Elaborate staging only Clash highlight

Daily Beacon review
March ??, 1984
By Patrick Allen and Linette Porter

The UT Alumni Gym hardly evoked images of the Casbah as the Clash invaded the stage Wednesday night for some hand-to-hand combat rock.

The concert promoted the band's upcoming album, "Out Of Control," that is slated for an early April release by Columbia Records.

The antiquity of the old gym provided a crusty and grungy atmosphere that added to the band's notoriously unpolished image.

Although they could be billed as the thinking man's Sex Pistols, their sociopolitical themes could not be brought to life amidst the monotonous sounds of their high energy anthems.

Through its hard-hitting lyrics, the British band derides the problems caused by the political superpower's guns-before-butter mentality. Even the slogan on the souvenir T-shirts sold during the show summed up the group's anarchistic philosophy: "Freedom is more vital than a job," the slogan read in true belligerent Clash spirit.

Lead singer Joe Strummer belted out song after song with his amazingly powerful lungs. Strummer slammed and jumped nonstop for an hour and a half, exhibiting the stamina of an Olympic marathoner.

Occasionally, guitarists Nick Shepard and Vince White entertained the audience with elaborate fingerwork and wailing vocals.

However the machine gun rhythm provided by the band's talented drummer, Pete Howard, could not carry the show for the rest of the group.

The incessantly heavy tribal beat eventually bogged down the audience. Enthusiasm began to wane as the same three chords continuously blasted from the huge speaker bank at 7.1 on the Richter scale. C'mon Clash, even punk rock fanatics appreciate variety.

To make matters worse, Alumni Gym has the acoustics of a mausoleum. Of course, the building was designed for basketball, not bands.

The staging, however, was a high point of the show. Nine video screens, set on candy apple red scaffolding, flanked the stage, flashing everything from the Marx brothers to martial arts to Mussolini.

The opening band, Tav Falco and the Panther Burns, straight from the Memphis Zoo, brought out the beasts in the relatively conservative audience.

After performing three or four rockabilly tunes, the band was booed and showered with bottle caps and popcorn. Following the quick exit of the Panther Burns, the audience mellowed and settled in for a quiet evening, Definitely no slam dancing in this crowd!

Although Joe and the boys played to a fairly unresponsive crowd, the audience did get fired up enough to dance to the post-concert taped music.

The crowd refused to stop dancing after the show until additional security arrived to clear the building.

Too bad the Clash was not as well-received.

"They were on f*cking FIRE!"

Jason Yount

Saw them at UT's Alumni Gym, pressed against the stage so close to Joe Strummer I could have adjusted the volume on his guitar. And that night they were on fucking FIRE & played all the early Clash, the place came apart when "This Is Radio Clash" cranked up...what a show!  

it was very loud,Strummer asked if we were deaf yet

John Smith - what I remember from the show is that it was very loud, in fact towards the end Strummer asked if we were deaf yet. Also they had a lot of stadium lights behind the band that were super bright and they would continually flash the crowd, it was very irritating to me and hard to watch, I don't know why they did that except it seemed they were assaulting the audience with sound and light

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I was barely 13 at the time

I'm writing today with some info on the Clash's March 1984 show in Knoxville, Tennessee.

I was at the show and posted comments about it years ago, buts I was barely 13 at the time, I wasn't sure if I could trust my memories. I was able to find two articles from the the local college newspaper at the time, The Daily Beacon.

Unfortunately, they are only available on microfilm, and the are in poor condition. I typed up the review article so it's a little easier to read (see below).

While I disagree about some of the writers' comments regarding the show, there are a few tidbits that ring true, such as the crowd reaction to the opening band, and just how impressive the stage set was.

I hope that this is something you find useful, and thanks again!

I camped out with a couple dozen other fans at the University Center the night before tickets went on sale

Clash, Knoxville, TN, March 28, 1984, Alumni Gym - If Music Could Talk

I'm finally posting due to some Clash memories that recently came bubbling back up after 40 years. After seeing a thread about the Black Market Clash site being down for an update, I went to look at the changes, which are great -- that site is also an amazing resource, and Graham just keeps making it better. I eventually ended up on the page for the one and only Clash show I attended, which was on the Out of Control tour in Knoxville, Tennessee. I had sent Graham a couple of items about the show about 20 years ago, and I was pleased to see some new information posted along with my info.

While I was looking at the page, I realized that the next day was the 40th anniversary of the show (March 28), which not only made me feel very old, but it brought back the excitement of being 14 years old and having a chance to see my favorite band in person. After the show was announced, I went with a group to camp out with a couple dozen other fans at the University Center the night before tickets went on sale. As it turned out, there were plenty of tickets that went unsold, but it was still a fun experience.

As the day of the show neared, I was especially fired up after hearing Joe on a national radio show called Rockline. He was passionate about the new direction the band was taking, and it was exciting to hear him so animated. Somewhere I have a poor cassette copy of the broadcast that I listened to repeatedly (to the extent that I had many of his answers memorized), but when I listened as an adult it didn't hit me the same way.

I went to the show with 4 of my 13 and 14 year old friends, and we got there early so we could be at the front of the crowd. This turned out not to be a great idea, as the much older and bigger fans behind us weren't happy that we were in front of them, and made things uncomfortable enough that just before the encore started we had to climb over the barrier wall right in front of Joe.

My memories of the performance are that the band was amazing -- Joe was in fine form, the new guys looked cool (hey, I was 14 and that really mattered!) and played with a lot of energy, and the new songs seemed to be mostly great additions. I was SO disappointed when Cut the Crap finally came out a year and a half later and the songs sounded nothing like I remembered. I bought all of the merch I could afford, but unfortunately it has all disappeared over the past 40 years. I wore the long sleeve Out of Control shirt until it was literally falling apart, and the incredibly cool dragon shirt I foolishly traded right off my back at a Stevie Ray Vaughan concert 2 years later :cry:

All in all, nothing of import in this post, I just wanted to thank everyone on the site for providing me with years of great music, information, and funny stories.

Take care-- Alec

Letter to the Editor

Johnson City Press Chronicle Sat Apr 7 1984

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