Wake-up Call

There are some albums that demand to be played in their entirety whenever they hit the turntable, or rather the CD tray, and Live At Shea Stadium by The Clash is one of them. I was reminded of this early this morning when, bored with the World Service, I put it on in the car, whence it had recently made its way to the CD changer, and only got as far as the second track and then felt terribly guilty when I arrived at work for curtailing events at that point. I made it for it on the way home though, at a ridiculously high volume.

There are several quite odd things about the album. First off, it's a record of the entire show as The Clash were playing support to The Who (in 1982 I know which band I'd rather have gone to see) and only had fifty minutes playing time. They use every second judiciously and generally ferociously. In a way this perfectly represents a key notion in the punk ethos - get it over with in three minutes and don't over-indulge. Secondly, they broke up just weeks after the show yet there's not a sign of anything other than a perfectly tight, entirely together unit. Thirdly, it sort of feels like a greatest hits set, I suppose as a result of the limited time for the set and possibly because of the American audience, but there's nothing tired about the band. From London Calling onwards the tempi go full steam ahead but it all works somehow. Listening to Rock the Casbah in a stripped down version without the piano is particularly interesting. It's as if things get cut back to the real guitar-based roots of the song. It's a pity, I suppose, that there aren't more reggae-based tunes (only Armagideon Time - even (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais doesn't make it) but I suppose much as they'd have added to the variety they would have detracted from the full-steam-ahead energy of the proceedings.

Any which way, it all made for a glorious journey home. A reminder of how a great band can more far more than the sum of its parts. And those voices! Finally English singers who sounded like where they came from. It's a pleasure in itself just to hear the switch from Mr Strummer to Mr Jones in song after song. And has any other band ever combined a real sense of fun with a genuine sense of rebellion and political grievance quite like The Clash? I doubt it.