Iggy Pop
Dirty Looks
Pittsburgh, PA
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Squeeze
Music Hall
Cleveland, OH
R.E.M.
Little Tigers, Love Tractor
One Eye Open, The Side Affects
The Swindle$, Limbo District
Eddie Hinton & The Rocking Horses
Convalescent Egyptians
Gang of Four
Tyrone's OC
Athens, GA
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Market Square Arena
Indianapolis, IN
Bob Dylan
Loreley-Freillichtbuhne
Germany
Grateful Dead
Greek Theatre
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
The Untouchables
Urban Noize
Portland, OR
Cheap Trick
Michael Stanley Band
Pavilion Fairgrounds
Tulsa, OK
Kraftwerk
Sporthalle Boblingen
Stuttgart, Germany
Motorhead
Irving Plaza
NYC
Black Flag
Fear
Stains
Youth Gone Mad
Caustic Cause
Devonshire Downs
Northridge, CA
AC/DC
Midnight Flyers featuring Maggie Bell
Motorhead
Girl School
Vorst National
Forest, Belgium
Grateful Dead
Manor Downs
Austin, TX
J.J. Cale & Friends
The Old Lady of Brady
Tulsa, OK
Newport Festival 1981
King Zulu Mardi Gras Week
The Neville Bros Band
The Wild Tchipitoulas
Johnny Zimple & Leigh Harris
Cirusi
Lil' Queenie & The Percolators
The New York Connection
Deacon John
Muchos
Tipitina's
New Orleans, LA
Frank Zappa
I.U. Assembly Hall
Bloomington, IN
Mountain
Cain's Ballroom
Tulsa, OK
Billy Squier
Don't Say No
Cain's Ballroom
Tulsa, OK
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown
Cain's Ballroom
Tulsa, OK
Mountain Aire '81
Journey
Hall & Oates
Billy Squier
Calaveras County Fairgrounds
Angel Camp, CA
Prince
Streetlight
Paradiso
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers
Urban Noize
Portland, OR
Miles Davis
Carnegie Hall
NYC
Dire Straits
Velodromo Vigorelli
Milan, Italy
A Night For The Vietnam Veteran
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Los Angeles Sports Arena
Los Angeles, CA
Europe Tour '81
Grateful Dead
The Clash played a series of 17 concerts at Bonds International Casino in New York City in May and June 1981 in support of their album Sandinista!. Due to their wide publicity, the concerts became an important moment in the history of the band. Some of the nights were professionally recorded either for CBS records or for FM broadcast. The 9 June performance appears on countless bootleg records and several songs have appeared on From Here to Eternity: Live or other official Clash releases.
The site of the concerts was formerly Bonds department store which had been converted into a large second-floor hall. Promoters kept the name because there was a large Bonds sign on the outside of the building. As The Clash had not yet broken out into mass popularity, eight shows were originally scheduled: 28, 29, 30, 31 May and 1, 2, 3 and 5 June 1981. However, given the venue's legal capacity limit of 1750, the series was blatantly oversold (3500) right from the first night, leading the New York City Fire Department to cancel the Saturday, 30 May performance. In response, the band condemned the brazen greed of the promoters while demonstrating unprecedented integrity to each and every ticketholder by doubling the original booking with a total of 17 dates extending through June.
Strict interpretation of the fire laws meant that audiences were relatively small, resulting in a sense of intimacy between the band and the audience. Audience members clambered onto the stage to join in singalongs. New York musicians, including Pearl Harbor, assisted and overseen by Andy Dunkley, provided disc jockey services as the audience entered and gathered.
The concert captures The Clash on the verge of their major American market breakthrough with the release of Combat Rock a year later. The concert also displayed the band on the cusp between being a cult band and their major market penetration. As always with The Clash, ticket and merchandise prices were set relatively low. Prices were $10 per ticket and $5 per ticket for matinee shows.
The band had a new opening act every night, including The Fall, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, KRAUT, Lee "Scratch" Perry and many more. Many of the hip-hop groups that opened were either picketed or booed off the stage, which prompted Joe to chide the audience as soon as The Clash came on stage afterwards. Melle Mel later said that when they tried to perform the section of "Beat Street" with the, "Say Ho!", the audience members would yell, "Fuck you!".
The Clash
Bond's International Casino
NYC
Rolling Stones
Houston Astrodome
Houston, TX
Simon & Garfunkel
Central Park
NYC
Rock On The Tyne
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Ian Dury & The Blockheads
U2
Pauline Murray, Doll By Doll
Huang Chung, The Polecats
Rory Gallagher & His Band
Doctor Feelgood
Ginger's Nutters
Diamond Head
Fist, Trimmer & Jenkins
Lindisfarne
Gateshead International Stadium
Gateshead, UK
Stray Cats
DKP
Parallax Theatre
Paris, France
Non Stop World Tour
Ramones
Schwabinger Brau
Munich, Germancy
The Jam
Paradiso
Amsterdam, Netherlands
1981 Tour
The Who
The Clash
Apollo Theatre
Manchester, UK
The Pretenders
Cain's Ballroom
Tulsa, OK
Ramones
The Mutants
Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium
Santa Cruz, CA
The English Beat
Hippodrome
Seattle, WA
Rolling Stones
Tour '81
Rolling Stones
Pontiac Silver Dome
Pontiac, MI
Rolling Stones
New Orleans
The Police
Tom Robinson
Sector 27
Madison Square Garden
NYC
Ramones
Copenhagen, Denmark
Stevie Ray Vaughn & Double Trouble
Fitzgerald's
Houston, TX
Australian & New Zealand Tour '81
Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Apollo Victoria
London, UK
Bob Dylan
Meadowlands Arena
East Rutherford, NJ
The Undertones
Torquay Town Hall
Castle Circus
Torquay, UK
Utopia
Cain's Ballroom
Tulsa, OK
U2
Phantom Limb
Paradiso
Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Replacements
The Dads
7th Street Entry
Minneapolis, MN
Gang of Four
Pere Ubu
Delta 5
Academy Bristol Locano
Bristol, UK
The Matador Tour 1981
Garland Jeffreys
Munich, Germany
The Go Go's
The Emerald City
Cherry Hill, NJ
Ramones
Cult Heroes
Second Chance Club
Ann Arbor, NY
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Merriweather Post Pavilion
Columbia, MD
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Festhalle
Frankfurt, Germany
1981 New Orleans Jazz Festival
Rolling Stones American Tour 1981
Pontiac Silver Dome
Pontiac, MI
Rolling Stones American Tour 81
It was a drizzly foggy night on Thanksgiving Eve 1979. The aura of tryptophan mixed with beer, cheap booze and hormones filled the Silver Dollar Saloon as the Freelance Vandals took the stage. WBAB, a popular radio station, was on hand to capture the band's first radio show. Rock & Roll sounds...down to the bone baby!
