Notes

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Combines a decent recording with an explosive performance and excellent choice of material. All soundboard/FM, tracks 1-16 are from the best available source and 17-20 are from a lesser but more complete source and 21 to 24 are from a King Buscuit Flour Hour broadcast of the same gig. All of them are in stereo with decent seperation

Pearl Harbour Tour - Larry McIntyre Fund Benefit
Supported by Bo Diddley & Alex Bevan

Police and Fireman LP
Sound 4 - 49min - lp/master - 15 tracks [1-15]

Fuller/edited FM version
Sound 4 - 61min - low generation - 20 tracks

King Biscuit Flower Hour FM
Sound 4 - 16min - low gen - 4 tracks - 8, 9, 12, 16

Pearl Harbour Tour

The Clash thrilled to be in the US for their first tour were in terrific form. Joe was suffering from chronic toothache for this benefit gig but jokes and berates the journalists. He would write a diary for the UK NME,

‘This guy called Larry McIntyre lost both his legs in Vietnam and when he went for a swim one day in the pool near his flat all the other residents banned him from the pool on the grounds that it was too disgusting…so we agree to play a show for him, helping his legal costs but we don’t get to meet him, I think because having forgot his name, I referred to him over the P.A. as “the guy with no legs”. Joe surely used him later though as the inspiration for the Car Jamming lyrics, “..boots blown off in a 60’s war..”.

Caroline Coon remembers this as a particularly intense show. Kids were fainting in the crush at the front. Most bands didn’t provoke that kind of intense response so the local security didn’t know what to do.

In an article that first appeared in the Melody Maker (24/2/79) and was reprinted in Uncut November 97 Allan Jones wrote of meeting up with The Clash in freezing cold Cleveland and witnessed this gig and the next one in Washington. Never a Clash fan Jones wrote the band were great but shambolic at times, trying to cope with an audience, going wild and gobbing. White Man was interrupted as bodies were dragged over the footlights and passed backstage. The crush at the front was now murderous and Mick’s face was white with anxiety.

classic clash gig

From Here To Eternity’ has great sound quality and professional performances but fails to capture the excitement, the mania, the atmosphere, the “controlled explosion on stage” that The Clash, like no other band before or since, could conjure.

There are 3 known variants of this gig circulating with varying lengths and sound quality, all seemingly from the same source.

Recorded professionally for local FM radio, the sound mix is particularly good in capturing the Clash sound, with Mick’s lead in one stereo channel and Joe’s rhythm in the other. Bass, drums are also all excellent, the only fault with the mix being the vocals which are not as “in your face” as they could be.


Police and Firemen LP

The gig was released as the Police (and Firemen) On My Back bootleg LP on Klashin Records in Canada in 81.

A lot of poor copies from circulate. Old tapes lifted from the vinyl

The LP has no edits between songs (see below) and therefore captures the atmosphere best, and includes all Joe’s between song comments and attempts to stop the crushing at the front.

It excludes though the 5 songs in the 2 encores [tracks 16-20]. Sound is excellent stereo but the LP suffers from surface noise from scratches. The LP was subsequently re-released with different artwork.


Edited FM versions

Edited (for radio?) FM versions also exist, the best one is a minute shorter than the popular one and has a number of digital clicks and poor edits between songs losing some of the atmosphere.

Its sound though is the best, (with the exception of I’m So Bored which lacks the same quality at the start as the rest) with great professional clarity and range. The twin guitar attack of The Clash is captured superbly.

The more popular FM rating version has poorer sound.

King Biscuit Flower Hour Broadcast

Four tracks were also broadcast in very good stereo FM quality on the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio programme; Safe European Home, Stay Free, Police and Thieves & Julies been working for the Drug Squad. Oddly the mix on these tracks is different losing the 2 guitar split into the channels but has clearer vocals!

This recordings [in various forms] captures the sweaty, manic atmosphere of The Clash magnificently and therefore is an essential recording. A very, very popular gig amongst collectors...

All the song performances are superb with an extended Police & Thieves being the highlight (of a gig full of highlights), with Joe making fun of US consumerism, salads, tv channels and at one point shouting “I don’t want 56 pairs of trousers, 3 cadillacs!..”.

5. City of the Dead “I’m glad to see you’re so free with your money, for this guys got no legs, I assume you know what I’m talking about. And those of you at the back with the American/English dictionary, forget it man, they don’t give a fuck for the words.
This is a Japanese number, released by Hank Williams in 1965.. [which Strummer was to repeat at several other venues as well]”)

12. Police and Thieves “We have to talk to a lot of journalists and they always ask, excuse me sir, but does your music have a message? If you say yeah, you let yourself in for, oh yeah well what is the message, so for all you trainee journalists in the audience this is the message…can we have the lights down please …Oooh! ,Oooh!, Oooh!, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh!)


Tracks 16 –20 are on the FL version only.