Live tracks listed by venue in order

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

(30/4/78 Victoria Park, Hackney, London) London's Burning White Riot (1/5/1978, Birmingham Barbarellas) Police and Thieves (4/7/78, Glasgow Apollo) White Man In Ham Palais I'm So Bored With the USA Janie Jones White Riot (5/7/78, Aberdeen) The Prisoner White Riot (6/7/78, Dumfermline Kinema) Tommy Gun White Riot (27/7/78, London Music Machine) Complete Control Safe European Home What's My Name (28/12/78, London Lyceum) I Fought the Law (3/1/79, London Lyceum) English Civil War

Rude Boy Promo cassette
All songs are in full - unlike the film where some are edited

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Rude Boy Film Advert English Civil War (1/3/79, London Lyceum) White Man In Ham Palais (4/7/78, Glasgow Apollo) I'm So Bored With the USA (4/7/78, Glasgow Apollo) Janie Jones (4/7/78, Glasgow Apollo) White Riot (4/7/78, Glasgow Apollo) Complete Control (27/7/78, London Music Machine) Tommy Gun (6/7/78, Dumfermline Kinema) I Fought the Law (28/12/78, London Lyceum) Safe European Home (27/7/78, London Music Machine) What's My Name (27/7/78, London Music Machine) Police and Thieves (1/5/1978, Birmingham Barbarellas) London's Burning (30/4/78 Victoria Park, Hackney, London) White Riot (30/4/78 Victoria Park, Hackney, London) Piano Song (studio/film) Garageland (studio/film)

In the film but not on the promo cassette

1 2	The Prisoner (5/7/78, Aberdeen) White Riot (5/7/78, Aberdeen)

Not in the film but on 'Extras'

1 2	White Riot (new RB Blu-Ray only) (6/7/78, Dumfermline Kinema) English Civil War (old DVD & Blu-Ray) (3/1/79, London Lyceum)

Extras

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8	Rudie Can't Fail (Demo) Revolution Rock (Instrumental) No Reason Garageland (Demo) All the Young C*nts Let the Good Time Roll All the Young Punks (vocal into band) 20 minutes of interviews with Hazan & Mingay

Rude Boy Collectors Edition
2015 release on DVD and Blu-Ray

The video is of a much higher quality and well worth it especially if you were at the front.

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

Numerous articles, interviews, reviews, posters, tour dates from The Clash on Parole Tour, June & July 1978

If you know of any articles or references for this particular gig, anything that is missing, please do let us know. We have none on this ocsasion!

The Clash's Rude Boy
30 Years Later: Ray Gange Interview
AP Childs, March 22nd, 2010
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Clash' film Rude Boy, AP Childs talks to actor Ray Gange about the making of the movie, his rise from shop worker to actor, and his relationship with The Clash. PDF

Rude Boy – Sounds
Directed by Jack Hazan Staring The Clash and Ray Gange (Tigon)

RUDEBOY has been guaranteed patronage thanks to the histrionic copy of the Fleet Street cinema hacks, and the less chauvinistic but equally provocative advance comment in the music press has guaranteed it substantial interest among its own readers.

RUDE BOY - THE MOVIE
MARCH 1980 MELODY MAKER

Clash Movie. Rude Boy

`Rude Boy’s the movie featuring the Clash, has been in the works for two years and is now being held up by rows between the film-makers and the band.

The Screen: 'Rude Boy' – Stars Rock Band the Clash

New York Times – July 25, 1980
By Janet Maslin

"Rude Boy," starring the Clash, is about as mixed-up as a movie can be, but the best parts are everything this British rock group's fans could hope for. The concert scenes capture the band, today's closest equivalent to the early Rolling Stones, in all its ragged glory. And the
dramatic scenes, which amount in little more than transitional material, are mesmerizing as often as they're muddled.

Rude Boy – Noland
Dir. By Jack Hazan and David Mingay

I'll admit that I'm a bit of an anglophile, but I'm specifically drawn to the England of the 70s and 80s. I've really only "studied" this timeframe through the perspective of the music that was popular and the artists that embodied it. Primary amongst those artists were The Clash and I've always hated the fact that I never got to see them live.

Bootleg CD
Rude Boy Directors Cut
Various live takes from 78 plus 2 studio outakes

updated 9 April 2020

Half-page advert in the London Evening Standard for the 'Rude Boy' film

An amazing collection of tracks. As Mingay explains in the audio interview he gave to the BBC he "was sorry that the band would not now release the live audio tracks." The fans should hear them. "so I've brought a long a tape today" of the tracks. That tape was the promo tape we are lucky to have today given that all the tracks are complete, unlike in the film.

Unfortunately they were all overdubbed at Wessex.

Here is what there is... but a list of the songs in the film with their edits as yet.

Official Rude Boy promo cassette [with unedited songs]

A very limited promo tape issued by Atlantic Publishing Nov 16 1980. It collates several live tracks unreleased elsewhere from the audio and video footage gathered that year. (Release notes at bottom of page). A rare surviving tape of decent quality was remastered to cdr.

There has been confusion in the past over some of the dates but hopefully this is accurate. Last update 15 Feb 2003

Rude Boy Collectors Edition (2015) (Blu-Ray and DVD)
[with edited songs]

The Blu-Ray is of a much higher quality/detail than previous and well worth it if you were at the front. Exposes the overdubbed tracks in places though.

In the 'Extras' there's the previously relased 'Extras', White Riot from Dunfermline and English Civil War from the Lycum. Neither feature in the original film. Hazam and Mingay had several attempts to capture White Riot and there are now 4 occurrances.

DVD Video [with edited songs]

Audio / Rude Boy Extras - interview stuff, film extracts and film adverts

Added to the content of the promo cassette is The Rude Boy cinema advert, unedited Garageland from radio interview and Piano Song from the film.

Associated with the film, Let The Good Times Roll, Rudi Can't Fail demo [edited] and Revoloution Rock instrumental also circulate widely.

Allegedly all but the Xmas Lyceum tracks have been overdubbed with in the studio, though Mingay and Hazan (the film directors) those who suggest a full scale dub occurred (Johnny Green for one).

Interview material

The interview material is a slight snippet from Melvin Braggs South Bank Show on ITV and A BBC Radio 4 Interview with Hazan and Mingay that runs 30 minutes but includes parts of the film. It also contains what the promo cassette didn't. the full unedited version of Garageland. Johnny Green talks over the version in the film.

Content

Besides the quality of the unheard/unreleased live tracks, there is interestingly two unreleased outakes. The first is titled The Piano Song, features Joe singing a song which is remarkably similar to the 'Sound of Sinners' track (two years later) yet the lyrics, style, tempo, instrumentation and notes make this distinctly different.

Garageland, which is a slightly different version, was recorded for the film and in the film it is edited with speech. Johnny Green talks over it. But a full uninterupted outake comes from a BBC radio broadcast interview with Mingay and Hazan, the films producers.

official releases

Two of the tracks contained on the tape made it onto the official live compilation 'From Here to Eternity. What's My Name and Londons Burning.' you also get a double of dose of the missing White Riot here.

Extract from Punk Diary by George Gimarc

NOVEMBER 16, 1980 Sunday ....

the CLASH's movie "Rude Boy" had a promotional soundtrack pulled together of the best moments from the film. Cassettes of the never-to-he-released record are sent out from Atlantic Releasing.

Here's the track listing for the album.

The song `Rudi Can't Fail' is a recurring theme in the movie, plays over the credits and is the only studio recording in the film. It's taken from last years album "London Calling."

The rest of the songs are from concert clips. "Garageland" appears early in the movie. The two songs "English Civil War" and "I Fought The Law" are from the same show, but the film clip of the earlier song was edited out of the film. It remains on this soundtrack though.

The longest continuous clip is the three-song live recording of "White Man In Hammersmith Palais," "I'm So Bored With The USA," and "White Riot."

The second side of the cassette starts with the couplet of "Safe European Home" and "What's My Name," followed by an odd rehearsal room number with Strummer at an old upright piano playing what's called here the "Piano Song."

Unfortunately, the tape doesn't include his follow-up number, a cover of the old Shirley & Lee `50s song "Let The Good Times Roll."

"London's Burning" and "White Riot" are two songs from the Clash's outdoor concert at the 1978 Anti-Nazi League Rally in London's Victoria Park. "White Riot" starts out with Jimmy Pursey on lead vocals.

The final song is "Tommy Gun."

The Clash: Rude Boy

Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 January 1980

LONDON CALLING? It hardly covers the situation. Every is-or-was punk fan in the country must be quietly slavering to see the Clash film and apprehensive that Rude Boy will go the way of The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle and be lost in the legal shredder.

Well, I've got news. The Clash film lives and it's OK (at least). I've seen it. I've even walked through the West End back streets holding an umbrella over it as director Jack Hazan borrowed it back from the preview theatre. The plan is that it will be released in March  if the Clash and their management don't come up with some effective interference.

They do seem very likely to continue trying, judging by the file of correspondence between various sets of solicitors which the singularly fed-up Hazan showed me. Before I review the film here's a rundown on the documentation:

An agreement was set out in October, 1978, to cover the deal between Hazan's company, Buzzy Enterprises, and the Clash with their then manager Bernard Rhodes, trading as Ripe Role Ltd and Nineden Ltd (the working title then was '1980')

A significant clause states that "Buzzy as maker of the film will be sole owner of the copyright in the film with the full and unfettered right to make such use of the film as it may determine."

You might think it would take an army of Petrocellis to drive the proverbial coach and eight through that one, but there is a drawback in Buzzy's position  the Clash never signed it. However, the law does recognize other less clearcut form of contract which still seem to leave Buzzy in the driver's seat.

Despite a denial at one point that the band knew of the existence of 'memorandum of agreement' the Clash's representatives at other times dickered for changes in various clauses which were mostly agreed by Buzzy, except for a demand for 'script approval'.

Then again the fact that the Clash took part in filming and recording the music over a period of months right through to delivering the tapes of 'Rudie Can't Fail' and 'Revolution Rock' as late as last November implies a certain amount of commitment and collaboration in the project. Likewise their acceptance of a total of £2,550 from Buzzy so far (the Clash's total income from the film is to be £4,000 plus ten per cent of net profit above £25,000 plus, chiefly, royalties on the music).

The correspondence proceeds at a mundane level through Caroline Coon's 'caretaker' management until their transfer to Andrew King at Blackhill, Ian Dury's manager.

Then in September 1979 Compton Carr, who acted for John Lydon during the Pistols litigation, took up the cudgels for the band and wrote "We believe that our clients have recently viewed the film and have expressed serious reservations about its content and its political overtones (my italics). They are very concerned that the film is not published until it has been edited to their satisfaction and terms have been agreed."

From that point the barricades were manned on both sides. Hazan says that King rang him to emphasise that the Clash "didn't consider themselves to be a political band" and saw Rude Boy as a 50-minute promotional film. Its present, 'final' form is a 133-minute epic even with 35 minutes cut since the Clash saw it last summer.

With artistic and business control disputed by both parties (and no doubt the party of the second part) Buzzy have taken the militant line of refusing the Clash access to the film, despite offers of a conciliation meeting. Compton Carr, in the absence so far of a court injunction to block performance, have thrown a new technical curve.

"Your clients," they wrote to the opposition solicitors, "are not in possession of synchronization licences in respect of the use of our clients' music in the film and for this reason your clients are not entitled to perform the music publicity or to sell or distribute the film incorporating our clients' music."

Unless any heavier guns are fired Buzzy will ignore this and go ahead. Expressing frustration and resignation that it should all end in arm's-length wrangling Hazan groaned "Every time they change management they seem to want to change direction ...It's strange that a proletarian band should resort to such middle-class means...We're a small company. It's very annoying to be treated like CBS or some movie mogul."

SO WHAT'S all the fuss about? A fairly dynamic length of celluloid which shouldn't be suppressed.

Like many films which use novice actors it hovers uncomfortably between fiction and documentary in its narrative sections and it still seems flabby in parts despite the editing marathon it took to reduce it to its present dimensions. But the simple fact is that it's a must for Clash-lovers.

Nearly all of the music is from live concerts in '78-9. The cameramen and the sound engineers have captured more of the Clash's emotional charge than anything I've heard on record  you get 'Police And Thieves', 'Career Opportunities', 'Garageland', 'London's Burning', 'White Riot', an inspiring version of 'Tommy Gun' and many others. There's also some fascinating footage of Joe and Mick in the studio singing 'unaccompanied' (the backing tracks are on headphones so we can't hear them) which makes them seem strangely vulnerable and touching.

That takes care of maybe a third of the film as unqualified rave. The story/theme aspect is less successfully executed although there's obviously a clear plan behind it.

The pattern of context sequences is fine: Thatcher at the Tory conference demanding more law and order, police and nazis at the Digbeth Town Hall general election meeting, black boys in Brixton being persecuted by police with sus, intimidation and frame-ups, the very last shots of Thatcher victorious. You get the picture, no need for sermons.

But Ray Gange, the central sometime-Clash-roadie character, is hard to bear at times. It's not the plot, which he co-wrote himself that twists and turns in unpredictable ways I'll try not to spoil for you, basically avoiding the trap of making him a working class liberal striding bright eyed into a multiracial socialist rock 'n' roll Utopia.

The trouble is that after a few scenes he seems to get a notion of what acting might be and proceeds to play up to it. So he begins as a natural gem, talking with a mate or nonchalantly advising a customer in the porno bookshop where he works, but a couple of hours later he's become a lurching parody of a young Cockney Brando/Dean. Once in a while this works as an expression of the destructive effect going on the road with the Clash has on him. Too often though it's just embarrassing.

Apart from the stunted development of his character he's also a stumbling block for the political approach of the film. Ray becomes unnaturally inarticulate and so fails to challenge the Clash's line enough to draw them into much substantial dialogue although Strummer manages to criticisms on the level "All this fuckin' left wing bollocks init?" Perhaps it's not surprising that such debate is pretty sterile compared to the real politics of the concert's screaming paradoxes like the Clash asking for calm and singing for a white riot.

There's certainly one way in which he appears as either a prophet or a profound influence on the band. One of the last scenes has Ray telling Strummer the Clash should turn away from politics.

In the film they turn away from tax instead. In reality they seem to have accepted his opinion judging by what has been said to Buzzy in the band's name and recent quotes in other papers. Whether you belong to the SWP, the Young Conservatives or no party at all if you are a fan of theirs this must mean a lot to you because politics, from the gut rather than the manifesto, have been the roots of their reb

© Phil Sutcliffe, 1980

Did you go? What do you remember?
Info, articles, reviews, comments or photos welcome.
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Original French Press Kit containing a Glossy front cover stapled to 7 pages of Rude Boy Info Sheets

A French lobby poster