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Acklam Hall 1979

From a secret gig for Christmas, 1979, because according to Mick "No one has anything to do" over the holidays. The show was also a warm up, I read on BMC, for the Kampuchea benefit performance on the 27th at the Hammersmith Odeon. There is another show appended to the second disc.

Track listing

CD1:

  1. Clash City Rockers
  2. Brand New Cadillac
  3. Safe European Home
  4. Jimmy Jazz
  5. Clampdown
  6. The Guns Of Brixton
  7. Train In Vain
  8. (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais
  9. Koka Kola
  10. Keys To Your Heart
  11. Revolution Rock
  12. Wrong 'Em Boyo
  13. Stay Free
  14. Rudie Can't Fail
  15. Janie Jones
  16. London's Burning

CD2:

  1. Armagideon Time
  2. Police And Thieves
  3. White Riot
  4. London Calling

JFK Stadium, Philadelphia (25/09/1982):

  1. London Calling
  2. Rock The Casbah
  3. The Guns Of Brixton
  4. Police On My Back
  5. Career Opportunities
  6. The Magnificent Seven
  7. Should I Stay Or Should I Go
  8. (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais
  9. Brand New Cadillac
  10. This Is Radio Clash
  11. Somebody Got Murdered
  12. Clampdown
  13. I Fought The Law

Review

The sound quality is atrocious, and only just listenable. Which is a shame, because you can tell that the band are on good form. The opening Clash City Rocker lives up to its title, but the sound is just too muffled and buried to be very listenable. Brand New Cadillac is actually pretty dark and fierce sounding, and if there was a soundboard of this gig available it would be the best live version in my opinion. The same goes for Safe European Home, before which you can hear some crowd singing which gives you the impression that this wasn't a big gig at all and few people were there. I could be wrong though. Someone, probably Joe, is talking before and whilst Jimmy Jazz starts but I can't tell what he's saying, and even through the still dire sound quality this is a good performance of this live rarity.

The London Calling tracks were still new, and a lot of being given a playing here. Guns Of Brixton again, is a great version ruined by terrible sound. The extended intro works well, much like the '84 versions do. There's a good version of Keys To Your Heart which took me a while to recognise. The sound quality for Stay Free falls to an all time low, quite possibly the worst I've ever heard in a bootleg. I don'k know what generation this gig is, or how it was recorded, but it probably isn't worth it. The set ends with London Calling, which would sound great with decent sound. That sentence doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Kosmo's introductuon for the JFK show is his usual bantering. And it's met with boos, hisses and some cheering. I'm also sorry to say the sound quality isn't much better than the Acklam show. London Calling sounds weak, tinny and quite horrible. Joe's cry of "Rock The Casbah!" is met by a cheer.

"This is Ronald Reagan's favourite Clash song, Career Opportunities."

Should I Stay... gets more cheer than it deserves, and with this the sound quality becomes more a high pitched scream, but Joe introduces a funky White Man. Again, this show woud be killer if it had the sound quality to match the performance, but it doesn't and therefore doesn't add much to this double disc set really. A poor bootleg.

Rated: 2/ 10

Extra

Graham's review at his Black Market Clash site has a more detailed review of the Acklam show. There's no point just stealing his info to put it here, so head on there to read more about this show.

Thanks to Jim Chattin for the copy of this.

Here's a little anecdote from Mike, who was at this gig:

Just thought I'd drop you a note to say that I was at this gig and it was a small *secret* gig over the Xmas Holidays. There were about 200 of us there the night I went. In fact I found a picture in a book of this show and there is my cheery little face in front of Jonesy singing my heart out. Happy memories. I saw The Clash many times from '77 to '80 and they were always the best and have never been bettered in my book.