July 28, 2016
You Owe Me a Move Say the Bells of St. Groove
One of the things I found in a recent excavation of a box of my old stuff that was in my mom's garage was a photo envelope containing some fuzzy snapshots I took of the Clash at this daytime show at the Oakland Coliseum in 1983.
I remember the show very well, though I don't remember having taken any photos, a very unusual thing for me to do. For at least some of the set I was in the backstage / side stage area because I and the girls I went with were dressed sexy allowing us to flirt our way past security. (I admit, they did most of the work.) When the band came out we were three of around fifteen people who got to do that cool-guy thumb-handshake with Mick Jones and say "hey man" before he plugged in. (The other guys came from the other side of the stage, otherwise I'm sure we would have tried to hey-man them.)
Here's one of the photos:
I love how you can see the gear. (Mesa Boogie combo!) And the beret. And the jumpsuit.
This was a "day on the green", and the Clash were the support act on the Who's "It's Hard" tour. Those girls and I gloried in the bravado of being so "punk" that we saw the Clash and left before the Who went on, which is what we did. Doing that doesn't seem nearly so cool now. In fact, it was pretty stupid. Still, we and us man, youth. It was a heady time of fun, horny, fake rebellion that has basically been forgotten in a box for thirty-three years.
Posted by Dr. Frank at July 28, 2016 01:49 AM