Banks, Robin. “Belgium’s Burning! The Clash in Europe.” Zigzag (UK), no. 76, Sept. 1977, 7 pages. Includes review of Complete Control / City of the Dead.

Belgium’s Burning! & Mont de Marsen

— Robin Banks recounts The Clash’s infamous appearance at the Bilzen Jazz Festival (11 Aug 1977, Belgium), where the group confronted hostility from hippies and jazz fans, violent crowd missiles, and a barbed wire barrier separating audiences.

— Plus a review of the The Clash’s at the Mont de Marsen Festival (5 Aug 1977, France), where the group confronted hostility from hippies and jazz fans, violent crowd missiles, and a barbed wire barrier separating audiences.

— A review their new single Complete Control and B-side City of the Dead is praised

— At Bilzen festival, flying bottles, rocks, and bolts, backstage aftermath saw Jones declaring, “We showed ’em tonight”, clutching a rock as a souvenir.

— Mont de Marsan festival with The Clash’s standout set, plus features on Sham 69, Subway Sect, Steel Pulse, and Motorhead.

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Zigzag  |  No.76 September 1977  |   Cover & Page 3

Zigzag

No.76 September 1977 30 pence $1.50

The Clash The battle of Bilzen

New wave family tree

Zigzag  |  No.76 September 1977  |   Page 9, Page 10

Belgium's burning!

The Clash in Europe

All Clash pix: Paul Coerten

"Be not the first by whom the new are tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside,"

Alexander Pope’s warning words could well have been heeded for this gig in the cheerless heart of Belgium; where The Clash, The Damned, and Elvis Costello bravely faced the wrath of several thousand stalwart hippies, jazz fans and (read on for confirmation) assorted lunatics.

Being ambassadors of a sort is a full-time job, and playing at what was billed as a “Jazz Festival” in a country not renowned for its tolerance of new ideas, musical or otherwise, proved to be a harder task than most. But on August 11th, nearing the end of a schedule that would have knackered Superman, The Clash topped the bill at the Bilzen Jazz Festival 1977.

Things started smoothly enough, with the three English bands checking in at their hotel only a little late, Paul Simonon having staged a somewhat miraculous recovery from a mystery disease which briefly had him looking like a man with terminal leprosy. So everyone was in fine spirits as the coach left Liège for Bilzen, a mere twenty kilometres away, and Captain Sensible kept the assorted travellers entertained with his remarkable penguin impersonations.

The first sign of the impending fiasco/disaster came only as the coach reached its destination. The site and surrounding area was completely covered in what appeared to be refugees from the summer of 1967. Complete with arse-length hair, beads and peace signs, the waiting multitudes were intently listening to a group of local jazz musicians who sounded like a bizarre cross between Acker Bilk and The Soft Machine. The coach had suddenly become some sort of time machine, and its occupant victims, The Clash, The Damned, Elvis Costello et al had been whisked back a full ten years into the middle of the peace and love era.

Everybody seemed slightly dazed as we made our way backstage, and several people were already getting into the "Woodstock" type jokes that quickly became a natural defence mechanism to adopt in the situation.

The bands were each shown to their own caravan dressing rooms, and although Joe Strummer had to enter the Clash hide-out through a window to let the others in, everyone seemed to have recovered somewhat from the original impact of arrival, and quietly settled down to the business of preparing to go on stage.

The Clash, ensconced in their caravan, were soon giving interviews to assorted Belgian journalists whose English, or lack of it, gave plenty of scope for Strummer/Jones witticisms. But as Joe said to one particularly bewildered reporter, "It's O.K. mate, we ain't really gonna take the piss."

Meanwhile Clash super-roadie Rodent is struggling vainly to assemble the frame for the now famous backdrop. His endeavours are further thwarted when his partner Baker (on loan from the Subway Sect) falls heavily from the roof of the van. In fact things are rapidly going wrong, and you can just tell it's going to be one of those nights when usually immaculate Paul Simonon manages to spill a full bottle of wine and coke into his lap and onto his stage strides. "Do you believe in omens?" In the light of further events that evening, perhaps you should.

Eventually the Elvis Costello ensemble take the stage, and the other English musicians dutifully wander round the front to have a butchers. And suddenly, there it is! First beat from the stage is the ugliest, most ferocious looking barbed wire fence that you ever saw. Barbed wire! No wonder Joe, who was risking a barbed wire fence at a gig before, sees fit to climb up onto the front railings and front of the arena — only this time, merely where the privileged people hang out, with their pretty back-stage passes and posing enticingly from smart jackets, and behind this monstrosity of a fence is the other arena, the outer arena, where the less privileged paying customers have been herded like cattle; here the privileged are pressed up so tightly against the barbed wire that they must all be holding their breath. And they all look angry, and it ain't really no big surprise because as the Captain said later, "This ain't Bilzen, this is Belsen."

But the crowd aren't the only angry ones. Mick Jones is angry. So is Joe Strummer. So are Nicky Headon and Paul Simonon. In fact all the artists are angry, and Mick Jones leads the mass exodus backstage, and as soon as he flops down in the privacy of the caravan, he turns to Strummer and says plaintively, "We've got to do something about that fucking fence, Joe," and Strummer nods in agreement, "It's definitely got to go."

After Costello's set comes another 30-odd minutes, and although it's a different band to the one we came in on, it might just as well be the same one. Throughout the crowd have been quiet and fairly peaceful, and the occasional beer can thrown at a security guard. But when The Damned take the stage, things take a sudden and drastic change. Most of the crowd haven't seen anything like this before, and they simply can't take it. Out of the blue, the beer cans are flying, and not all of them are being thrown at the security men — in fact it's not long before The Damned are the main targets.

Kind soul to volunteer a guitar, Joe to rush through a quick check for tuning and the band swings straight into London's Burning. Immediately, Nicky and Paul are dodging the beer cans, and it becomes perfectly obvious that part of the crowd have no wish to see the band at all.

The cans and other missiles are flying with sickening regularity now, and what makes it worse is the fact that it's not black out there and you don't get to see what is flying in your direction until it's virtually too late. Then the inevitable happens; Paul gets a can straight in the shoulder. I don't know how he works it at that time, but he doesn't even miss a note and maintains his proud position on stage. Like the others here, he is clearly the perfect target for any sick cowardly lunatic hiding in the anonymity of the vast crowd.

Most of the cans aren't even fucking well empty. Some are unopened, contents half full. Next alternative object to hit the stage is a steel bolt, all of five inches long, and it bounces twice with a thud that can be heard above the music. Then comes a rock. It arcs high, and as splinters ricochet everywhere, one rock leads to another and suddenly it's getting completely out of control.

The announcement of what was greeted with a large cheer from the crowd.

Security is by now shaking with anger.

Between numbers Strummer is trying real hard to get through, but it seems like hardly anyone out there can speak the lingo. "Break that bloody fence down." And that fence down, he tells them time and time again. And gradually they seem to understand. The fence is finally and visibly lifting, and the security men are having a real job to keep the people back. People break cover where they long, right in front of the stage.

Suddenly Strummer leaps into the inner arena. He breaks straight to the fence, and with his own bare hands is pulling and tugging at this bastard area. For a second nobody knows what to do, and then all hell breaks loose. Security men grab Strummer, other people from the stage grab the security men. Somehow Joe is pushed back onto the stage and carries on as if nothing had happened. It remains an unbelievable scene, and to top it all those bastards out there are still throwing cans, rocks, and anything they can get their hands on. Some of it is aimed at the security guys, but a lot of it is still finding its way onto the stage, and you just play on. Right on through the three new numbers, best of which are The Prisoner and Complete Control, right through till it's time to end the set, and with the band giving everything round the band, everything except the blood, complete and utter chaos.

The White Riot encore, and amazingly the band seem to have won some of the audience over. People are on their feet, clapping along, some of them actually liking the set. Paradoxically it's the cans that are hitting the stage that make the place feel safest. And then it's over, and Nicky hits himself in the face with a drum stick, and that's that. White Riot is over, the band get off fast, as planned, and the fact that some fight through the stage is ignored.

Back in the caravan, Paul removes his sweat drenched shirt. Joe leans back like Mick and nods. Mick says "We showed 'em tonight." Then, as though inspired, Mick goes outside throwing more T-shirts and lighters into the audience.

And so it ends. Throwing the last can away, words cannot describe what it was like. Just quite an event. Mick Jones returns clutching a rock the size of a breeze block.

Belgium takes note. For that rock now takes pride of place.

Robin Banks

The Clash at Bilzen

Zigzag  |  No.75 August 1977?  |   Page 26 & Page unknown

The Mont de Marsan and the new Clash single may be from August's Zigzag.

Mont de Marsan

Between the lines

Every culture is reflected most accurately in its preference for specific drugs. No surprise, then, that the difference between the docile, cosmos-loving, turd-sucking Woodstock dossers and the self-obsessed neurosis tempered with sporadic outbursts of violence displayed by the troops at Mont de Marsan was exactly the difference between toking a spliff, man, and doing a line, sunshine. The minimal dope on offer would set your Cook's Traveller's Cheques back an extortionate 25 francs a fuckin' gram (about three quid), while a quarter G of speed was the same price and doing a roaring trade with the few thousand punks froggais crammed into the bullring of this nowhere-shithole down in the south of France near the Spanish border.

Blood on an unrolled ten franc note and regardez, mamma: viens de la vitamin C. And there weren't too many kids falling into booze trap, either. Sloshing the urine-froth down the jowels while the growing lard-belly sags over your strides and kneeling over the can bringing up your continental breakfast. Who needs that shit?

The battered visions of the new wave have at least created a climate where youth can get back to some culture purity, inevitably an amphetamine consciousness enabling a lifestyle that has no need for the concerns of lesser mortals such as food, sleep and love.

Mont de Marsan wasn't the gaff if you were looking for any of those commodities, anyhow.

As the Clash, Jam, Boys, Damned, Rings, Hot Rods, Dr. Feelgood, Tyla Gang, Maniacs and sundry others occupied the town's three hotels and rock-starved kids poured in by the battalion, the festival organisation crumpled under the pressure of supplying adequate accommodation until pulling meant musicians either chose a knee-trembler behind the bullring or as many spectators in his hotel room as there had been for his performance on stage.

One of the "brains" behind the festival hit the very hard-stuff to relieve the pressure and the first night got carted off to hospital suffering from the effects of chemical excess. As one hotel had just kicked out all the bands staying there, nobody sent him grapes...

Down in the bullring the private enclosure for prominent punks who ostensibly hated each other's gourds meant that a truce to all previous rock gutter press-conducted verbal acid had to be called otherwise no-one would survive the carnage, shares in massive record corporations would plummet and... there would be no music at Mont de Marsan.

For a while that didn't seem like such a bad thing. Apart from one or two notable exceptions, French bands like those opening the first day seemed as offensively incongruous as a Benidorm fish and chip shop.

We may have stolen our music from the Yanks but at least we do it better than they do. The French rock music suffers from their tendency to join in with the fun long after everyone else, a bit like the Americans with wars.

The Damned appear with their new guitarist Lou, only his third gig ever, and it showed. Afterwards the irate Captain Sensible expressed his desire to terminate his employment with the band "We're still all on £40 a week" – Rat Scabies – unless the rookie was given the elbow. This was probably said in the heat of the moment, although it proves conclusively that the blocko-dementoid bassist ain't as dumb as he looks... which would have been difficult.

The sound is merde though it gets better and The Damned seem intent on taking their copyrighted, choreographed desperation to the logical extension of a cartoon series. Rat Scabies is improving fast as a songwriter and his progress will be reflected in the future of the band. They chose a wider and younger audience than most of the bands they started out alongside in 1976 and now they are faced with the prospect of changing with their fans' tastes or else going the route to obscurity of all teen-idols. Still, they were always more about Supersonic than Panorama even if Rattus does destroy his drum-kit and they rile the Clash when Dave Vanian dedicates a song called Politics to them. And just when we'd all made friends again, too...

Kid Reed of The Boys falls off stage just before the band go on yet they manage to turn in a spirited, reaction-provoking set, although the lack of organisation behind scenes means a shortened set that don't give 'em a chance to do their classic Whatcha Gonna Do? Still, they won numerous converts and established themselves as contenders for The most underrated band in the UK title, along with Sham 69, who were back home in Blighty with their probation officers. As midnight chimed out in the arena was pitch blackness sprinkled with luminous green bands around the necks and arms of a thousand kids. The Clash hit the stage for the best performance of the festival, the JA connection strengthening all the time in their Westway Soundtrack and providing Strummer and Jones triumph with White Man In The Hammersmith Palais. The songs on the album ain't slashed out with the same manic panache with which they perform new songs like the terraces anthem Clash City Rockers or solipsism verbal acid of The Prisoner (Jones' guitar playing showcasing a stunning fluidity, although it ain't nowhere near as addictive as his sparse chord-chopping) and also the one where CBS get theirs for previous offences in Complete Control.

Captain Sensible strolls onstage during the Clash set to explode stink bombs and is thrown bollock-straddled across some railings. When he wakes up he finds himself being loaded into an ambulance and screams and flees, seeking refuge on top of some Frenchie's parked van.

Twink's new Rings take the stage as most people go off to seek adventure singing Pressure Drop while the geriatric new waver seems convinced that his mob are topping the bill...

The next day the music press whine, Paul Simonon gets treated for glandular fever, Paul Weller complains about the food. Rat Scabies gives Joan Jett a lousy review and, while The Damned and The Clash hold a summit meeting for an end to all hostilities, more French bands like Marie et les Gascons and the crew with the honey-thighed singer, Shakin' Street, churn out a kind of punk hit parade pastiche that bores me shitless.

Off-duty bands get smashed as The Jam find out their contract to play after the disappointing Little Bob Story set is void and they can't go on until after bill-toppers Doctor Feelgood (who got their wedge upfront and got wrecked from boredom-induced excesses). The Jam are choked but decide to blow out of the festival rather than get fucked-about because of the promoters' ineptitude. It was too bad they did, because they were easily the best band that day and could have blown everybody else clean off stage...

The Tyla Gang played basic boozer-rock and the crowd went apeshit; obviously their tastes are more conservative than their King's Road chic would lead you to believe.

The Hot Rods and the Feelgoods bring oil city rivvum 'n' blooze to the psyched-up delirium of les punters but by this time the security guards were playing Gestapo warriors and the more shell-shocked among us made for dark corners to flash switchblades and powder our noses while the cops prowled everywhere. My companion assured me they couldn't bust the next generation.

"See these bondage strides?" he smirked. "When they got me down in the cells the last time I had three separate pieces of dope hidden inside 'em... I cut the lines and you roll the note, awright?"

I can't think of a better way to spend the night, me son.

– Tony Parsons

Only in Zigzag

The new Clash single!

The Clash: Complete Control / The City of the Dead (CBS)

At last it's here! The new single. And it's a killer. Stone dead. In your tracks. This is gonna annihilate ya!

Intensity ain’t the word. Forget Remote Control, forget White Riot even. This is The Clash at their unadulterated best. Startlingly powerful and absolutely unbeatable. Ain’t heard a single with this impact since I Can’t Explain, Jumpin' Jack Flash or Anarchy in the UK.

Mick Jones sets the pace slashing searing, violent chords. Joe Strummer spits and sneers out the lyrics with caustic bitterness: "This is Joe Public speaking" he leers with heavy irony. Simonon’s bass line leaves track marks on your brain and Headon hits the skins as if his life depends on it.

The chorus has a hook line that'd pull a shark out of water. "You’re my guitar hero", Joe shouts as Mick swings into a solo that leaves you grovelling for more.

The Clash have the ability to combine earth rawness with delicate subtlety. The overall effect is stunning.

And listen to those words. They tell the other side of rock’n’roll's story. Of manipulation. Of exploitation. Of the constant battle to avoid becoming a product in a world geared to packaging and labelling. Of how it really is. No punches are pulled and some people ain’t gonna like it. The truth hurts and The Clash have shown the courage of their convictions yet again by choosing this as a single.

It would have been easy simply to tone down the lyrical content, but this band has retained the honesty and the integrity that was, and hopefully still is, the very core and heartbeat of the new movement.

And don't forget the flip side.

This is so original and different it just takes my breath away.

The Clash with organ and sax, plus a bossa nova-type chorus! And it works. Nicky demonstrates his versatility whilst Paul’s fretful bass line only emphasises the impact. The lyrics tell a harrowing tale of sex, drugs and violence (topical stuff).

And the clever, catchy nature of the tune almost belies the reality of Joe’s words. Jones’ seemingly effortless guitar licks speed the song through relentlessly, and it is just so good to dance to.

If a better single is forthcoming in 1977 I'm going to be very surprised indeed.

– Robin Banks

Zigzag  |  No.76 September 1977 & ?No.75 August 1977