I’ve been on a bit of a live record kick as of late, particularly on the, shall we say, “unofficial” side of things. Back in the 80s we used to refer to these albums as bootlegs, but that’s technically not accurate. A bootleg is an illegal copy of a legitimate album – in essence, it’s a counterfeit that either tries to pass itself off as the original, or sometimes is just a pure knock-off. Unofficial is more accurate when we’re talking about a release that was not put out by the band or their label, but instead some third party. Usually these are live performances, demos, or alternate studio takes. We also used to call these “imports”, in part because often they were legally produced in their country of origin but sold at a US store, even if they ran afoul of American copyright laws.1
Clash On Tour includes two live Paris performances by The Clash, the first from September 29, 1977 (side A), the other from October 16, 1978 (side B). I’m not a superfan of The Clash or anything, but this looked interesting enough when I ran across it a few weeks ago at a record store in Reykjavik, so I grabbed it. Normally when I’m overseas I try to stick to local artists and labels, but occasionally I’ll break this rule if I find something particularly unusual or rare.
The A side is the better of the two, with excellent sound quality as far as unofficial releases go. It has a certain flatness, a lack of dynamic range, but this one is better than most. Sonically clean, no audience noise bleeds into the songs, though that also removes the sense of energy that live albums can sometimes capture to great effect. I think it’s a fair trade, though, as hearing the music has to be the first priority and so many unofficial records are duds in this regard. The B side is definitely flatter, the low end muffled and only the guitar showing any character. Strummer’s vocals rise above it at times, though more often than not they get caught in the mud at the bottom. I have the white label French version, and there is also a UK orange label release. As near as I can tell both came out in 1979, and I haven’t seen any info indicating one version is better than the other.
Clash On Tour has 21 tracks, with none repeated across the two sets. There’s also a cover of “Blitzkrieg Bop” on the B side, which is kinda cool. Ultimately, however, this is the kind of thing that for the price probably only appeals to the hardcore fan of The Clash.
- For more on the history of and difference between bootlegs and unofficial releases, I recommend Clinton Heylin’s book, “Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry” (1995), as well as “A Pig’s Tale: The Underground Story of the Legendary Bootleg Record Label” (2021) by Ralph Sutherland & Harold Sherrick. ↩︎