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Lochem Festival

All tracks recorded live at the Lochem Festival, Holland, on 20th May, 1982.

Track listing

  1. London Calling
  2. Safe European Home
  3. The Guns Of Brixton
  4. Train In Vain
  5. Clash City Rockers
  6. Know Your Rights
  7. The Magnificent Seven
  8. Ghetto Defendant
  9. Should I Stay Or Should I Go
  10. Police & Thieves
  11. Brand New Cadillac
  12. Bankrobber
  13. Complete Control
  14. Career Opportunities
  15. Clampdown

Review

This is a great CD. The band's performance is excellent and the quality on the CD is superb, one of the best bootlegs there is in that respect. I have read from other people that they feel the band was a bit dull / flat sounding here, but I don't think so at all. They sound alive, and very energetic at this outdoor festival. This is also Topper's last ever gig with the band, and his drumming seems fine strangely enough, certainly better than it is on the Tokyo gig earlier in that year.

Kicking off with great performances of London Calling and Safe European Home, Guns Of Brixton is then performed very well. In fact, it's hard to fault any of the songs in this gig. Clash City Rockers is excellent, Mag 7 is as energetic as it usually is and Ghetto Defendant is a welcome addition to the set. Performed well live, and a good song to have, as it wasn't played live much. Even Should I Stay Or Should I Go, not one of my favourite Clash numbers, is very rocking. Bankrobber is also great, and different to other live versions. In fact, the whole gig has a very distinct sound to it, unlike any other. Police & Thieves is definitely a contender for its best ever live performance.

At the end of Train In Vain, there seems to have been some fracas in the audience, or a few people larking about as Joe makes an appeal: "why don't you people leave this area?". They then maybe tried to get away from the bouncers, as Joe says "C'mon long-legs, let's see you jump." Not sure what was going on, but the show starts off again soon after. Also of note is a great rendition of Career Opportunities. A great CD and certainly one to acquire. The sound quality is excellent throughout, very clear, with all instruments, guitars, bass and the vocals all very distinct. Well recommended.

Rated: 9 / 10

Extra

This is the first gig the band played after Joe's return from his mysterious disappearance that Spring. The Lochem Festival was pretty big and not playing it might have had a very big negative impact on their credibility, especially as Combat Rock had just been released and a high profile would need to be maintained to promote it. Interestingly enough, only three songs from the new album are performed.

Thanks to Anders Thörnqvist for the copy of this.

And here, thanks to René from Holland, is a personal account of this gig:

It was a sunny and rainy day. Between the sun the rain felt down. After Saxon (with a lot of hardrockers) had played (in my memory) it was time for the last show that day. The day I had been waiting for :-) Yes, it was a great show/gig. A huge crowd, standing in the rain to listen and watch The Clash.
I still know what you're talking about at your website what happend after the song Train in Vain. In front of the stage they had build an enormous wooden fence. Very high. If you stood in front of that you couldn't see anything at the stage. Very disappointing. So the distance between the stage and the public was very big. So many people climbed up on that fence, sit on watched the show. Some 'bodyguards' tried to get them of the wooden fench. So a lot of people get in between the stage and the wooden fence. Then other people climbed upon the wooden fench too (also me). I think Joe tried to calm down the 'bodyguards' and the public. After sometime the concert had gone further. I can remember that at sometime during the the show more and more people climbed upon that wooden fench. Joe asked for ladders so people could climb upon the stage. At the end of the show the whole stage was full of fans. And they stayed very calm. Didn't ruined anything and let The Clash play on.
I downloaded some of the mp3 but i couldn't hear anything about that at the last songs. And in my memory I think they played one or two songs in advanced. One number I remember in particular because it was one of my favorites at that time. It was the song Straight to Hell. It's a pity that it's not on your live recording.
Very wet but satisfied I returned home :-)

Nice to hear from someone who was actually there! I also previously thought this to be a complete show, but René's account tells us that at least Straight To Hell is missing. I haven't read anywhere else on the Internet that this is the case, but I'm inclined to believe that this is an edited show.

And this I must say is quite funny, regarding the intro to Know Your Rights (thanks to Spiff for it):

"Somebody correct me, but wasn't the intro drums that Topper did at his last show with the Clash a mistake? The way I hear things, Tops started to play the drum intro to "Guns of Brixton" (which the band had played earlier in the set), which caused Joe to very purposefully shout " KNOW ... YOUR ... RIGHTS" to clue Topper into the fact that he was playing the wrong song."

Hans Muntendam experience of the gig:

I also have a tape of the Lochem gig. It only containes 6 songs though. A Dutch broadcasting station called VARA recorded it live at the time. Years later they broadcasted that gig late at night when of course nobody was listening, except yours truly that is. On the tape you can hear clearly what the fuck was going on. It was raining heavily so Joe asked the promotor if it was alright for the fans to mount the stage. The promotor reluctantly agreed or not (&), and the fans climbed on to the stage. That very same VARA also recorded a Clash gig in '81 in Amsterdam in the Paradiso.