The Clash a cinque returned to Italy in early September, much faster than I had hoped, for a tour of the Unity Festivals. Five dates: first Cava dei Tirreni, near Naples, and then Rome, Reggio Emilia, Genoa and Turin.

I did not have the aptitude and the money to tour the whole of Italy and therefore I chose the last date, with the idea of composing a new double: on Monday 10th Midge Ure's Ultravox at the Palatrussardi in Milan, on Tuesday 11th the Clash at five at the Municipal Stadium in Turin. In a fit of courage I called a girl I liked, convinced that a trip out of town to see the Clash was a program that could intrigue her, but unfortunately I didn't find it. And mine was an ambitious program, which just as unfortunately succeeded in half. Ultravox were a twice-lived group.

After three albums of decadent and niche rock grown on the big shoulders of punk, at the crossroads between Roxy Music and a lot of electronics, in 1980 they had changed direction and singer in one fell swoop. John Foxx the cold was gone, taking with him three albums and minimalist jewels such as Hiroshima Mon Amour and My Sex.

Instead of him had come Midge Ure and his dappled mustache. Midge Ure already had a dignified career as a luxury supporting actor behind her fifths of many new wave bands. With him the Ultravox raised the volume of the synthesizers and, taking advantage of the neo-romantic vogue, achieved real mass success. Their music became the perfect soundtrack for nocturnal ambient videos, crossed by combative rhythms and pagan and chivalrous choirs.

At the time they were enthralling and I liked them, especially when Ure remembered being a Mr. punk guitarist and took the chair, leaving the keyboards in the background. The concert on Monday 10th was not particularly exciting, but it reacted to the objective of serving as an appetizer for the unexpected return of the Clash to five, with an adventurous Savoy trip. At one point Midge Ure reached the stage and challenged the front row audience, who had spit on him, with the decisive New Europeans chords, a troubled pearl of the VIENNA album. The only hint of pogo, the only vague provocation and the high point of the evening. As if to say, leave me alone, that if you piss me off I'm still capable of so much.

Unfortunately, my ambitious program was half-finished because the Turin concert of the Clash a cinque was treacherously canceled. Still burned by the massacre of the Statuto cinema of February 13, 1983 - sixty-four deaths from asphyxiation in the fire of a cinema without safety exits in accordance with the law - the competent authorities "in charge of safeguarding public safety" went sideways to the group and denied their clearance: the Clash stage wasn't secure enough.

They had mounted it badly. It is not clear to me what such a motivation really meant, if the stage was at risk for the musicians or the audience. Could Joe Strummer have tripped over a plank of wood and fell down during his marches with the microphone stand on his shoulders? Or else the whole structure was unsteady, from the uprights that supported the boxes to the beams on which the lighting system was supported? Maybe they hadn't braced her properly, he was swinging, and at any moment he could have crashed into the pogo below (not having passed Statica yet, I couldn't tell for sure).

The next day I bought "La Stampa" to find out more. As expected, Joe had ridden the incident claiming that in reality it was all a conspiracy against the Clash, the most uncomfortable group in the world, while on the contrary the organizers of the concert had taken it well, and recognized that the Commission had acted with correctness. Side note: three years earlier, at the Vigorelli, the Clash had played anyway, despite the contrary opinion of the Police Headquarters.

I took my train in Centrale at half past four and arrived in Turin around seven, completely unaware of the bitter news and in any case rather loaded. At the foot of the Comunale I strangely found the gates closed and glimpsed the meadow of the field still deserted. I approached to ask for explanations to some boys who grazed scattered, with a lax air, without that euphoric tension that usually infects the minimal gestures and faces of those who live in anticipation of a great event (or a Clash concert. , which was more or less the same thing).

So I discovered that the group had had time to try out voices and instruments, to do the so-called soundcheck, but immediately afterwards they had pulled the plug. Someone had read a statement on the loudspeakers and then Joe himself had shown himself outside the stadium to sign autographs, to excite and calm the spirits.

The concert had been canceled: there was no way that the Clash would play on Tuesday, but rumor had it that, once the stage was restored, they could play on Wednesday. I hung around the stadium to sell my ticket, as I knew I wouldn't be the next day anyway returned. I told the true story of the Milanese so far from home to a suspicious guy with a beard and he bought me a ticket. Unfortunately he lost his money, it seems to me fifteen thousand lire: the Clash did not play the following evening, they had already returned to London.

The chronicle of the Genoese concert on Monday, on the ´Secolo XIXª, was the chronicle of a triumph. I had better miss the Ultravox, but how was I to know? The future is not written, said Joe Strummer. "The musical Genoa had a memorable start, with an evening that fans will tell at length with the implicit pride of 'I was there too".

After half an hour of music, a hundred fans had not resisted the group's invitations and had invaded the stage, making the Palasport di Genova in 1984 a cheerful reissue of the Rainbow in London in 1977. "Perched around the drums, the unleashed bishops of the hardest rock they continued to play while the order service was overwhelmed by fans, invited by Joe Strummer to join him on the scene ". So wrote Maurizio Cabona: "Confused moments, in which we saw Strummer intensely kiss an admirer and a guitarist continue fearlessly strumming suspended on the shoulders of a beefy spectator". Joe Strummer kissing a fan? In the ´Secoloª there was also the photo.

I took my train in Centrale at half past four and arrived in Turin around seven, completely unaware of the bitter news and in any case rather loaded. At the foot of the Comunale I strangely found the gates closed and glimpsed the meadow of the field still deserted.

I approached to ask for explanations to some boys who grazed scattered, with a lax air, without that euphoric tension that usually infects the minimal gestures and faces of those who live in anticipation of a great event (or a Clash concert. , which was more or less the same thing). So I discovered that the group had had time to try out voices and instruments, to do the so-called soundcheck, but immediately afterwards they had pulled the plug.

Someone had read a statement on the loudspeakers and then Joe himself had shown himself outside the stadium to sign autographs, to excite and calm the spirits. The concert had been canceled: there was no way that the Clash would play on Tuesday, but rumor had it that, once the stage was restored, they could play on Wednesday. I hung around the stadium to sell my ticket, as I knew I wouldn't be the next day anyway

In a record shop in Via del Bollo, where the mustachioed owner, when there were no people, let me pass the counter to put my favorite records, in the spring I had listened to FIVE A LIVE, a bootleg of the Clash a five recorded in Stockholm. Before and after Milan the Clash had toured Europe, I did not know that, after their debut in California, they had returned to America.

In Milan the Clash a cinque had about fifteen concerts behind them; when they returned to Italy in September, they had over seventy. Listening today to the recordings of the evenings of Cava dei Tirreni and Reggio Emilia I can say that those seventy dates are all heard.

The Clash neglect their new material a bit, giving away just six performances for four of those already played in February. On the other hand, they demonstrate a familiarity with the old man that they did not have before. Joe jokes with the public without the anxiety of indoctrinating him and all the others finally seem to have fun: they stretch White Man in Hammersmith Palais on the wave of the choirs, rearrange the Clash City Rockers finale in baroque tones, drag Complete Control onto the track.

At Cava they speed up London Calling and all the old songs as if they have the anxiety to scramble them ahead of time, and turn Know Your Rights into a rockabilly prayer. In Reggio, on the other hand, they stick a two-minute welcome march to London Calling that turns it into a puppet ride. Joe still believes in it and the group supports him, Tommy Gun becomes a real bullfight, Career Opportunities has never been so powerful.

The Clash a five confirm that they do not deserve lessons on early songs, but to my pleasant surprise they finally face the open sea of xxSANDINISTA !. The Police on My Back siren sends Nick on the shields Sheppard and the eternal Junco Partner, an old reggae that Joe already played before joining the Clash, replaces Armagideon Time in the part of the quiet encore. Two covers, okay, but always better than nothing. There is no remake of the Clash that does not obscure the original, and in any case it has always been a bad habit of Joe, to prefer his favorite songs to songs written by him. Junco Partner will propose it again for life.

In short, the Clash were alive and well, in the face of those who had put them on the cross in February.

That shameless fan of Paolo Zaccagnini, one who had also returned distraught from Milan and who had already written a book about them, counted thirty thousand spectators on the "Messaggero" for the Roman concert, which took place near the defunct Eur Velodrome, in an arena set up for the National Day of Unita: if so, it would be one of the most crowded concerts of the entire career of the Clash a five.

The Clash had never played in Rome. They were supposed to come in 1981; at the same time, a week earlier they had even announced his presence as guests at Discoring, but then everything was blown up and an improvised disco group performed in their place. Zaccagnini writes: "Exhausted and happy, shaken, tried, happy, full of doubts, satisfied, sweaty, destroyed: the thirty thousand leave, in silence, with the certainty of having attended a historic concert. There remains - in the heart, in the mind - the feeling of how true and vital rock can be î.

On the exact opposite, Ernesto Bassignano's judgment on ´Paese Seraª, when he speaks of a Roman passage "without excessive glory or infamy", goes beyond "half a dozen new pieces that did not particularly impress us" and comments: The internal force - a la Sex Pistols - that animated the sound of the past, has now given way to an approximate and uncoordinated angerî. Divisive, always.

On the "Mattino" of Naples Gianni Cesarini declared6 his doubts about the new signings had been dispelled and summarized in a few lines, with the right words and the necessary parentheses, the widespread opinion of all the fans: "White and Sheppard seemed to us to be definitively integrated into the group and very well at ease in building the usual wall of guitars (even if Mick Jones ...), while Pete Howard played his role as drummer very well (even if Topper Headon ...) ".

But perhaps the best words are Federico Vacalebre for ´Rockerillaª, the only magazine in the sector that is uncomfortable6 again for these Clash. Vacalebre had already written a book about them too.

Here it is: ìIt is not pit. as it once was, LONDON CALLING and SANDINISTA! are far away, even more Topper Headon and dear Mick Jones, but probably these new Clash will still be loved. Because, like Marlowe in one of Raymond Chandler's many writings, 'If they weren't tough, they wouldn't be alive. If they couldn't be sweet, they wouldn't deserve to be alive".