunale. The room is full. To the centre a table is prepared, a ghetto blaster that plays music no news, a wild looking blond young woman. Strummer is, against all the predictions, available to talk about music.
With Joe Strummer
Q I imagine that you are very tired after a concert like this, but the first question pertains to Brixton, seeing that is from where you come..
J.S. You do not have to interview me. That girl with the white trousers. She left Brixton last week.
Q I would like to know something more about the various hypotheses on the title of Magnificent Seven. Someone said that it was written in reference to Springsteen and his E Streeters?.
JS You’re joking? I do not understand what rubbish you’re speaking. It is entirely fake. We wrote it thinking about the film with Yul Brunner.
Q Can you say something about the new song that you presented in concert?
JS It is called This Radio is Clash. It will be a 12-inch. We recorded it but we are not very satisfied. When we play it in concert we notice ourselves that there have been certain timely changes, it modifies. You know how it happens, no?
Q I read from somewhere that in this 1981 you want to make still another album?
JS Maybe, but this time to be streamline! Sandinista continues to sell and it has not been a good idea to go out with another record. Besides in three LP’s there is a lot to listen to!
Q How did it go in America your album?
JS Not badly. Not number one, but it still sells there.
Q Can you explain what happened with the English journalists?
JS In England a lot of journalists want to be rock-stars. A lot of them want to secure themselves the favours of a new band that they then support to the moment they become big. For example when we made the last LP a lot warned us that it would not go well and that they would have to slag it down.
Q They said that you are changed, are different?
JS We came up with Punk, it was good, we were with the first. But, it’s all changed. It is all finished. They wanted punk to stay the same, they wanted safety and with us you do not find it. We change, evolve ourselves.
Q Was Washington Bullets after the election of Reagan?
JS Now it is found something in the intestine! It is found in a casino, but it is Haig that I direct all. When Reagan was shot, Haig was about to crown himself King of America, like a species of clown. It is all out of control, around who commands a greater control would have to be us, species aside of the people. The song now regains more meaning.
Q The band should write Vatican Bullets?
JS It is an insanity to shoot the Pope.
Q When you write a song on a specific subject, for example a truly English event, and know that not all will understand, do you not have some doubts?
JS In the Bible there is a sentence that says: I cannot see the light in my eyes, if my senses are obscured by the filth. This is really true. I write lyrics that please me without worrying about others. Words that could not be understood in Palermo, Tokyo, and Egypt. Now I am experiencing it.
Q Tonight was your third concert in a row after an innumerable number of others. Unknown people that for two hours comes approached from the musical message of the band. That has some meaning for you?
JS After a show like tonight I feel like being in the trenches under a larger weight of me. I did not choose to play in a place like this. In England normally we play before 3000 persons. Tonight it was like something out of Apocalypse Now!
Q The music you played on the stage seems now to go out from one record. The songs are all the same force. Is it the precise motive?
JS Simply that live we are always we Four. You see, for example in Magnificent 7 we can lap ourselves. In that song we are 16! In concert we are always alone, just ourselves. There are no keyboards and the music is reduced always to an always-equal power.
Q Energy, certainly. What is your secret for maintaining the energy?
JS Lately I look not to drink and not to smoke to support the voice. Certainly when you are hours in the coach and journeys are continuous And it is easy to fall in to some periods of depression
Q It seems to me with respect to the concert last year in Bologna that today there was more energy.
JS We were fortunate for how much pertains this date. After Milan and San Remo here we played better. We arrived, we saw the town and considered that this is the last show before we leave for New York, where we will play a week at the Bonds Club, and we were relaxed. There was much energy tonight. I assure you that not all nights incite us and push like what happened on stage tonight. You can consider yourself fortunate.
Q By the way of New York and of the Clubs, you do not believe that is a lot to the fashion?
JS If we should talk about fashion, then we speak of Italy where I saw the true Mods. Here you all have style and not only for the manner of clothes. To New York is class but only to certain levels, in the clubs.
Q The impression that it is extracted from Sandinista is that your influences come from listening to many types of music.
JS Is true. I have listened to music since I was 12. With the first LP and punk, we left behind this good habit. Then since Give Em Enough Rope we again started to use our ears. I do not know why I should not listen to Ray Charles or whoever?
Q Is it true that the band should have played in Rome?
JS Unfortunately it did not happen - something that our manager could explain, problem with organisation. We regret it
Q But you are pleased with the life that you have?
JS Certainly I am. It pleases me.
Q And what did you think of some of the kids that were here tonight?
JS They did not want us more to go away. Perhaps they wanted to go entirely crazy.
Ernesto's intreview with Paul Simonon. He is found in the company of a black girl [Pearl Harbour].
Q Mickey Dread says that you are one of the best bass players in reggae?
PS That pleases me. When I began to listen to reggae I was a boy and I went to hear the reggae in the clubs of the type of Rock Steady like Desmond Dekker. I remember myself then that about five years ago it was on a jukebox and I begun to learn to play along to the records.
Q Who are the most capable musicians for this type of music? Does it depend on a special feeling?
PS I would say no. I have a bag of influences like rhythm and blues and James Brown particularly. Brown had a brilliant bass player.
Q Is it difficult to play in a reggae style?
PS It is difficult because it is a lot of work to replenish, to give the motion. The first time that I went on stage with the band was only eight weeks after I began to play. I learnt through practice and experience and effort.
Q A lot of people in music, say its just a type of entertainment, it cannot change the world. What do you think?
PS Perhaps not change the world, but music can change the attitudes of people. You understand?
Q What do you think now about Guns of Brixton?
PS Brixton is at the centre of a bloody situation. A place with many black people. A ghetto. For example you cannot take an appointment in the place because of the police. Too much pressure, too much electricity in the air. The people fight.
There's a footnate to Pauls Interview
Clash Florence article credited to the hunchbacked. This impressionistic piece gives little information about the concert itself. Paul was not happy at the press conference before the concert and is reported to have said “often I say some things and then I find the writers changed what I say to something I wouldn’t dream of saying…after the concerts I don’t want to speak to journalists but to meet the fans that know all our songs by heart” Paul the got up and left clutching a bottle of cognac!
Interview with Mick 22nd May San Remo
Q We begin with an impression on the concert?
MJ I understand that this is a place of villas, is the place of flowers. You know. Arriving here I saw a mass of flowers, and my journey to San Remo it hit me more, I saw like in a series of flashes what is different It is really extraordinary, you know? You live in the most wonderful scenery of the world, and as I come from where I do I can really it appreciate the place where you live. You hear, this is my impression; you are quite fortunate to live here. “Its beautiful!”
Q And the public?
MJ The public seemed very receptive, and even if they did not understand the English, seemed to understand what we are about. I do not know if I got it wrong but they seemed to understand, and this goes well.
Q Are you bothered that some of the audience throw at you cans and bottles?
MJ Of course, if they hit us…thanks, we stop playing, because we cannot play well if they hurt us, …. So it is not a completely good thing to bombard the group! It is better, if they have so much aggression, that they direct it against the forces of Babylon. Perhaps you do not know what we understand by Babylon. You know, what Bob Marley said: be positive, not negative. Also we say it…
Q What does it mean 81 Mission Impossible Tour? N. B. this is the name that The Clash have given to their tour
MJ The meaning of this is: the American TV show, you know, Mission Impossible, you have a mission, and should carry it to limit. Things, for example, you do this interview, go home with the tape and it is all done for yourself. And you ended; there is nothing more to do….
Q You know that the tickets were rather expensive…
MJ I know it, they were about three pounds. More or less the English price. Last time we played free to Bologna because the communist party funded and organized the show; this time is different, and the public pay. The first time is free; the second one is paid, just? But it is paid at a reasonable charge. To play in Italy pleases many, and all the times that we will be able to give some concerts free we will do it willingly. But also we need to be able to eat!
Q By the way of to eat… what is life like for young people in Brixton?
MJ In England, life is shit (laughs) What else can I say? It’s no fun, there are not enough jobs. But young people do not want work; really what they want is to live their lives. As for the people in Brixton, you know, the newspapers say that it is a racial argument, but it is not, in Brixton there are also a lot of whites. It is not completely a racial uprising; it is an uprising against the police.
Q You live in Brixton?
MJ. No but it is where I went to school, where I lived from a boy, I grew up there. When there were the disorders, in the big night, I was there. And I saw. I tell you this: the people completely was not worried, it is an amusing world; they broke the windows of the shops and threw outside in the road, the shoes, they were everywhere, and the people if experienced it, and the police had a big work (laughs) The people is amused a lot, laughed; you know, did not be find it a serious matter.
Q What do you think of the hunger strike of the IRA prisoners?
MJ I do not know but I think that the human right in Great Britain is not how would have to be, perhaps. But we have this government - you know that - and a Conservative government, a right wing government. I do not know I am part of a group; I do not go on hunger strike. But they displease us a lot, we feel it, and we are not in agreement. Just because we are English, this does not mean that we approve of the oppression of minorities in close countries or distant. We hate it wherever it happens…
Q One word on the lady Thatcher?
MJ (thumb down)
Q What is the reason for your music developing towards reggae and the rhythms of Central America in general?
MJ The rhythm is the main thing, because the rhythm makes you dance
Q Yes but the first one and the second album were very hard, violent?
MJ The second album does not please us now.
Q But you played several songs from it in the concert?
MJ No, we do not play it no, one only, Safe European Home.
Q What counts more in music, the head or the heart?
MJ The “feeling” counts more than everything, and the spontaneity, what I am hearing. With the head it is telecommunication, with the body is chemical.
Q We digress a second. What do you think of the Pope?
MJ I do not say. Also because my girl is an ardent catholic
Q What type of music do you usually listen to?
MJ Rap music and new reggae music. Haile Selassie, Lion of Juda and also The Mussolini of the Deutsches American Frendschaft, This song pleases me a lot “Taunts to Mussolini”!
Q You are teasing? Reliability Mister Jones! What new groups do you prefer?
MJ Amongst the English groups, Theatre of Hate are very good. Wah! from Liverpool, good too. Amongst the American groups I like Grand master Flash and the Furious Five a lot. I want to recommend ‘ The Funky Four Plus One’.
Q Tell of the Sex Pistols?
MJ They’re s a really important group. And PIL? Itself enough good. The first part of their new album is excellent
Q And the Jam?
MJ I myself do not like them a lot, I explain you the reason: they’re a band that advanced conservative politics “They’re a Tory group”
Q Who are The Clash?
MJ The Clash are four…
Q Thanks, this I knew already! … from where you come?
MJ From nothing. We come from nothing. We were poor things that took to shining shoes, we put it on the feet and we shone ourselves the big toe! They were terrible times, tragic (laughs) A dogs life!
Q Where are you going?
MJ Whichever direction we love, we go always as before. Wherever the manager says: we go..
Q So who’s in charge - the manager?
MJ Certainly, he is the boss!
Q Bob Marley, and John Lennon; What were your thoughts when you knew that they were dead?
MJ. It hit us very badly, two times, as badly. When John Lennon was killed, I was in New York… ten blocks away. In those moments after, in Central Park people lit bonfires, and meanwhile the people cried in the road. The Americans were really destroyed, they experienced like a sense of inferiority, heard itself in fault. For an English person in New York it was a such shock.. know, English boys… logical that all upset. And that it was the climate. You know, we experienced also a certain resentment. Here, we cried for him because he was a man, and loved life.
Interview clip [audio] with Mick
There is also a short MP3 interview clip with Mick from Firenze
In it, all 1 minute 17 seconds Mick slags off CBS and reinforces the Clash's position. He says "the music industry full of hype and bullshit" and portrays the Clash values as not those of CBS's or the wider industry. He proclaims that The Clash "really are a 1981 punk group, this is how it [punk in 81] sounds".
Before returning to lambast the music industry again; "record companies have one aim; -rip the people off - , make much money, big bang -.
Mick finishes off the ad hoc [unknown to Mick?] interview returning to the Clash manifesto and Micks feelings on CBS, "The Clash have one aim, cultural not practical. I never go to CBS"
Poster
Tickets
Stadio Communale, Florence
Another outdoor concert in the open air (no roof at all) in Fiorentina's old football stadium, which was pulled down for World Cup Italia 90. From reports many people without tickets gate crashed and the Stadium was way over its 15,000 capacity. Total attendance estimated at 20,000, an appropriate figure for a football match but not a clash gig!
People could not breathe, fainted and were crushed. Joe said after the concert “our will counts for absolutely nothing. We are carried from one place to another without being able to decide anything about the quality of the venue for the audience or any other aspect. They want us to play and we do it.” There was poor visibility for most and the acoustics would not have been good. People came from all over Italy for the concert.
“All aboard”
The second source recording starts before the Morricone intro with some chat near the taper in authentic Italian! The expectation and excitement is palpable as the audience realise the band will be on stage very soon. “Hello, heeeeeh” is Joe’s greeting and the band launch into London Calling. As discussed in the Milano review Mick’s 100% interest in playing guitar had not always been present on this tour and without that missing vital ingredient, some performances were good without being great.
Tonight Mick is really up for it right from the start, his guitar high in the mix and he plays with both power and subtlety. It is a high octane aural assault from the band from start to finish with just a few lower pace songs for both the band and audience to catch their collective breath.
A fine Safe European Home is followed by a terrific White Man In Hammersmith Palais. Mick adds brilliant splintering guitar licks and Joe is in top form too adlibbing at length over the final section of the song. “All aboard” screams Mick and he plays some great guitar particularly over the ending coda of his Train In Vain.
“OK dokie, can you hear me, you up there with your arms up, hope you didn’t pay to get up there!” chats Joe before an excellent Lightning Strikes. The band’s “tour muscles” are clearly well and truly developed now; the band really tight and together. Mick solos, then Topper’s drum roll brings it all back together and Joe sings another verse; the band improvising an extended performance.
“Down the road” sings Joe at the start of another very fine Junco Partner. Mick’s increasing use of effects is now more varied and effective, filling in the keyboard gaps left by Mickey Gallagher’s absence. An edit before an excellent Guns Of Brixton which again demonstrates the benefits when Mick is on top form; he adds great bright metallic guitar licks but leaves gaps for the rhythm section and Joe’s vocals to shine too. At the end of the song Paul says, “We don’t like it” referring to the variety of objects (and phlegm) being directed at the stage.
“We have a new song” says Joe and tries to hear the shouts from audience but his Italian is not up to it! The bands enjoyment in playing the new This Is Radio Clash is again evident from the performance. It gets an extended treatment with Mick’s ‘fireworks’ effects to the fore.
“We go back in time,” says Joe before a full on great performance of Complete Control. It’s no longer Joe Public but “This is Joe Strummer speaking, controlled in my body and in my mind” Ivan Meets GI Joe is followed by an excellent
The Call Up which begins with Joe’s “Hup 2-3-4” Mick takes the cue and takes over and Joe repeats “Uno, due, tre, quattro!” Mick’s great guitar playing dominates and comes through well on the recording. A definite highlight of the concert.
An edit on the second source recording loses a chunk of an intense The Leader.
Joe intros a very fine Charlie Don’t Surf with “We’re all going to Saigon, this is nightfall AFM, have you lit the red flare? A brilliant Magnificent Seven next and despite some distortion shrillness on these ‘levels peaking songs’ there still plenty of clarity and dynamics. “I want the guitars,” pleads Joe as they go into the bridge - a great Clash live moment. Topper’s drumming is excellent throughout (and throughout the whole tour) but is particularly memorable here.
“Too old” says Joe to a song request before a terrific Bankrobber. Mick adds great guitar fills to the excellent rhythm section work. Joe is in great form but his voice not surprisingly at the end of the tour is beginning to sound hoarse.
Wrong ‘Em Boyo is also top drawer with Mick’s great 81-style intro.
“Mamma, Mamma. Mamma, Mamma Murder!” screams Joe before Somebody Got Murdered that gently builds and builds in crescendo and then explodes with Mick’s playing a delight. Topper then beats out a drum pattern before Mick screams “1-2-3-4” and the band charge into Career Opportunities.
Clampdown as in Milano the night before is simply awesome. A fired up Mick contributing intense vocals as well as terrific lead guitar. A final extended section drops down to drum and bass before Toppers drum rolls build it back up into a stunning aural assault with Joe adlibbing “They’re gonna get me anyhow”. Mick in interviews at the time said The Clash were still a punk band in 1981, and from the evidence of this concert it is hard to disagree.
The first encore begins with a deep rumble, Topper starts a drum pattern and Mick plays his ‘firework’ effects over the top, followed by a slashing power chord announcing the start of an excellent One More Time. “Play music” says Joe mid song and Mick conjures up an aural landscape of distorted guitar and effects. Topper’s drumming holds it all together, it drops down to drum and bass and then Joe sings “all together push” and Mick and Joe both repeating One More Time they blast it back up into a final chorus reprise. It’s straight into then a stunning Brand New Cadillac and then a charged Janie Jones (complete with the now usual teased out intro). “Buona Sera” says Joe and the band leave the stage.
Jimmy Jazz begins the 2nd encore. The telepathy between the band tonight goes missing at times here with Joe adlibbing “I can find him by hook or by crook’ etc whilst Mick is soloing. Joe then realises this and decides to just scream over the top. The song drops down to drum and bass and Joe screams adlibs including “I can smell him - he’s over there!” The song almost segues into a hard as nails performance of Armagideon Time with Joe wailing brilliantly over the bands music that can only be described as more psychedelic than reggae. The song ends with 2 guitar blasts then Joe scream’s Firenze’s Burning. Loads of distortion now but then it is a Clash concert. The song ends dripping in feedback from Mick, “Buona sera, arrivederci” and the band again leave the stage.
After the performance tonight it is no surprise that they return for a third encore after an edit when a voice near the taper appropriately says “Mamma Mia!”
Then Topper beats out the longest drum roll intro to I Fought The Law that surely he could ever have played before finally Mick screams “1-2-3-4” and his guitar blasts into the song proper. Intensity levels remain at full peak as with no pause the band storm into a manic finale of White Riot. As Joe said after the concert the good people of Firenze were indeed fortunate!
6 page Italian Review of Milan and Florence gigs with interview and photos
Archive PDF ... text only, Italian
Italian Music Paper - Il Mucchio Selvaggio
english translation ... italian web site
Full transaltion of Ernesto's review Many thanks also to Ezio Fara (Evair) for the following translation of Ernesto’s article;
From the concert in Piazza Maggiore of the Clash last year in Bologna to today a lot of things have changed in my life. To do it briefly, at the stadium in Florence, May 23rd 1981, to accompany the Clash in that 110 meters that separates the exit of the backstage area, to the stage, together with Kosmo Vinyl there are few others and me. more...
10 years of rock'n'roll on stage in Florence
22/7/2016 BECAUSE THE NIGHT -
... Joe Strummer and his The Clash that on May 23, 1981 inflamed the 13,000 of the Railway Curve of the Municipal Stadium with a screaming evening still remembered today by those who were lucky enough to have participated. In fact, it is said that the punk and over-the-top charge of the British band attracted an impressive crowd of rockers, hippies and goths to the streets of the city for the last date of the "Mission Impossible Tour". An unforgettable date that witnessed the renewed explosion of a live activity in Italy by big names, which allowed young people and not to get closer to the passion for music, culture and entertainment after the devastating season of the "Years of Lead".
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The memory
Us and the Clash fever. Thirty years ago
On May 23, 1981, the Municipal Stadium becomes the scene of one of the most adrenaline-pumping concerts in history. Crowning a season of great musical events
“There was great energy tonight. I can assure you that not every night we are pushed and gassed like we did on stage tonight ». At the end of the concert - the last of the Mission Impossible Tour - Joe Strummer still had the adrenaline on him, like all of us. It was May 23, 1981, thirty years ago, and that concert entered the myth of the English band and of Florence. We arrived early at the Stadio Comunale, it was a very hot day just like today, before the gates opened and outside there were guys from all over Italy. "Sandinista", their just-released album had disappointed the purists of punk and rock, too contaminated, too commercial, but the concert was a triumph of grit and rhythm, all poking and shouting the choruses shaking their heads and hands .
Florence, for a couple of years,it had become an obligatory stop on major tours after the 50,000 who attended the Patti Smith concert in September 1979, the event that brought live music back to Italy after the blackout following the riots of the early 1970s. The rock poet had arrived at the stadium with the help of the Provincial Unity Party, amidst the great fear of the respectable and the purple fans (in fact the lawn came out battered, but nothing dramatic). Throughout the day Campo di Marte was besieged by hippies, boys from social centers, people who arrived from all over Italy, thanks to the popular price of 3,000 lire, often with sturdy supplies of smoke and hashish and dressed in the strangest ways, while the forces of order guarded the area. In addition to the stands, tickets for the lawn were sold and thousands crammed into the grass.
The following year Lou Reed arrived, for another historical live, at the Cascine park and also at the Cascine played Peter Gabriel, the legendary voice of Genesis who had already recorded songs as a soloist Biko, I Don't Remember, Solsbury Hill . I arrived early, I wanted to go under the stage at all costs, and a bit of a mess happened outside because many wanted to enter without a ticket and charged the police, who responded with truncheons, preventing the breakthrough. "Who's the shoulder?" I asked a group of boys who were next to us; "A new group the Simple Minds ...". Simple Minds amazed by their class and technique, but Peter Gabriel was a real hurricane and the pirated tapes of that concert are now worth gold.
In 1981 the fever was called Clash, a piece of England and punk-rock that came to us and that we could see without spending a fortune to go by plane to London or weeks by train with the Inter-rail. Even that time the fears for public order were found unfounded and the passion of the Florentines was perceived by Strummer and his companions who gave us great enthusiasm. The stadium was also the scene of the concert of a tarantolato Iggy Pop - in the afternoon, a hot killer, to avoid the risk of accidents! - but that of the Clash remained one of the most beautiful concerts of the time, in Florence and beyond.
The season of great musical events continued for a long time, just to understand in 1982, for the Friendship Party made in Dc Neil Young played in Viareggio and the National Unity Day in Tirrenia responded with Genesis, but that concert, like that by Patti Smith remained unique. Thirty years have passed, my hair has whitened, Joe Strummer is dead. "You, Florence, can consider yourself lucky," Joe said again in the interview behind the stage and he was right: we were lucky and that May 23, 1981 is not that far off.
Mauro Bonciani
22 May 2011 (last modification: 23 May 2011) © REPRODUCTION RESERVED
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Clash in Florence, 30th anniversary de luxe edition
May 23, 1981 - May 23, 2011: I was there then and I am today. It was an epic concert, not so much or not just for the quality of the music and the importance of the group, but because it was a watershed. After many premises, musically the Florentine 80s began there. A fertile season.
I owe the memory of this anniversary to the post on FB of a friend and colleague, Mauro Bonciani of Corriere Fiorentino. Which I hadn't forgotten, of course, but whose exact date I couldn't remember. He thought about making my memory come back and I'm grateful to him.
The Clash concert at the Comunale in Florence was a historic eventfor the city: not so much and not only for the quality of the exhibition, which honestly was not excellent, but for the atmosphere that one breathed there. And because it marked the end of an era and the opening of another: on the one hand the closure of the definitive customs clearance phase of Florence and Italy as the venue for rock concerts , inaugurated with the performance of Patti Smith in the same stadium on 10 September two years earlier, after the horribilis 1977-1979 biennium , on the other hand the inauguration of the great musical season of the Florentine 80s , a lively, protean, excited and exciting scene, perhaps not always exciting in the results, but full of adrenalineand promises.
I saw little of the Clash concert and didn't listen to much. I spent most of my time in the backstage talking about music and fooling around with Ernesto de Pascale (at the time my broadcast mate at Radio Luna ), Max Stefani , director of Mucchio Selvaggio (he still was until a few weeks ago, a singular case of longevity professional) and his right arm (as well as a leading pen in the field of punk and new wave) Federico Guglielmi .
There was a strange atmosphere, that evening. Crowd of great occasions in the Ferrovia curve (10 thousand, 13 thousand?), Great excitement in the backstage. Projects, ideas .Things that today would perhaps make us smile: magazines were theorized , the founding of new record labels was hypothesized , what, in the political sphere, De Mita would have defined as "broad understandings" about radio , communication, rock criticism . It seemed that a decisive step had been taken and that now another, longer, more demanding, and decisive was being planned.
I am not here to discuss what all that seemed to have occurred at the time, nor what direction it took. Certainly it has changed a lot, I leave it to you to judge whether for the better or not. Someone has been missing, the vinyl has disappeared but now it seems to be back theremusic is downloaded and carried everywhere. Who was there feels like a veteran ? Personally, no. Although there are several differences in the presence of which I feel uncomfortable .
The important thing, I think, is not to fall into the oleography , the nostalgism, of the “ formidable years ” syndrome . It is necessary to judge calmly by thinking back to that season. Which was beautiful, for those who were there. For those who hear it, I don't know.
source www.alta-fedelta.info
Photos
Link / full size photos here
DOMINIQUE FRADIN PHOTOGRAPHE
Cl;ash at Florence 23 May 1981
Ernesto de Pascale
Clash: Florence 23 May 1981
Erenesto's hi resolution original photos from Florence 81 here PDF 59mb
all photos courtesy of Ernesto de Pascale
Municipal Stadium Florence Italy May 1981 | Instagram
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Setlist
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London Calling There is also a short MP3 interview clip with Mick from Firenze |
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New Speedway LP
Florence - 23 May 81
Paris - 18 Oct 1978
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London Calling |
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There are several sights that provide setlists but most mirror www.blackmarketclash.co.uk. They are worth checking.
from Setlist FM (cannot be relied on)
from Songkick (cannot be relied on)
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ARTICLES, POSTERS, CLIPPINGS ... A collection of A collection of articles, interviews, reviews, posters, tour dates from the Clash's 'Impossible Mission' tour of Europe. Articles cover the period form January upto Bonds in May.
VIDEO AND AUDIO Video and audio footage from the tour including radio interviews.
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Sep 11, 2013: THE CLASH (REUNION) - Paris France 2 IMAGES
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Jul 25, 1981: JOE STRUMMER - At an event at the Wimpy Bar Piccadilly Circus London 33 IMAGES
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I saw The Clash at Bonds - excellent
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