Asian / Australasian Tour

updated 8 Jan 2010 - full tape review and complete edit
updated 16 July 2017 - added new full tape restored
updated 9 Feb 2022 added ticket

Audio 1 - flawed FM source

Sound 3.5 - 24 tracks -1hr 35mins
cuts off at the start of the second encore with Mick introducing Jimmy Jazz.

Call Up

Audio 2 - flawed FM source

Sound 2.5 - 35 tracks - 2hrs 33mins (including radio announcer)
Some somgs sound better, the quieter ones but whilst longer, it is also poorer than version 1.

Call Up

Backstage interview -

also includes radio intro and backstage interview = 170mins

Sources

RELIQUARY -- http://yup-yup-mark.blogspot.ca/

The Clash. 'The Complete Show' Academic Community Hall, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China. Thursday February 25th, 1982

Sound Quality

The first tape which misses lacks hifi sound (and ends at Safe European Home) and is in mono either because it was edited from one tape to an another or recorded direct from the radio onto a non hifi deck. Bass is low in the mix and is largely an ill defined plunk. Drums are thin and low in the mix. Topper’s intro to I Fought The Law sounds like he’s banging dustbin lids! A soundboard source so vocals are up front and clear, guitars are very good too although there is some distortion as the infamous Clash live levels defeat the radio sound guys! Crank up the volume though, ignore the sound limitations and it is a very enjoyable sound.

The tape ends after the end of the first encore (after Safe European Home). An upgrade to the complete master would be a terrific find; somewhere this great pro tape is sadly sat on a shelf gathering dust.

The new tape is full and includes all the gig plus the raido intro and a backstage interview. More to follow...

FM Broadcast Recording, Radio Hong Kong (864 AM)

An incomplete version of this show - ending after Safe European Home - has circulated for many years and was posted to Dime most recently in 2012. This version surfaced last year and was digitized and circulated by users at the Clash City message boards.

This version includes the full broadcast from that night, including 10 extra songs, a lengthy radio introduction while the announcers wait for the Clash to take the stage (track 1), and an interview conducted backstage after the show. At 34 songs it is one of the longest (maybe the longest) Clash shows. Unfortunately, 3 songs (Washington Bullets, Tommy Gun, and White Man in Hammersmith Palais) are truncated due to the radio announcer talking over the music. This was also present on the earlier circulating source.

All other songs are complete. The crowd was apparently very rowdy that night and there are numerous adlibs and breaks between songs due to Joe Strummer trying to stop fights or calm the audience down. -Original

It is thought this gig was broadcast by this radio station

http://www.881903.com/Page/ZH-TW/home864.aspx

This was reportedly broadcast on Hong Kong FM radio; Joe’s on stage comment seems to confirm this;“..for those of you at home wondering what’s going on here’ There are no station announcements but these were probably edited out as it was edited down to fit on a C90 tape. There are edits that lose much of Tommy Gun and White Man and edits that lose only seconds such as during Magnificent Seven and Janie Jones.

Extremely unlikely that RTHK station would have recorded it

From: Hugh Chiverton <chivertonatrthk.hk>
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2015 13:04:09 +0800
Subject: Re: Fwd: radio archive query
To: Radio 3 <radio3atrthk.hk>, James GOULD <gouldjaatrthk.hk>, tim
bucknall <tim.bucknallatgmail.com>

Hello Tim,Thanks for the message.

I checked, and I can't find any trace of a Clash recording in our
archive, and I have to say I think it's extremely unlikely that RTHK
would have run the concert in 1982.

I see some versions of the recording say it was taken from FM radio -
that could only have been Commercial Radio in Hong Kong, but again it's
honestly a slim chance that it was broadcast. BFBS, the British army
radio is another slight possibility as they used to do some stuff here.

I've mentioned this on air to see if anyone remembers if it was
broadcast, and if so, where. I know there are people still around who
went to the gig. As it stands I think its probably just a bootleg that
might have been rebroadcast somewhere else at some time, but was almost
certainly not on air here in 1982.

Best of luck anyway, and I'll let you know if I get any more information.

Hugh Chiverton
Head, English Programmes RTHK

Recorded professionally but MIA

One of the great frustrations for Clash fans is the knowledge that around a dozen or so Clash concerts were recorded professionally by radio or TV stations but either do not circulate at all or circulate in diminished quality. For example from this tour at least one of the Sydney shows was recorded by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation but only a short clip circulates at all and this Hong Kong show broadcast on FM radio only circulated in 2004 and in an edited form.

Despite being edited down to a C90 tape (cuts out after Safe European Home) and lacking hifi sound this FM recording known as Hong Kong Dollar, Indian Cents was a great find capturing most of the penultimate date of the tour and is arguably the last real recording of Topper live (ignoring the Lochem Festival chaotic show). Although not The Clash at their finest; the continuing fighting in the audience prevented that, there are nevertheless some very enjoyable performances particularly the run through to the end of the main set. There is a particularly memorable extended Clampdown with Joe adlibbing about Britain “[there’s] everything to repress but nothing seems to GROW”

The band flew out of Melbourne on the 24th to Hong Kong where a gig had been arranged at the HK Baptist University. The gig was remembered by the band as somewhat of a downer due to continuous fighting in the audience between European ex-pats and local Chinese. The band did though according to the From Here To Eternity CD notes play 40 songs although this is no doubt an exaggeration!

After Hong Kong the band then flew onto Bangkok for a reportedly memorable last night of the tour and what they hoped would then be a break in Thailand. In reality of course Topper went cold Turkey, Paul became seriously ill and Kosmo and Joe joined in with Bangkok lap dancers! Pennie Smith’s famous quote is that she witnessed the break up of the band during her Combat Rock photo shoot outside Bangkok. In the land neat to their Apocalypse Now fascination the band by accounts descended into their own Heart of Darkness.

Tickets

The Academic Community Hall, HK Baptist University

The Academic Community Hall in the HK Baptist University in Kowloon Tong has a seating capacity of 1,346 although at the Clash gig fans were standing (plus seating above) so there may have been a higher number that night. The Academic Community Hall serves as a cultural centre for the University and its surrounding community, providing a direct link between town and gown. A local music promoter said "I think there was a stink about the concert afterwards and rock and roll was subsequently banned from that venue”

“Ah I can see we’ve got the cops in the audience"

(old tape) The tape begins as the Morricone intro fades out. “Good evening and welcome to you” greets Joe and the audience shout along to a London Calling with Strummer whoops and cries aplenty. “Thank you. Oh Mama Mama, look there” intros a hard Washington Bullets which again is played at a lick. Mick’s guitar fills and solos are very effective. An edit loses the final coda. The fighting in the audience has already caused disruption as the tape restarts with the band not playing and Joe pleading “If there’s anybody else who wants to prove their manhood with these please take your fight out to the street like gentlemen! Fourth verse” and the band go into the final part of a presumably previously interrupted Tommy Gun.  

”Hong Kong people please welcome Mr Paul Simonon” Guns of Brixton drives along forcefully with plenty of inventiveness, Mick and Topper adding variations to the set standard. Not extended but a very enjoyable performance. Topper takes it straight into a fine if unexceptional Train in Vain.  As the band drop it down you can hear the bleed through from another station or previous recording.

”Now if you don’t mind, like to do a new number N.E.W. New! entitled Know Your Rights all 3 of them!” Joe has trimmed the lyrics through touring so that when he does the new vocal for Glyn Johns the next month there are just some more minor trims of extraneous wording. A proper worked out ending to the song live still eludes them though; dribbling out to an ineffective halt.

“Sorry to keep you waiting there just having a mid set conference.. I heard you, I hear you no don’t cheer can’t play either! Ha Ha Ha! For those of you back at home listening to this microphone this is the story of the Magnificent Seven 1982 style!”  Good not exceptional performance with no inspired adlib just a spoken admission midsong “Well my mind’s gone blank” An edit mid song loses a verse.

Before Joe can intro Ivan Meets GI Joe there’s more fighting to address; “Now will you please welcome.No.No.No.No. Hey let’s have the lights on these guys - yes that’s it can we get on with the show or what? Yes you sure, do you want to come up here and fight, I’ll give you a fight for your money I’m pretty good at that! Thank you very much SIR! Now would you please welcome [for the last time] Mr Topper Headon on the microphone”


The aggro continues; “Ah I can see we’ve got the cops in the audience - for those of you at home wondering what’s going on here we have um, let me see ..now anyone up there? Lets have some house lights here Fuzzy Wuzzy! (Joe’s non-PC nickname for the lighting guy!) I see yeah yes I know..that’s the university section, hope you have your notebooks with you! Anyway for the professors this one is back to 1978 and back to the Hammersmith Palais” Two edits sadly lose most of the song but the excellent ending with Topper’s repeated drum rolls survives.

The band then tear into Wrong Em Boyo but Joe is still trying to stop the fighting coming in late. Topper batters the skins to great effect in the middle eight with Joe adding instructions to the audience “…then leave some room for that woman” between the lyrics!  “Elevator gooooooing up!” and the band race through Koka Kola but presumably to calm the audience Joe shouts before the usual segue “No IFTL no!” and “It ain’t my fault its 6 o’clock in the morning” A fine Broadway has the “Harder than Sugar Ray Leonard could punch” adlib. The great in your face soundboard vocals capture Joe’s adlibs over the excellent ending coda “in style, go forward, have dignity and blondie don’t spit on me baby, he knows who he his, let’s take this song to the grave yard and bury it!”


Topper’s intro to I Fought The Law sounds like dustbin lids being pounded!  Joe adlibs over the middle eight “Hey in Britain we have Robin Hood, in Australia we got Ned Kelly bam bam bam! And in Kingston we have Ivan!” An excellent performance is followed by an equally good Career Opportunities introduced by Joe with an introduction to play it  “fast” and as Topper beats out a drum pattern “This song here especially for those of you who remember Britain and 3 million gonna be hearing this song with more and more ears as the years go on - which is not what it was intended to be!” Momentum is maintained with Janie Jones with an edit after 30 seconds for a tape changeover.


The start of The Call Up is interrupted, “Quit the spitting now..you come here and lie on the floor in front of me and I’ll empty my lungs onto your face!” Again a little ragged but a very enjoyable performance with Mick playing some great lead guitar. The band then tear though a little untogether but blistering, Brand New Cadillac.

Mick plays the intro to Somebody Got Murdered again unusually straight with little variation but it’s a very strong performance with Joe screaming “Murder” and adding dog barking noises over the ending! Joe then intones the Clampdown spoken intro but again with variation; “The kingdom was ransacked, the jewels were put back and the chopper descends, a man in the mac with a suit in the back and the microphone has no friends, and the tape on the spool well it ran for the fool and it ran without end, and the chopper descends and the kingdom never ends” The band then blast into a memorable exceptional Clampdown. Rarely failing to excite live; surely one of the great rock’n’roll intros period, the band pull out all the stops extending the song brilliantly with Mick adding great guitar effects and fills. Joe then goes into a great Strummer improv “I was begging to be melted down, working on Three Mile Island, accidentally taking it through 3000 miles and in the Houses of Parliament on Westminster Square, by the river Thames, way, way back in rainy England, justice has been killed ..now we have in Britain people working for the clampdown, that’s all we have in Britain. We have thousands and thousands of telephone taps, more and more riot police shields and helmets and even the guy behind the water cannon so effective in Japan and everything to repress but nothing seems to grow, nothing seems to GROW”. The band then bring it back up again brilliantly and the song and main set finally ends.

First encore begins with Charlie Don’t Surf and a long intro from Mick, improvising with the melody until Joe and Topper take it into the chorus. Presumably due to more trouble in the audience the band stops momentarily then slowly band build it back up. A dreamy laid back feel to the performance, there’s no Strummer adlibs but the final coda is excellent with crescendo crashing guitars.

Police And Thieves again played straight is next. An unexceptional performance, lacking an edge or rant but the dub style roots rock reggae drum and bass section is the highlight. Much better is a fine Stay Free; “This one’s off our 2nd LP” says Mick to which Joe can’t resist adding “and some cunts like this song!”

Armagideon Time is strong with more fine Mick guitar work. Joe instructs  “Topper get tight, swing it tight!…so Hong Kong groove, Clash strut, rock’n’roll!” “This next tune, as the Police move along the audience, we’re taking you back to our Safe European Home” Joe’s rhythm guitar sound is clear buzzing below Mick’s dominant lead. It’s hard to judge Topper’s performance at this gig because of the poor drum sound.

As the band leave the stage Joe says  “I don’t think its fair those people behind you can’t see”. When the band return Mick says “How we getting on with the seat relocations? This is a 1930’s jazz song for you all” before the band continue with Jimmy Jazz and loses the rest of the gig. The rest of the gig is on the new tape...

Did you go? What do you remember?

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

Photos

A big thanks to Eric Hawkins & Facebook page, Clash on Parole
for finding these photographs

Setlist

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Radio Speakers intro Ennio Morricone Intro London calling Washington Bullets Tommy gun Guns Of Brixton Train in vain Know Your Rights Magnificent 7 Ivan Meets Gi Joe White man Wrong Em Boyo Koka Kola Broadway I Fought The Law Career Opportunities Janie Jones Call Up Brand New Cadilac Somebody Got Murdered Clampdown encore Charlie Dont Surf Police And Thieves Stay Free Armagideon Time Safe European Home encore Jimmy Jazz Complete Control English Civil War Police on My back Garageland Speakers and public encore Clash City Rockers Spanish Bombs I'm So Bored with the U.S.A. Londons burning Bankrobber Backstage interview