The Greenville News -
Fri Mar 30 1984

"I remember that they did "Last Gang In Town" (I remember they showed clips from "The Warriors") and that they ended with "White Riot." The house-lights had come up and people were filing out and then they came back out and played "White Riot."
Anon.

The Nightporters opened

"Some friends of mine in a very Clash-influenced band called the Nightporters opened. I had much better tickets but my lasting memories will always be Joe's mohawk and his holding his hand to his head the whole show. Not sure if my friend taped this or not (he's not even sure if he went.)

Jon

We got a call saying to have our gear at The Fox Theatre by 5, which we did and ended up opening the show.

Ray Dafrico - FB

In the spring of 1984 I borrowed my girlfriend’s beat up Toyota Corolla and, by myself, drove to Nashville encountering a horrific storm in the mountains in which I couldn’t see 2 feet in front of me on a mission to bum rush one of my heroes, Joe Stummer , as he exited his tour bus at Soundcheck to ask him if my band The Nightporters could open for The Clash in Atlanta the next night. As luck would have it I walked up to the bus just as he was getting off, with his Boom Box on his shoulder. I saw my chance and took it. I held out a cassette tape and said “ Hi my name is Ray and my band would like to open for you in Atlanta” !

Without skipping a beat, the great man said, “ sure, give it to Kosmo”… I found Kosmo and repeated my spiel and told him Joe said to give him the tape. I then drove straight back to Atlanta.

Fast Forward to 4 pm the day of the show…. we got a call saying to have our gear at The Fox Theatre by 5, which we did and ended up opening the show. Although it was sadly sans Mick and Topper, we were beside ourselves . That was a bigger deal to us than getting a big record deal, that was some payoff for driving around the country playing to small crowds and making little money. We didn’t just play Rock and Roll, 

we WERE Rock and Roll! 

Thanks, Joe for just being you.

We miss you!

there was a riot afterwords started by the Rev Communist gang

Adrienne White writes: (link)

OK - so one of my important deeds of the 80's - went to The Clash show at the Fox in Atl - there was a riot afterwords started by the Rev Communist gang, and my fellow concert mates ended up getting beat up and thrown in the klinker - I spent the next week driving back and forth to Atlanta - rounding up cash to bail folks out (in my gas guzzlin Pinto no less!!) 

Here's one recounting of the night - can't find any pictures but Bob Johns and Paul Lombard always owed me for that! "Fifteen squad cars came onto West Peachtree Street just as the crowd let out. As they arrived, they saw 2,500 disorganized people and concluded that, well, there's the riot we were told about, and so they began ending the riot the way police always do... with gentle negotiation and reconciliation. They negotiated with batons and reconciled with handcuffs. 

For their part, the concert goers had just gotten their tanks topped off with Revolution, and so they decided to engage in negotiations in the same spirit of reconciliation as the police. This, folks, is how the great cop riot of 1983 or 1984 or whenever it was became a riot. The eight skinheads and twelve Revolutionary Communist Party people were swept to one side and did not end up in jail, but many, many, many hipsters and young business guys did." 

See article at foot
Online: http://www.dailykos.com/.../--I-m-So-Floored-with-the-USA

Neo-Nazis greeting Clash fans as we left the venue

Kyle Fenton – Link

http://bit.ly/T48q9K While I'm at it, who remembers the "Know Your Rights"  gig at the Fox in 1984?  Neo-Nazis greeting Clash fans as we left the venue, but the shouting match wasn't the problem.  The problem was the Atlanta PD showing up in force and throwing people into paddy wagons.  I distinctly remember a police (lieutenant?) pulling up in a station wagon, jumping out with a shotgun, leveling it and waving it at the fans, and saying loudly "Disperse!".  And we weren't doing anything other than verbally disagreeing with the skinheads.  Sigh.  Friends of mine spent the whole night tracking down other friends who got thrown into the hoosegow for no reason at all.

Quite a few skinheads and wasted rockers jumping around

Drew Young - Link

Continuing on with the Album challenge from Joel Dinerstein and Keith Apfel. I was a bit late to the party for the clash and was turned on to them by a girlfriend and it changed my life when I saw them at the Fox Theater in Atlanta 4/3/1984.

I seem to recall that there was a definite tension in the audience as the police had been pretty heavy handed outside and there were quite a few skinheads and wasted rockers jumping around. I do remember that the crowd erupted when the band launched into "I'm So Bored With the USA" We all ran to the front of the stage and stayed there for the rest of the show. I was covered in bruises for weeks afterwards from the mosh pit. Good times! Who else was at this show? I would love to hear your stories. Happy Sunday y'all

The only bandleader that mattered Atlanta remembers Joe Strummer (1952-2002)

Creative Loafing Mangazine
1 Jan 2003

Joe Strummer Obiturary

Though The Clash played Atlanta only three times during its turbulent history, bandleader Joe Strummer made an indelible impression on the city's music scene during each visit.

"He was a prince among thieves," says Andy Browne of the Nightporters, a contemporary local band who opened for the Clash at the English group's final Atlanta show in 1984...

PDF version here

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The Clash - London Calling 25th Anniversary Legacy Edition (Epic/Legacy)

By Andria Lisle
December 1, 2004

"When local college station WRAS announced The Clash concert at the Fox Theatre, we were undoubtedly going."

PDF version here

From: Andrew Browne <lynxdeluxe(at)icloud.com>
The Clash / Nightporters 84 Atlanta

My band, The Nightporters opened the show. Was a magnificent night, met my Hero Joe Strummer backstage, he gave me the thumbs up.. Like a Jesus blessing. Tip of the hat to their crew they was absolutely spectacular to us.
Cheers. Andy

"I'm So Floored with the USA"
The Clash at Fox Theatre

by The George

Archived PDF

The RCP-USA was marching around outside the box office where people waited for tickets, singing "I'm So Bored with the USA." The lines I liked about that song, and there weren't that many, were, "Yankee detectives/ Are always on the TV/ 'Cos killers in America/ Work seven days a week." I had heard another version with a line about "a murder in America every fifteen minutes." The rest of the song didn't do it much for me. Americans misunderstood the point, I thought, and the Marxism in it was clunky. I preferred Gang of Four for my undiluted Marx.

I used to talk to the RCP-USA people, and one heavy set woman in tiger striped Spandex in particular, quite a bit. I'd argue. I'd argue that yes, we needed socialism, but this was because it is the only moral economy. She would talk about the material dialectic, and I would say that material cannot be entirely deterministic, even in Marx or Mao, as there is a moral directive implied before hand, and we'd keep going like that. Good fun.

(The recruiting thing? I can tell you in a few words. She asked if I'd be at X concert (not by X), and I said I would, and she said there was someone I should meet. I did, and that young man and I argued vigorously, and then he asked if I would be at Y concert, and I would, and he said there was someone I should talk to. Person #3 was older, well dressed, and did not argue. This person just wanted to know what I thought. He then said, "We're having a meeting at __ Hotel on __, and you should come." I said, "I think I know what this is." He said, "Do you?" I said, "Yyeah, and I'm not interested." That was it.)

So, as I said, the RCP-USA was active all of a sudden in the early 1980's. The Spartacist Youth League was running around, too, but not in my town. At the same time, alas, the Nazis were enjoying quite a recruiting boom.

Worse yet, the Nazis liked to find the Communists, and kismet had a way of putting the two groups on alternating street corners for demonstrations. This is how I got involved in a riot, sort of, and learned some things about the news.

I was twenty-one, I suppose, and I should have known better. After all, I was a punk, and we were supposed to be more cynical than anyone. (Actually, I was in that herky-jerky sort of style rather than the three chords and a cloud of dust sort. My band's sound was closest to The Feelies, although we hadn't heard them and never crossed paths.) (For those who don't have it, The Feelies' "Crazy Rhythms" is in print again, and you should own it. Listen to "Raised Eyebrows" all the way through and just try to be in a bad mood.)

The Clash were going to play the Fox Theater in Atlanta, and the RCP was marching around, and the local Nazis showed up chanting over them. They were skinheads, also punk rockers, mostly, although they were into bands like Screwdriver (no link, ever). Now, concert security is a low priority gig for the police, and so APD had only assigned a single officer for security. After all, by then they knew that punk rock = college kids, and they're no trouble.

In Ohio, only a few weeks earlier, some Nazis met some Communists, pulled a revolver, and shot one dead (this was not Frank Spisak, so I'm having trouble finding a link to the story... murders vanish from the record after a while, it seems). However, it was around Christmas time, so if others remember it and can link it better, I'd appreciate it, as it was certainly something on the mind of the patrolman running security for the Fox that night.

The Clash put on a fantastic show. It was one of the better concerts I've seen. The entire band had charisma, and what they lacked in subtlety they made up for in blunt force trauma. The show began with "Know Your Rights" (-- hey! a performance from the same tour!), and that alone is enough to make even Willy Loman want to rip up the seats. We got "Magnificent Seven" and other greats from "Sandanista." We got a lot, and the show was propulsive and explosive.

Meanwhile, back in the entrance, everybody's friend K--t W--d and his gang of skinheads began to push at the circle of RCP chanters. The cop saw it, got on the radio and said, "We have a potential riot situation."

Now, Atlanta under Maynard Jackson was fairly peaceful. The economy was booming, we were told, and the Fox Theater is in a moderately alright neighborhood. The city went by the motto, "The city too busy to hate." (It's not too busy to hate. It's just too busy to do anything but host Neil Boorts.) The city of Atlanta had not had a riot since the death of Martin Luther King, but it did have a lot of cop stuff.

Fifteen squad cars came onto West Peachtree Street just as the crowd let out. As they arrived, they saw 2,500 disorganized people and concluded that, well, there's the riot we were told about, and so they began ending the riot the way police always do... with gentle negotiation and reconciliation. They negotiated with batons and reconciled with handcuffs. For their part, the concert goers had just gotten their tanks topped off with Revolution, and so they decided to engage in negotiations in the same spirit of reconciliation as the police.

This, folks, is how the great cop riot of 1983 or 1984 or whenever it was became a riot. The eight skinheads and twelve Revolutionary Communist Party people were swept to one side and did not end up in jail, but many, many, many hipsters and young business guys did.

Me?

I was backstage, meeting the band. I came out the side door of the Fox, looked at the front, saw the riot underway, and weighed my options. I could go punch a cop for the Revolution, or I could go to my car. I emulated my hero, Sir Robin. I did not learn anything new about myself at that moment, as I already knew that I preferred not getting beaten on.

The lesson came the next morning.

The newspapers the next day covered... nothing.

Really.

A small paragraph appeared saying that there had been a disturbance. When the lawsuits started against the false imprisonment, the newspaper still had no coverage. For some reason, Atlanta's first riot in sixteen years and the fact that it wasn't one just wasn't news.