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5 Go Mad In The Roundhouse

Tracks 1 - 15 live at The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London, 5th September, 1976. Tracks 16 - 28 live at Barbarella's, Birmingham, 26th October, 1976.

Track listing

  1. Deny
  2. 1-2 Crush On You
  3. I Know What I Think About You
  4. I Never Did It
  5. How Can I Understand The Flies
  6. Protex Blue
  7. Janie Jones
  8. Mark Me Absent
  9. Deadly Serious
  10. 48 Hours
  11. I'm So Bored With You
  12. Sitting At My Party
  13. London's Burning
  14. What's My Name
  15. 1977
  1. White Riot
  2. Birmingham's Burning
  3. I'm So Bored With The U.S.A.
  4. How Can I Understand The Flies
  5. Protex Blue
  6. Deadly Serious
  7. Deny
  8. Career Opportunities
  9. 48 Hours
  10. What's My Name
  11. Janie Jones
  12. 1977
  13. 1-2 Crush On You

Review

This is a very 'historic' bootleg you could say. The Clash lineup for the Roundhouse gig is the five man outfit - Joe on vocals, Paul on bass, Keith Levene and Mick on guitars, and Terry Chimes on drums. The band is rough 'n' ready, and very energetic. The sound quality is pretty good. It's a tiny bit muffled throughout, the first two tracks more than most, but after those it improves significantly.

There are lots of songs that you won't find anywhere else, as you can see from the songlist. These unreleased ones are pretty good, and the band is very energetic. There are a fair number of breaks in the show during which Joe addresses a less than friendly audience. My favourite moment being when Joe says "So you got five A-Levels, what do I care? That's just a dirty trick!" during a long break in the set. What's admirable is the strength of the performance when the crowd obviously didn't 'dig' The Clash that much. The applause after some of the songs comes across as a bit half-hearted, and quite a few morons in the crowd recommend the band get off the stage.

The Birmingham gig is much the same. Rough and fast performances of early songs, this time with Mick on lead guitar and Joe on rythm since Keith had left by this stage. (Birmingham's Burning, as you probably guessed, is just London's Burning with the altered lyric.) This is an essential CD to have, being one of the earliest shows, it has the rare tracks and Keith 'The Phantom Guitar Player' Levene features on it (he's only on the Roundhouse gig). A blistering two shows. The performance this early on shows how great they were, and it's interesting to hear early versions of the songs before they got put down in the studio and probably while they were still being worked on.

Rated: 8 / 10

Extra

Some of these early unreleased tracks are also known as something else. I Know What I Think About You is also known as 'I Know What You Do'. I Never Did It is also known as 'I Don't Want Your Money'. How Can I Understand The Flies is also known as 'I Can't Understand The Flies'. Deadly Serious is also known as 'Going To The Disco' and Sitting At My Party is also known as 'Work'.