US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-28-1983 - Day 1, Part 9: The Clash

The ninth and final act to perform on the first day of the 1983 US Festival was the Clash. 

I'm excited to present this album because there aren't that many Clash concert recordings with excellent sound. This one seems to have been overlooked as an audio recording - I could only find poor sounding audience bootlegs of this show. But it turns out there was an excellent video of the set, which I then converted to mp3 files. In my opinion, this is now one of a handful of the best Clash live recordings out there, so this is a must have if you're a fan of the band.

Adding interest, this is the very last concert of what some people would consider the "real" Clash. The two main creative forces in the band were Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, who wrote or co-wrote nearly all of the songs. This turned out to be the last concert with Jones in the band. He was kicked out of the band a few months later. The band put out one more album after that, "Cut the Crap" in 1985, but it has a very controversial reputation.

One might think the band was falling apart at this point, so the performance was poor. In fact, the opposite was the case. The band gave a strong and passionate performance. But there's a weird back story to it which I want to relate in full.

In 1983, the Clash were riding high commercially, thanks to their 1982 hit album "Combat Rock," with two big hit singles, "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go." As a result, they were the closer for the first day, "New Wave Day," and one of the main headliners for the entire festival. The closers for the other two nights were Van Halen and David Bowie. It turned out the Clash were paid half a million dollars to perform, whereas Van Halen was originally to be paid a million dollars. However, Bowie was doing a concert tour in Europe at the time, and held out to be paid a million and a half dollars. The main backer of the festival, Steve Wozniak, had deep pockets after becoming a multimillionaire thanks to his role cofounding Apple Computers. So he agreed to pay a million and a half to Bowie. Then it turned out Van Halen had a provision in their contract that they got to be paid as much as any other act in the festival. So their million got bumped up to a million and a half as well.

This left the Clash feeling miffed. Wozniak was paying huge sums left and right, especially to headlining acts, and the Clash probably could have held out for a lot more. But at the same time, the band had a punk reputation as being anti-capitalist, so it would have hurt their reputation to demand more. The band threaded this needle by demanding an extra $100,000, but insisting that it all be given to local charities to help the poor. Apparently, the promoters agreed to this before the concert began, but nothing was written down. As the time came for the Clash to go on stage, they got wind that that part of the agreement wasn't going to be honored after all. So instead of performing, the band gave an impromptu press conference backstage, insisting the promoters honor their deal to give some money to charity.

Wozniak later said, "The Clash made a bit of a stink, taking some sort of workingman's revolutionary stance."

Brian Setzer, a member of the Stray Cats, later recalled, "I remember they had a press conference going on. I asked [Clash bassist] Paul Simonon, 'What are you guys doin'? Aren't you supposed to be on stage?' He just shrugged his shoulders and laughed."

It took a lot of backstage bickering, but eventually some agreement to give some money to charity was agreed upon. As a result, the band went on stage two hours late!

One of the concert organizers Mark Bliesener later said, "It was just such an angry gig for them. Strummer could not get across to the crowd – at one point he was demanding hostility from them. There was so much rancor all night: were the Clash going on, were they not going on? And there was always an attitude about that band in the industry, especially a lot of American crews and promoters, because they just could not dig what that band was about."

But this could help explain why the band played great that night - they often did their best in a hostile situation. There even is a fitting line in the Clash song "Clampdown": "The fury of the hour, anger can be power, did you know that you can use it?"

Partway through the concert, something else happened that probably pissed off the band even more. Concert promoter Berry Fey later said, "They were bitching about money, but that's why we put a copy of the check up on the video screen – during their set – showing that they got half a million dollars."

However, the drama didn't end when their set was over. Bliesener later explained, "So when the Clash came off... the stage announcer got on the mic in this phony British accent, saying, 'You can shout as loud as you want, but the Clash have left the building.' It was just so obnoxious. Immediately, a fistfight broke out. The Clash's crew were just all over this guy. I think [bassist] Paul [Simonon] might have thrown a punch. But they felt goaded, and the atmosphere was so thick with exhaustion, tension, and testosterone. It was a horrible night, just in terms of the vibe of everything."

Regarding the recording, as I mentioned above, it sounds excellent, definitely on par with a soundboard. However, there are three songs with issues. The end of the first song was cut off ("London Calling"), continuing into most of the second song ("This Is Radio Clash"). Also, part of the fourth song ("Rock the Casbah") was also missing. Luckily, I found an audience bootleg and used that other recording to fill in the missing parts. That's why those three songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. But one can easily hear the drop in sound quality for those parts.

This album is an hour an 18 minutes long.

134 talk (Clash)
135 London Calling [Edit] (Clash)
136 This Is Radio Clash [Edit] (Clash)
137 Somebody Got Murdered (Clash)
138 talk (Clash)
139 Rock the Casbah [Edit] (Clash)
140 Guns of Brixton (Clash)
141 Know Your Rights (Clash)
142 Koka Kola (Clash)
143 Hate or War (Clash)
144 talk (Clash)
145 Armagideon Time (Clash)
146 talk (Clash)
147 Sound of the Sinners (Clash)
148 talk (Clash)
149 Safe European Home (Clash)
150 Police on My Back (Clash)
151 Brand New Cadillac (Clash)
152 I Fought the Law (Clash)
153 I'm So Bored with the USA (Clash)
154 Train in Vain (Clash)
155 The Magnificent Seven (Clash)
156 talk (Clash)
157 Straight to Hell (Clash)
158 Should I Stay or Should I Go (Clash)
159 Clampdown (Clash)
160 talk (Clash)

NOTE: The download link has been removed due to a copyright issue. But check the comments.

The cover photo shows Joe Strummer and Mick Jones from this exact concert.