Sharoma The Clash Mont de Marsan

Mont de Marsan

All tracks performaned live at the Mont de Marsan Festival, France, 5th August, 1977. This CD is an edit of the full show.

Track listing

  1. London's Burning
  2. Capital Radio
  3. Complete Control
  4. Pressure Drop
  5. The Prisoner
  6. I'm So Bored With The U.S.A.
  7. Cheat
  8. Hate & War
  9. Clash City Rockers
  10. Remote Control
  11. Career Opportunities
  12. Janie Jones
  13. White Riot
  14. Garageland
  15. 1977
  16. What's My Name
  17. Complete Control
  18. Protex Blue
  19. London's Burning

Review

A show bursting with energy. The Mont de Marsan Festival also included The Damned and The Jam among others. The Clash are on top form, with some really energetic playing. After 1 minute 30 of pretty much silence there is an explosion of sound with London's Burning. It's a very loud blasting performance, and the next song Capital Radio is much the same.

"Listen, I can't speak French right. So listen, can you hear the vocals?"

For Complete Control the sound is still a bit muffled and not the clearest ever, but it's not bad. Another very loud and energetic performance. 1977 has been cut from this CD, as it was played as song 3. However, it and London's Burning were played twice so we don't miss out on 1977.

"Tell you what... Pressure Drop, I say Pressure Drop gonna drop on you. Turn the vocals up...!"

Again, there seems to have been some trouble with the volume of the vocals in the mix, which due to repeated requests from the band, does get rectified, though for Pressure Drop they don't seem any louder and the sound is still a bit disorted.

Joe: "New song! New song! The Prisoner!" Mick: "This is number six in the list."

It's actually five on the CD since 1977 is missing, but it's a good performance of this new song. (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais has also been cut from the CD, and it too was a new song premiered at this show. All the songs here are performed with a mass of energy. Mick's lead guitar is clear, but Joe's rythm seems to be the source of the distortion, though I could be wrong.

Hate & War is particularly fast and ferocious. A lot faster than the more relaxed studio version, this is a band on fire! Nearly two minutes before the next song is played. Then an extremely amusing thing happened:

Joe: "You know something, The Damned just came on stage and put some a stink bombs up here, because, because they're fucking jealous right. Well they can just fuck right off!" Paul: "And another thing... we all ain't got a sense of smell right."

A stink bomb does however sound just the sort of thing Paul would have found amsuing :-) No doubt this was Captain Sensible's trick. I'd have thought Joe would have taken it a bit less serious than his reponse suggested. Being a big Damned fan I think this incident is great. Captain Sensible always the joker. According to Joe in an interview, it was the Captain who started off that crazy punk habit of gobbing.

Police & Thieves has also been cut from the CD. "We're a garage band..." before into Remote Control, which like Hate & War is much more aggressively performed than the studio version. The Clash make every song on their debut album seem relaxed in comparison to the performances here. Quite a considerable achievement. Then an ultra fast Career Opportunities. It's almost as though the Captain set the stage on fire as the band keep up their energetic playing and never cease. Janie Jones is just the same. The drum intro is a world away from the one in Tokyo 1982 - see Give 'Em Enough Dope. Sheer energy and ultra fast playing. White Riot next, 'nuff said ;-)

The vocals in What's My Name are somewhat incoherent, the guitars really drowning them out here more than ever. It's short, fast, very loud, very energetic and very Clash. Protex Blue starts badly. It's just a mess of guitar noise and Mick's vocals are particularly bad. Not a very good performance. It's all over the place. London's Burning is played with as much energy as the first time and it ends this explosive CD.

Highly recommended performance for the sheer ferocity and energy of the music. This, along with the Cardiff 1977 show, offers great performances of first album tracks. Indeed, most of the first album, along with some new songs Joe and Mick had just written. Just a shame about the sound distortion.

Rated: 8 / 10

Extra

Thanks to Anders Thörnqvist for the copy of this.