Out of Control Tour
As part of the celebrations by the Italian Communist Party who's leader, Enrico Berlinguer, died june 11 1984.

gig cancelled after soundcheck;

in the cities old football stadium shared by football giants Juventus & Torino - The Stadio Communale. Other sources claim it was scheduled to be at Juve's practice ground. Apparently they sound checked for the gig but the local council cancelled it at the last minute.

Stadio Communale (Now demolished)

....Ferruccio Martinotti

July 1984.

Still stunned after the February gig in milan, here blast the news of an early-autumn italian tour with a stop in torino. the clash in italy twice in a year : 20 years later my hands still sweating thinking of it...

September 11 1984.

gig to be held at the curva maratona (torino football team’s terrace) of stadio comunale,at that time the soccer playground of both torino’s teams : the rotten juventus and the legendary and beloved torino. just before the opening of the doors with a crowd of at least 5,000 people, a statement of local firemen dept. spread by a megaphone updates the gig to the day after because of safety reasons of the stage. the crowd moves away without any kind of tension. myself alongside 3 mates soon planning to comb the whole city looking for the band : we are 101% sure that due to gig’s adjournment the horsemen are in town.

after a couple of hours frantically spent in search of a tour bus with a uk number plate, we bump, just in front of a downtown luxury hotel called “principi di piemonte”, into a small group of guys wearing clash t-shirts. we stop the car and hear from them that the clash stay in the hotel but aren’t still back. with a lot of doubts about the reliability of the information (but without any better ideas in mind...) we decide to wait.

less than half an hour later, thanks to the holy mercy of the r’n’r gods, a grey tour bus (uk number plate...) disembarks joe vince nick pete and some crew guys.

completely out of mind we jump onto joe submerging him by hugs. he’s wearing a complete red suit, tennis shoes and is sporting a red mohawk .a short speech and joe says “i go upstairs picking up paul and i’ll be back in a while”, then disappears in the hotel.

Nobody believes it’s realistic to see him back, but we’re happy indeed, it doesn’t matter. we met him, we shook his hands and embraced him : nobody dares asking more.

But r’n’r gods are on our side tonight, it is definitely OUR night and 10 minutes later the door-man opens the hotel doors showing to a little bunch of astonished no-hope kids joe,paul,pete,vince and nick alongside ray jordan.

Joe introduces the guys : paul is wearing black leather pants with a white shirt and ray presents himself as “the guru of the band”. one of us asks joe to pick a guitar and he answers “look,what’s the matter? i don’t need a guitar...” and starts beating with his hands on a car’s hood singing something that sounds like an old standard. Can you figure out? AMAZING,UNBELIEVABLE.

We move to a sort of club a couple of blocks far from the hotel, called “centralino”: it’s like floating in the air, i don’t feel the feet touching the sidewalk, i’m a human overcraft with the heart blasting in the chest and the pupils dilated by demented, unbearable excitement.

Along the road i’m chatting with paul and vince. i tell them i need a new record like my lugs need oxygen and i’m dreaming of a record as honest and true as the first eponymous.

Vince answers they’re actually working on a new album and, no doubts about, the purpouse is to issue a “punk record”. (well, i don’t pretend to add something useful in order to clarify the fogs that still today covering the genesis of cut the crap, and honestly speaking i don’t give a flying fuck..., but that is what it has been pointed out about.).

At the centralino.

Paul,nick and pete sitting very quitely watching music videos, vince soon disappears with a blonde girl, ray manages the treasury for the booze (he has in his pocket an xl roll of lira...) and joe...well, joe is the epitome of joe strummer : a nuclear volcano, a genuine, generous mate, willing to answer to every silly question or “original” statement (i mean each one of us told him at least 25 times “you changed my life”...), offering drinks and asking about italy and life in torino.

(in the common opinion he was supposed to be in that period confused and depressed because of artistic and personal reasons. i don’t know what happened elsewhere, but during that night i saw joe happy, funny, smart, turbo-charged : i could haven’t imagined a man and a musician happier and more committed).

We chat and drink till morning comes : anectodes from the glory days (“siouxsie was going to mess around with me one night in amsterdam”); jones (“if he enter the room now, i punch him in the face!”); music (he’s into waits’ swordfishtrombones; he’ll love for the life 1st ramones record and he hates police’s fake white reggae); clash ( side 1 of the eponymous is his favourite and white man the finest hour); beat poets (and the importance of benzedrine...); england under mrs. thatcher; bruce lee; ying and yang; bologna’s gig in 1980 (one of his most lovely remembered) and more more and more.

At 5 o’clock the owner literally kick us out of the club and, with the pain in our souls, we realise we do have to walk back to the hotel.

Time to say goodbye, it’s around 6. someone asking the guys autographs and joe, unlike paul pete and nick, denies, considering it a useless, superstar dumb gesture.

But as the ultimate gift of this unreal night he asks the italian translation and then writes on a sheet of paper : WE WANNA LIVE TONIGHT.

(the gig didn’t take place anymore).

gig cancelled after soundcheck

Any further info / reviews
appreciated

As part of the celebrations by the Italian Communist Party who's leader had just died or something. According to Vince White in his Clash biography The Last days of the Clash, page 173 the band flew to Milan. It was a hastily set up tour. The first date was down in Salerno before returning back north through Italy.
Sep 4?		Salerno
		Vince White notes this opening night of the mini-tour in his Clash biography The Last days of the Clash, page 174 I just read on BMC that on vince's book there is a phantom date in salerno on the 4th of sept. 84. I have to say that he's wrong! They played in Cava de' Tirreni that is a small town between Naples and Salerno (15 km to salerno an 40 km to Naples) on the sept 6. The mistake is due to the fact that at that time the stadium where the salerno football team played was in Cava (Stadio Simonetta Lamberti). And the clash played there! Sorry vince, but i'm absolutely sure about it!
Sep 6		Cava de’ Tirreni (close to Naples)
		just a line to say that in 1984 on 6 of september (i taped the show) i was in Cava de’ Tirreni (close to Naples) for a Clash gig at the Stadium.
Sep 7		Arena Palasport, Rome, Italy
		...Festa Dell Unita
Sep 8		Reggio Emilia, Italy
		Vince White remembers this gig in The Last days of the Clash, page 174
Sep 10?		Turin - Stadio Communale
		Apparently they sound checked for the gig but the local council cancelled it at the last minute. Vince White remembers this gig in The Last days of the Clash, page 182
Sep 11		Palasport, Genoa, Italy