Institute of Contemporary Arts London

Supported by Subway Sect

updated 24 Dec 2018 - added links

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See also 2nd October 1976, 23rd October 1976 an the 28th October 1976 at the ICA

The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA contains galleries, a theatre, two cinemas, a bookshop and a bar. Wiki.

Miles in the NME

A ROW OF PARKED Vivas, Consuls and Zephyrs indicated that the ICA had an audience a little different to the usual. It was "A Night Of Pure Energy" with Subway Sect, who were terrible, Snatch Sounds, who I missed, and The Clash.

The Clash were real good. I enjoyed them a lot more than the Patti Smith Band the night before. They were not poseurs. They are everything that Sniffin' Glue magazine promised they would be ... more ...

SHANE MACGOWAN PERPETRATES ‘CANNIBALISM AT CLASH GIG,’ 1976

02.01.2016 | Dangerous Minds

On Saturday, October 23, 1976, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London hosted a show by the brand-new punk sensation known as the Clash. It was an eventful evening by any reckoning.

The openers were Subway Sect and Snatch Sounds, who seem not to have made much of an impression. At that point the Clash and the Sex Pistols were in a category of two in terms of being at the absolute pinnacle of delivering pissed-off punk music and generating the electric excitement of punk (and the associated publicity too). The night before and that night too, Patti Smith was playing the Hammersmith Odeon but managed to make her way to the ICA so that she could dance onstage to “I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.” As will be easily imagined, the audience was in a rowdy mood and the alcohol was flowing freely. The show had been billed as “a night of pure energy,” and it surely lived up to that.

In the November 6, 1976, issue of the New Musical Express ran an account of the show written by Barry Miles, who preferred to go simply by “Miles” as a nom de journalisme. The cheeky, startling headline of the piece was “CANNIBALISM AT CLASH GIG,” with the subtitle “But why didn’t anybody eat MILES?” At the top and the bottom of the writeup were two pictures, taken by Red Saunders, of Shane MacGowan and a renowned punk fan named Jane Crockford, unflatteringly nicknamed “Mad Jane.” The pictures show indistinct mayhem as well as a generous portion of blood flowing from MacGowan’s right earlobe. Interestingly, both of the subjects were, or would be, in notable bands of their own; MacGowan was in the Nipple Erectors and (of course) the Pogues, while Jane was in the Bank of Dresden and the Mo-dettes.

In Bob Gruen’s must-own book The Clash he gets Mick Jones and Paul Simonon to comment on the show:

Mick: That was the night of Shane MacGowan’s earlobe, wasn’t it? He didn’t really have it bitten off, you know. Isn’t that the same show where Patti Smith got up on stage during our set?

Paul: That was the ICA—it was called A Night of Pure Energy. My haircut’s gone very mod; it had flopped down from all the jumping around onstage. In the beginning all that jumping about was a way of dodging gobs and missiles generally. There’s Joe with his sharks’ teeth—when I first met him they looked just like a real sharks’ teeth.

Gruen notes of the MacGowan incident that it gave the Clash “their first significant press coverage.” He also quotes Joe Strummer as saying, “Without Mad Jane’s teeth and Shane’s earlobe, we wouldn’t have got in the papers that week.”

In The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town, Marcus Gray writes about that evening:

When the Clash started playing, a couple in front of Miles and Red were obstructing their view of the band. Apparently intent on attacking each other while laughing like maniacs, they refused to move out of the way. So Red took pictures of them. “I had no idea how famous those photos were to become.” The NME used them to accompany Miles’s report under the headline “CANNIBALISM AT CLASH GIG”: “A young couple, somewhat out of it, had been nibbling and fondling each other amid the broken glass when she suddenly lunged forward and bit his ear lobe off [while the crowd] watched with cold, calculate hipitude.” ... the Clash gig was a wild night fuelled by speed and alcohol. The bar staff entered into the spirit of the evening to such an extent that they gave away a further £80 worth of booze ... and the twosome Miles and Red observed, Mad Jane and Shane MacGowan, were by no means content to loiter at the back of the queue.

“Me and this girl were having a bit of a laugh which involved biting each other’s arms till they were completely covered in blood and then smashing up a couple of bottles and cutting each other up a bit,” Shane informed ZigZag’s Granuaille in 1986, setting the record straight on the occasion of punk’s 10th anniversary, and, in the process, offering another insight into the mythopoetics of punk. “That, in those days, was the sort of thing that people used to do. I haven’t got a clue now why I did it or why anyone would want to do it, but that was how teenagers got their kicks in London if they were hip. Anyway, in the end she went a bit over the top and bottled me in the side of the head. Gallons of blood came out and someone took a photograph. I never got it bitten off—although we had bitten each other to bits—it was just a heavy cut.” As Shane noted, though, the anecdote was exaggerated with each telling. “It’s like the old story about the bloke who catches the fish. He says that it weighs this much and it’s that big, and within a couple of days it’s a whale.” Over the years, few have been prepared to let the fact that his earlobes are both present and correct stand in the way of a good story.

Extensive photos in Bob Gruens book: The Clash 'Photograghs by Bob Gruen'. The Clash: Photographs by Bob Gruen - Google Books Result

Did you go? What do you remember?
Info, articles, reviews, comments or photos welcome.
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No known recording
If you know of any recording, please email blackmarketclash

There are several sights that provide setlists but most mirror www.blackmarketclash.co.uk. They are worth checking.

from Setlist FM (cannot be relied on)

from Songkick (cannot be relied on)
... both have lists of people who say they went

& from the newer Concert Database

Also useful: Ultimate Music datbase, All Music, Clash books at DISCOGS

A collection of articles, interviews, reviews, posters, tour dates from early 1976. Articles cover the period form July to New Year.

If you know of any articles or references for this particular gig, anything that is missing, please do let us know.

Extensive photos in Bob Gruens book: The Clash 'Photograghs by Bob Gruen'.

The Clash: Photographs by Bob Gruen -
Google Books Result

Google Books - isbn=178323489X

Bob Gruen - 2015 - ‎Music

On Saturday, 23 October 1976, The Clash headlined a show at London's ICA, the Institute for Contemporary Arts. Also on the bill were Subway Sect and Snatch, ...

The Clash: Konkrete Klockwork
April 1977 (text version) (PDF version)

Report and Interview by Kris Needs,
AT THE MOMENT there isn't a group in the New Wave that comes within spitting distance of The Clash, live or on record. Within a year ...

Melody Maker gig review
Caroline Coon
THE ICA, that home of lively experiment in London's Mall, is fast becoming the badly needed workshop-cum-watering hole for the growing number of jolly ravers ...
(also at Rocks Back Pages - paywall)

NME 'Canabilism at Clash Gig'
Live Review by Miles, NME, April 1977
scan version
text version
A ROW OF PARKED Vivas, Consuls and Zephyrs indicated that the ICA had an audience a little different to the usual. It was "A Night Of ...

Shane MacGowan perpetrates
'Cannibalism at Clash gig,' 1976 ...

https://dangerousminds.net/
2 Jan 2016

1 Feb 2016 - On Saturday, October 23, 1976, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London ... At that point the Clash and the Sex Pistols were in a category of two in ... her way to the ICA so that she could dance onstage to “I'm So Bored with ... (archived PDF)

The Clash: Down And Out And Proud
Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 13 Nov 76
following the ICA gig
THREE WEEKS AGO at London's ICA, Jane and Shane, regulars on the new-wave punk rock scene, were sprawled at the edge of the stage. Blood ..

In The Seventies:
Adventures in the Counter-Culture

Google Books - isbn=1847654940

Barry Miles - 2011 - ‎Music

... and the Clash, invited me to see his bands perform at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) at a gig billed as 'A Night of Pure Energy' on 23 October 1976. (Text version)

Return of the Last Gang in Town
Marcus Gray - page 215

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