Support Vic Goddard & Subway Sect, Roman Holiday
updated 7 July 2008 - added posters
updated 15 July 2008 - added Rock n Folk Gig Review
updated 9 Jan 2010 - added punters comments
updated 12 April 2011 - added Jons photo link Flickr
updated xmas 2013 with full review
updated August 2022 added comments
Updated June 2024 added reviews
Audio 1
Sound 2 - 1hr 30mins - unknown gen? - tracks 24 - very poor -
Know Your Rights
Source, quality
The sadly only circulating recording is of poor quality; at least a copy or two of an audience recording made using less than state-of-the-art equipment even for 1982. It’s all mainly in the right channel only, distant and very flat with very little range. It’s not dreadful though, guitars and bass reasonably clear and you can make out a lot of what Joe is saying between songs. Worth seeking out for the performance; the band are clearly fired up by the occasion and for its historical value as the first night of the tour/in Brixton.
Bootleg tape covers
“Some of you have been waiting quite some time for this performance!”
With typical Strummer humour Joe greets the audience at the start of this first night of the UK tour with “Some of you have been waiting quite some time for this performance!” Seven weeks to be exact; the original dates for the two Brixton gigs were the 22nd and 23rd May but Joe’s infamous disappearance on the boat rain to Paris on April 21st meant that the UK tour dates were all postponed to July/August.
The band were re-energised after a 2 week break since the end of the North American tour and further pumped up to be playing again in London and particularly at the Brixton Fair Deal, which had special meaning for Paul and Mick. Recordings exist of both shows but the first night’s one is sadly poor but the energy and passion of the band still comes through. Although not well documented aurally the gig is in other ways with excellent live photos and music and national press reviews and a fanzine article.
Joe’s set list from this gig was used for sequencing the best of 2013 “Clash Hit Back” CD release although it’s wrongly stated to be the 19th July (when the band were in Derby), Wikipedia gets the right date. It comes with the original setlist, handwritten by Joe which he usually taped to the back of his Telecaster before each gig;” "Every show was different. Joe would spend a lot of time composing the running order, considering dynamics, emotional impact and the key the songs were in”. The fact that despite a set list , the band could and often did change songs or their order spontaneously, is demonstrated by the set list differing from the songs actually played as documented by the bootleg recording. Changes this night were minor in the order of songs; Bankrobber acrtually 5th song etc.
The UK tour recordings are generally average in quality with just one soundboard from the extra night added at Brixton. The tour gets little mention in The Clash bibliography of books but for those who were there they were very memorable. The band were again back in vogue with the music press, lauding praise on Combat rock and the live shows, some tour dates though did not sell out in advance (the Brixton ones did), although with walk up most did sell out. Rolling into the UK provincial towns and cities must have been quite a contrast for the band from the States where they were breaking big ,selling out large A list venues and a major media buzz followed them. Yet the UK gigs were a triumph for those who witnessed them; the band energised and tight, and the lack lustre performances on a number of gigs on the second US tour leg absent.
Ticket holders who had tickets for the 22nd May were resheduled for the 10th. Ticket hoders for the cancelled Brixton Fair Deal gig in the 11th were originally re-scheduled for the 21st but later the 23rd.
Reflecting the band’s quoted wish to set up their own club on their terms but with a stronger dose of Bernie’s Club Left via Kosmo each night of the tour was to be an event, the band’s statement read ‘The (Casbah) club will take over halls for the night as a celebration of low life and Clash fans. As well as The Clash playing, there will be guest appearances by celebrities, public figures and other attractions’. This plan was more successful at Brixton than in some other venues ;the Fair Deal’s exotic art deco interior helped and there was an area close to the bar where The Clash’s promo and other videos were showing; for many fans like me this was the first time we’d seen these.
The tour was enough of an event for the national tabloid the Daily Mirror to cover the Brixton shows (10th or 11th is unclear). Simon Kinnersley’s piece [link] is largely positive with some insight, “Many of their songs are performed in a maelstrom of jagged guitar chords, frenzied rhythms amidst shouting from vocalist Joe Strummer. Yet far from detracting from the show, the general mood of musical chaos seems to increase the excitement still further.”
Adam Sweeting, today an established journalist of note, writing then for the Melody Maker emphasised the heat in the venue on a hot July night, ”sweat rolling down, gasping for air”. His positive if sarcastic piece describes a “ tenacious display of rough cut wallop by the World’s Most Paradoxical Rock Band” He said Strummer’s opening grumble about gobbing worked and said Terry was able to keep a beat, Jones often played in tune! Richard Cook’s glowing and eloquent review in the NME appears to have been of the extra Brixton show on 30th July.
A gig review in the still going French Rock’n’Folk magazine was published in the September 82 edition and the Swedish fanzine [link original article and English translation] included an enjoyable article and interview about both nights. Joe is quoted as saying “Now it feels good to be on stage again and play the old songs as they feel more important today than ever, don't you think? Take a song like Career Opportunities for instance, we do it better today than in '77” Paul says “We play the old songs that fits in today but we don't have a "White Riot" attitude anymore, we hope people think for them self rather than throw bricks at windows.”
Great credit due to Jon Jackson for making his excellent live B&W shots available on Flickr here
There is a quote form Jon here
Adverts
Adverts for the original gigs on the 22nd and 23rd gigs
Original adverts, dates in May
Adverts: Rescheduled dates
Tickets
Brixton Fair Deal / Academy
This venue had a special meaning to Mick and Paul well before they played there as Paul told the Guardian in 2013 as it was the cinema he and Jones went to as children. "It's actually where I saw my first ever pop show..We all turned up as 10-year-olds, and they said: 'Right, boys and girls, we've got a special surprise for you - we're not going to show you a film!' So everyone was: 'Booooo.' 'No. we've got a special surprise - we have Sandie Shaw!' And Sandie Shaw came on, and she was going on about not having any shoes. So we had an hour set from her, and that was my first pop concert."
The venue started life as a cinema and theatre in 1929 on the site of a private garden in Stockwell Road. It was built at a cost of £250,000 as an "Astoria" theatre. The opening show was the Al Jolson film The Singing Fool; a description for himself Strummer might have welcomed! The building still retains many of its original features, including the proscenium arch and Art Deco interior. The Astoria eventually closed its doors as a cinema on 29 July 1972. It was then converted into the Sundown Centre rock venue in September 1972, but was not a success and the Sundown closed down some four months later. In May 1974 planning permission was sought to demolish the Grade II listed building and replace it with a motor showroom and petrol station. However the redevelopment scheme was scrapped. The building was kept heated after it closed, and was used as an equipment store by the Rank Organisation.
In 1981, The Astoria, remodelled was re-opened as a rock venue called "The Fair Deal" with a concert by UB40 and an interior restoration, but the venue closed in late 1982 due to debt. The venue was bought by Simon Parkes in 1983 and in the same year re-opened as Brixton Academy. The Academy's success steadily grew throughout the 1980s with numerous reggae productions and it was hired out to major rock and pop acts such as Eric Clapton, Dire Straits & The Police for rehearsal. In 1995, Break For The Border bought the Brixton Academy. Under its new ownership (McKenzie Group), reinvestment started immediately with a complete £500,000 refurbishment of the Art Deco building frontage to its original grandeur, additional facilities both front of house and backstage and a capacity increase to just under 5,000. The venue is currently run by the Academy Music Group after a re-branding in August 2004, and hosts a range of live acts and club nights.
The venue now known as the 02 Academy has also been voted venue of the year twelve times since 1994 in the annual NME Awards. The Smiths played their last ever gig here in December 1986 which was an Anti-Apartheid benefit. Sadly the most watched performance was by Madonna in 2000, broadcast live online and was watched by a record-breaking audience of 9 million. Dylan and the reformed Sex Pistols are amongst the many acts choosing the venue as its it one of the biggest non arena venues in London. This was a key reason The Clash hosted all their London shows there in 82 and 84 with the vast downstairs area unseated for dancing; maximum capacity is 4,921 (3,760 standing downstairs; 1,083 seated and 78 standing in the circle).
"some of you have been waiting quite some time for this performance!"
Joe greets the audience; “Good afternoon, some of you have been waiting quite some time for this performance! (audience roar) Is anybody standing next to the girl? who gobbed at me … So anyway we’ve been waiting quite some time an all, so here we go!” and the band launch into London Calling. Joe’s adlibs about London town on next up Safe European Home are sadly unclear. After Know Your Rights, the familiar shout of “1,2 a 1,2,3,4 “ announces the return appropriately at the start of the UK tour of White Man in Hammersmith Palais. Joe then decided to alter the set list at this point and play Bankrobber , then Terry is introduced before Janie Jones and the usual pattern of Paul’ Guns Of Brixton and Mick’s Train in Vain. A spirited Wrong Em Boyo is then followed by an energised Magnificent Seven. “This is Mick Jones for those who don’t know” quips Strummer before Police On My Back and an edit before he asks
“Yeah, how many people can see, how many people can hear, how many are too hot?” Rock The Casbah ends the first side of the tape; the duration of most of the band’s performances in 82 were very accommodating to the length of a C90 cassette!
The second side begins with Joe talking about a jobless suicide presumably “unfortunate story about Mr Richard Brown. This is for the late Richard Brown , Career Opportunities , the one that never knocks”. During a fine Police & Thieves and a Strummer scream the band drop down effectively to an extended drum and bass section and Mick’s playing inventive as the build back up to a crescendo. A blast through Somebody Got Murdered, Brand New Cadillac and Clampdown (Joe’s lengthy adlibs unclear) ends the main set.
The first encore highlight is an atmospheric Ghetto Defendant with a long drum and bass intro and echoed effects before Joe’s impassioned vocals. It’s almost complete before the by now usual segue into Armagideon Time. With obvious meaning for Mick, Stay Free is back with the encore ending with I Fought The Law. A three song second encore of Straight To Hell, Should I Stay and a pumped up Garageland end the show.
The Clash Fair Deal
The Clash Official | Facebook
Flyer adverting the FM broadcast
I
nteresting - flyer adverting the FM broadcast of the gig on Pirate Radio later in October. Believed to refer to the Fair Deal gig later in the month - the 30th July.
NME: Three convictions on the road from Hell
17 July 1982 or the 8 August 1982
The Clash: Fair Deal, Brixton, London
Not sure which one of the three gigs at the Fair Deal this refers to, presume it's the 10th?
text version | another original
Sounds Square Deal Clash
Not sure which one of the three gigs at the Fair Deal this refers to, presume it's the 10th?
Casbah Rockers
French Magazine
Brixton FD review
Rock n Folk 188 (Sept 82) French Mag
/P.Simonon.jpg)
10th July 1982 review
Clash in a flash
Not sure which one of the three gigs at the Fair Deal this refers to, presume it's the 10th?
Combat Rock in Brixton Town
Heatwave magazine (Swedish)
July 1982
article on the Brixton gigs
English translation
No polish Just Punk Passion
Daily Mirror
13 July 82
On the Road with the Clash
Link Traxmarx - includes this gig
Did you go? Comments, info welcome...
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two fantastic nights that I had with The Clash
I'm writing from Milan, Italy, and looking by chance at your website it helped me to remember my two fantastic nights that I had with The Clash at the London-Brixton Fair Deal on July 1982.
I was 16 years old at the time.
I remember everything, from the morning, when I had in the rear pocket of my jeans a copy of Sounds with Joe Strummer with the mohawk on the cover. That day I bought only one Big Mac during all day in order to save money for the tickets: I ate the first cold half-Big Mac at noon and the other half at 7 pm. I waited around 3 pm Joe and the rest of the band outside the backstage and now I'm trying here at home to find out some photos that I took that afternoon with Joe and some japanese fans.
That was also the night when Italy won the soccer World Cup against Germany. A great night.
Now I run as editor-in-chief the italian edition of GQ for Cond © Nast.
michele lupi < >
The Clash possibly the best band I had seen
AndChat - I have the ticket for this ,dated 18th May '82 - which should have been the penultimate gig of the 'Kasbah club' (Combat Rock) tour..however as most Clash fans may know Joe did a runner, came back, sacked Topper, got Terry Chimes (aka Tory Crimes on their debut lp) in on drums &....it ended up as the rearranged 1st night of tour..
The Fair Deal/Academy is a good venue & the Clash possibly the best band I had seen at the time ...but this gig to me felt flat - possibly because I realised 'Combat Rock' wasn't a great lp.. the support band was Roman Holiday (!), Toppers absence (& its reasons) may not have helped, the set list was a bit predictable & the band stage look (army fatigues) wasn't good & there was a national train strike - making the 300 mile round trip hard work.....there were some good moments but definitely seemed like a come down after the 'radio clash' & '16 tons' tours...maybe other people really enjoyed it though, and the group liked the venue.
Photos
PDF archive of photos here
THE CLASH AT BRIXTON ACADEMY, JULY 1982
The photos you are looking at were shot by Jon Jackson back in July, 1982 during the Brixton Academy stop of The Clash’s “Casbah Club Tour.” Jon’s son, who is a Redditor, posted this little back story about his dad and the photos:
My dad was born in Cambridge in the 50’s, growing up very close to David Gilmour and other members of Pink Floyd - he has always followed the Cambridge music scene very closely and has seen many of their influential concerts. He lived in London during the 70’s and early 80’s, experiencing the cataclysm of culture and music which living with certain people during that time became. He toured with The Clash, The Beat and Bob Marley, there might be more but these are the ones I know about.
I chose six shots of The Clash from Jon Jackson’s Flickr set, but you can see the rest here.
Some great photos Brixton first night by Jim the Chin
and 3 more great photos from the first night at Brixton
Extensive archive of articles, magazines and other from the Casbah Club Tour of the UK, July, August 1982
Full page - Articles Magazines - Dates - Fanzines - International Articles - Joe Goes Missing - Photos Joe running London marathon - Passes - Posters - Snippets - Audio/Video
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Setlist
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1 |
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)
... both have lists of people who say they went
& from the newer Concert Database and also Concert Archives
Also useful: Ultimate Music database, All Music, Clash books at DISCOGS
Articles, check 'Rocks Back Pages'
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Topper sacked, Joe disapears
ARTICLES, POSTERS, CLIPPINGS ... A collection of A collection of known articles from coveringr the period of the Tour can be found here.
Extensive archive of articles, magazines and other from the Casbah Club Tour of the UK, July, August 1982
VIDEO AND AUDIO Video and audio footage from the tour including radio interviews. Radio - Joe Strummer Interviewed by Lisa Robinson around June 1982
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