- Format: MP3
The Clash Take the Fifth Tour
Supported by The Undertones & David Johansen
The opening night of the “Take the Fifth”
The opening night of the “Take the Fifth” 2nd US Tour. Fifth as in Amendment but from Boston onwards it was literally true; with Mickey Gallagher playing keyboards. The Tour would build on the low key success of the earlier Pearl Harbour tour and despite mixed audience and US media responses Johnny Green wrote it was the tour when it felt like The Clash were really starting to take off.
Cartoonist Ray Lowry along for the ride wrote the tour proved that “Americans do care about rock’n’roll rather than rock music; if The Clash packed it in tomorrow we’d lose the sole living evidence that rock’n’roll aspires to be anything more than blind escapism”.
under new management
The Clash had ended their period of self-management by allowing Blackhill (Jenner & King) to attempt to manage them on a trial basis.
Blackhill Enterprises were a rock music management company, founded as a partnership by the four original members of Pink Floyd, with Peter Jenner and Andrew King .
After Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd, the partnership was dissolved, and Jenner and King continued Blackhill to manage Barrett. They also managed: Marc Bolan, Roy Harper
The split was partly a result of the influence of Kosmo Vinyl, a significant figure from here on in The Clash story. Kosmo had been friends with the band for sometime but would now become a cross between official PR manager and court jester. Kosmo had been responsible for ensuring the UK music press sent Clash friendly representatives; Paul Morley for the NME, Pete Silverton for Sounds and Joe’s old friend Allan Jones for the Melody Maker.
Before And After Pennie Smith
Photographer Pennie Smith, sent by the NME for the whole tour, has provided the best photographic document of this tour. Visually The Clash now had a 50’s rocker look, mostly black clothes and greased back hair, or as Lowry put it as “the bastard offspring of Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and a Harley Davidson”. The backdrop of flags though did remain after Mick had vetoed Paul’s commissioned B52 bomber backdrop as pro militaristic.
New Music
Musically too the band had moved on as Joe explained to a journalist at St Paul “Those old songs are great, and we still do them but we have moved on”. The Clash continuing their love/hate relationship with the USA would choose support acts (apart from the opening Undertones) to reflect their love of US rock’n’roll and soul history; Sam & Dave, Bo Diddley, Screaming Jay Hawkins (Sam Cooke’s chain gang was the intro music on part of the tour). Commercially this was brave, a “new wave” line up was Epic’s choice but The Clash saw it as pay back time.
Problems with Epic in bank rolling the tour continued with The Clash threatening to fly back home on several occasions. Promotion by Epic was minimal so Kosmo got The Clash onto as many local radio stations for interviews as possible.
St Paul Civic Center
The St Paul Civic Center was typical of the venues booked by the William Morris Agency for this tour, averaging 2,500 to 5,000 seated venues, reflecting The Clash’s rising popularity in the US. But seated large halls were not the best place for The Clash to deliver their high octane rock’n’roll and this would be a continued source of frustration particularly to Joe, throughout the tour. The Civic Center was a huge concrete barn with an artificial sliding floor for use also as an ice rink (see pic) The only thing going for it was that Mick’s mother Renee along for the show had seen Elvis here.
A very good low generation recording circulates.
It has some stereo separation suggesting a soundboard source but is almost definitely a pro-equipment audience recording as individual voices around the taper can be heard throughout and the vocals lack the “in the face” feel of a soundboard source.
Either way its one of the best recordings from the tour all the instruments are clear and sharp. The main flaws are the range of sound and the guitars pushed back in the mix, losing a lot of the punch and attack, not helped by Mick’s guitar sound which through most of the tour had differing phased sound effects added. A definite mistake with his guitar work lacking edge and impact a result no doubt of Mick’s muso tendencies.
The sound problems may have resulted from (as Johnny Green witnessed) the soundman with hair to waist, wearing unplugged headphones to drown out the noise!
Paul Morley reviewed the gig as a “split around the edges, breaking amps, angry at everything & nothing show” The Minneapolis Star described it as “hardly transcendental”. Joe was reported to have bit Paul in frustration!
The recording reveals though a band working hard to get the same type of reaction they were used to in Britain or at the smaller halls on the Pearl Harbour tour. As a result Joe tries too hard, his frustration affecting his performance with the result that a number of the performances are workmanlike rather than inspired. However from Clash City Rockers onwards things click and the performances are highly charged and impressive.
Joe first addresses the audience before London Calling somewhat ambivalently “ I’d just like to say that we’re very surprised that you want to come and see us, seeing as so many in the mid-West.. I don’t mean to come here and knock you all but when I get to the hotel, turn on the radio, get bored, twiddle away and all I hear is the Eagles or Steely Dan, so I turn into Country & Western..” London Calling here is more together than at Monterey, retaining the “time to be tough, the midnight shutdown” lines over the recorded versions “phoney beatlemania” lines.
The Prisoner follows, a definite highlight and rare outing for this song. Tension between Joe and Mick is evident; Joe “Alright smart arse”, Mick “Shorty, lighten up!” White Man hits a groove at the end but before the first live Koka Kola. Joe barks in frustration “Its no good, its just a pile of shit” Koka Kola is brilliantly segued into I Fought The Law (as it would continue to do) with Topper’s drum rolls coming in just after Joe shouts “Hit the deck”. Joe then appeals to the audience “now listen you guys it ain’t getting any better, lets have a bit of encouragement, you gotta say fuck off you limeys, give it some stick you cunts!”
The audience response improves to Jail Guitar Doors. Joe introduces the first live Clampdown; “maybe getting a little better now, now here’s the acid test, taking off his turban they said is this man a jew”. This inspired lyric about racial intolerance goes over the head of at least one in the audience, a woman shouts “Fuck you” clearly misunderstanding Joe’s words as anti-Semitic! Clampdown, a future highlight of Clash performances is still in transition here, with Joe singing all the lyrics and the song petering out after getting into a great groove. The song was so new a live ending had not yet been worked out!
As noted things really pick up from Clash City Rockers onwards. Armagideon Time the first song of the encore was the highlight of these shows; the lights were dimmed, drum and bass starts up and then Joe appears to great effect from behind the drum riser lit only by the candelabra held in his hand, “We have this here to remind us..a lot of people won’t get any justice tonight”. Armagideon Time is now much extended from its Monterey performance and is developing into another Clash live classic. A short gap and the pace dramatically changes as Career Opportunities blasts out. Jimmy Jazz gets its live debut sounding impressive an almost fully realised. Following White Riot, Mick says “great start”, Joe’s given his Casey Jones hat (another in a long line of dodgy Strummer head gear!) and the audience sound fairly appreciative. A good performance, quality sound and fascinating show.