Short 'Secret' Midlands Tour

There is no known sound recording of this gig.

Where infamously Robin Crocker walloped Sandy Pearlman in the dressing room before hand.

Sandy Pearlman with The Clash

New York Rocker

JANUARY 79?

“We just wanted to keep our hand in,” said Mick Jones. “There’s a lot of people in Luton and Dunstable who wanted to see us.

The Queensway Hall itself is a coliseum-like oval ballroom. The Sex Pistols - The Jam, would you believe once played by- before 70 people at the same place. Tonight it’s packed. A top heavy punk audience.

The bar at the back of the hall is stocked with no glasses - plastic or otherwise - just those long, economy size ring pull cans. A ludicrously naive move on the part of the hall management.

The first band, Birmingham’s Modelmania, come and go. By their third number, the sporadic can starts flying towards the stage. The situation gets worse until, after the set, the road crew face a struggle to shift the gear offstage against a torrent of cans.

Joe Strummer walks onstage to cheers and makes a worthy effort to calm down the fans as a can bounces off his head. Joe steps into the swelling mass at the front of the crowd and a kid who a moment earlier had aimed a can at a roadie rushes up and vigorously shakes his hand.

Just when it seems things are cooling down, the worst scenes of the evening begin.

Female French quartet The Lous take the stage. On their night,The Lous are a great little band. They play bouncy, rocking rhythm `n blues, and enjoy it like no-one else around. On the last full Clash tour, they surprised a lot of people by their tough resilience to life on the road

1 2 3 4 5 6 7	Complete Control Dunstables Burning Jail Guitar Doors Clash City Rockers Last Gang in Town The Prisoner - not played White Man - not played Tommy Gun Career Opportunities

New York Rocker Magazine
April May 1978
Cover 1 2 3 4 Back Cover

A Riot of Our Own pg57

Short Tour of the Midlands for Sandy Pearlman during early 78 the Clash played several secret dates on a 'short midlands tour'. Sandy Pearlman, CBS's producer for the Rope album had come in from the States to check out the band and Johnney Green was asked to fix up some inpromptu gigs for Pearlmans benefit. The dates are slightly questionable. Dunstable date seems correct and the Birmingham tape is labelled the 24th. The band definately played Dunstable the following night. Following these dates, Joe and Mick went to Jamaica late February, just before Joe got Hepatitus mid Feb. The early recordings of the Rope album began at the Marquee Studios in March. Pearlman arrived back in the UK in April to carry on.
Jan 00?		BBC TV Something Else
		The show put out by BBC2 in the UK had a DIY ethic, devised and presented by teenagers, it featured a mixture of of topics and music about current social events. The actual date was not as the boot LP lists 1981, but January 1978, the BBC TOTP2 A/V source from 2001 has more info.
Jan 24		Barbarellas, Birmingham
		A quick secret tour arranged by Bernie (and poss. J Green). Dates confirmed from NME Jan 28 1978. A Riot of our own p58 mentions these dates extensively.
Jan 25		Queensway Hall, Dunstable, Luton
		Definate date.
Jan 26		Lanchester Polytechnic, Coventry
		Where infamously Clash Roadie Robin Crocker walloped Sandy Pearlman.
Apr 30		Victoria Park, Hackney
		...Rock Against Racism festival with the Tom Robinson Band, Pete Townsend, et al. Note the use of Pauls backdrop... Rumours persist that a/v footage was shot by the organisers for fund raising releases and that this still exists.
May 1		Birmingham Barbarellas
May 27		Paris Hippodrome - Marxist Festival
		"The gig was the show piece of the last night of a festival celebrating the tenth anniversary of the French uprising in May 1968 . Organised by the largest French Trotskyist organisation, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionaire, it was held in the Hippodrome which is normally used as a circus." Johnny Green mentions this one off gig p46. Pete Silverton writes about the gig in a June interview with the band. Punter According to Laurel Stan -Paris Maquis' website the correct date is 27/05/1978 not 20/05/1978. "27 mai 78 - FÍte de Rouge... Bataille rangÈe entre le SO de la Ligue et les zautognÙmes. Un grand classique. Le soir mÍme, en reprÈsailles, le local des trotsks est attaquÈ par l'autonomie prolÈtarienne." A french novellist is working on a book about this event and he is looking for testimonies, etc. According to a french musician that was at this show the band started with "London's Burning". Regards, GÈant V <geant.vert.ink[a]gmail.com>