Notes

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The Clash Take the Fifth Tour
With Peter Tosh, Robert Frith, Maria Muldour,
The Mighty Diamonds, Earl Zero & Joe Ely


With London Calling only just in the can The Clash flew out to California to fulfil their last pre-Blackhill commitment at the Tribal Stomp Festival and leaving Bill Price responsible for the final mixes. Monterey was not part of the official Take The 5th Tour.

The Clash fired up by the event, and by accounts a combination of booze and speed, delivered a show of pure adrenalin. Joe flung himself back into the drum kit as if he’d been shot after the first line of I’m So Bored With The USA, causing the audience to leapt to its feet and creating the dramatic photos used in the New York Times.

The Clash at Monterey certainly made a connection with American rock history but not with the 67 Festival of the laid-back hippy era. Instead they connected right back to the 50’s heyday of Elvis, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Bo Diddley etc, delivering raw rock’n’roll but now with lyrics that connected directly with the hopes, anger and frustration of people’s lives, wiping away the years of escapist “progressive rock music”. What a shock it must have been to most of the audience.

The Festival (still being held today) was an attempt to revive the hippie heyday of the 67 Monterey Festival. To The Clash, especially Joe and Mick, the lure of playing Monterey steeped in the history of Jimi, Janis, Otis etc would have been exciting and hard to resist. Johnny Green’s book gives the background in some detail and confirms that to The Clash the gig had assumed great significance.

But when they arrived at the fairground site designed to hold 12,000 for their afternoon slot they found just 500 milling around. To make matters worse the organisers and most of the crowd were stuck in a hippy 60’s time warp including Wavy Gravy in full fancy dress.

No film footage has surfaced but we do have a hugely enjoyable recording which captures the raw intensity brilliantly. The best copy and widely circulated is the Cheap Gasoline cdr, which is from a 2nd generation audience source, clear and without distortion. Vocals are very good for an audience recording, as are the drums. Bass is low in the mix as is the lead guitar until Jail Guitar Doors when presumably the soundman got his act together.

There is a degree of flatness, some echo, and a slightly harsh top end sound, which has some stereo separation. The real bonus though of this recording is that Joe’s rhythm is right upfront in the mix and crystal clear. It’s a real showcase for Joe’s attacks on his Telecaster! Joe’s playing on the first two songs is especially exciting hitting you right between the ears.

Joe’s introduction to the gig gives this bootleg it’s name; “now we’ve bought some cheap gasoline with us, to sell at the side of the stage for 50cents a gallon“. The performances are all very strong with many highlights.

Bored With The USA has some lyric changes and references to Freddie Laker. Joe introduces London Calling with “We’d like to play a new song here, we just made a record of this last week so hope we don’t fuck up”, He then proceeds to do just that getting the lyrics mixed up. It s a song still in transition to its recorded form (contradicting his introduction), still having the references to the “midnight shutdown” and “time to be tough” and some different musical passages.

With the nearest he gets to sarcasm towards the audience an excellent White Man is introduced with “well since we’re in California we wanna get laid back a second”. An intense and revitalised Drug Stabbing Time follows. The older songs through to the encore are particularly intense with Janie Jones and Garageland both superb.

The encore (seamlessly edited in) starts with the first live version of the then current Willie Williams reggae hit, Armagideon Time. Another example of a cover version that The Clash would re-make as their own, but here it’s short and not yet fully worked up. With the pace dropped, there’s some guitar feedback before they blast into a brilliant fast and intense Career Opportunities. The intensity finally flags with the introduction of Joe Ely to sing his song Fingernails. It’s an unmemorable song but Mick’s lead guitar work is of interest. The set ends with White Riot, which is also lacking the earlier intensity.

"i was at the monterrey '79 gig. what a strange thing that was with all the hippies and only 500 people. (joe's remark about the cheap gas was in reference to the supposed gas shortage america was going through at the time, BTW.) anyway the other bands on the bill besides joe ely and robert "firth" fripp (who was solo backed by a teac reel to reel) were reggae band the soul syndicate and the chambers brothers. ely's songwriting partner butch hancock also did a couple of numbers in between joe and the chambers' sets. i have no recollection of either maria muldahr (she might have been on the bill with moby grape that evening) or earl zero performing but i do remember knocking jello biafra on his skinny ass when he tried to slam me."