The Clash

existed, it was just fantastic. There was actually a movement going on. I think that night became a movement. Because it was not just happening in our back yard, it was happening right across Northern Ireland.”

Stiff Little Fingers frontman Jake Burns had just made the transition from singer with rock band Highway Star to punk contender. “I suddenly realised that it wasn’t just the four of us, that there were a lot of people out there who actually were listening to this sort of stuff.”

Caroline Coon remembers that the convergence outside the venue was unexpected. “It was a shock to the band. We didn’t know at this time how far punk had spread. We were astonished because the kids that were coming to us were self-identifying as punks. And that was astonishing because when you’re in your own bubble, you’re not quite sure how far it is spreading out.”

The Clash also provided an intellectual charge, as Belfast punk rock band Ruefrex songwriter Paul Burgess recalls: “In a Northern Irish context, what was even more important for somebody like me was that the community I came from, I found myself trapped into a world of sectarian politics. And what the Clash did for me was, it actually liberated me to have a valid interest in politics and a political process that wasn’t coloured or painted by the place where I lived. It enabled me to relate to, at some level, class politics; that simply wasn’t on the agenda of Northern Ireland in regard to the conflict here. So here was an opportunity and a voice to engage with political commentary through popular culture.”

Gavin Martin was putting together a fanzine, Alternative Ulster, with two of his friends in Bangor, County Down: “I’d come from Bangor with some people. A few months before, punk would have been an anathema to them, but all through the summer of ’77 with the Silver Jubilee, the Queen arriving in the bay at Ballyholme at the same time that God Save The Queen was released, the royal yacht arriving there – it was a mounting thing.

This was like the first actual big punk gig. The Feelgoods had been here. They were brilliant, but the Clash were fantastic. They were coming to Belfast. I couldn’t believe that it was going to happen. And it didn’t…”

After sound-checking at the Ulster Hall, the Clash were informed that since the insurance cover was no longer valid, the gig could not take place. But there was an alternative, a chance to restage the event at Queens University, a mile away. Peter Aiken was alerted.

“It was very much a question of trying to keep as much under wraps as possible. Even to the extent of the sound check taking place. I remember standing on the level looking up at the boys on stage and doing the sound check. And then it was, ‘Right, there’s definitely no chance, let’s move’.”

Austin Smith, the entertainments officer, realised that it was non-negotiable: “The insurance company said it was because there were outstanding claims arising out of Clash concerts.”

Outside the Ulster Hall, there was confusion and hearsay. There were face-offs with the security. Bedford Street was blocked for a time by punk rockers. Some of them lay down on the road. Three windows were broken at the Ulster Hall. People were running over to the hotel, two blocks away. There were five arrests: three males and two females.

“Everybody talks about the riot,” says Paul Burgess. “But in terms of Belfast riots, it was about two out of ten. There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with the cops. People were working themselves into a bit of a frenzy. So when somebody said, ‘Oh, they’re not letting the Clash play’, that was the key thing. There was no talk of insurance certificates or anything. It was, ‘They’re not letting the Clash play’ – which would play out in the anti-authority scheme of things. And then a small group of people broke away and were running towards the Europa Hotel, shouting over their shoulder, ‘Joe Strummer’s been arrested at the Europa’. So, massive misinformation and confusion.”

Jake Burns was party to the chaos. “There were a lot of people milling around and causing a disturbance outside the Ulster Hall, and what amazed me was not the fact that they were causing a disturbance – because, after all, it was Belfast

– but the number of people that was there.”

Barry Young, who was 15 at the time, had a Kodak Instamatic with him to take some snaps of the band and he started photographing the police in an altercation with some girls. This was provocation enough, as Barry’s brother Brian recalls. “Next thing we knew he was hurled into the back of a meat wagon. We only got him out after they’d smacked him about a bit and taken the film out of his camera.”

This had a lasting effect on Clash guitarist Mick Jones. The band had provoked a riot by accident. This was band mythology being actualised. And yet he was dejected afterwards. “The most horrible thing was the way the kids were treated. They were pushed around. They didn’t have a chance to understand what was happening, so they were disappointed in us. We ain’t an army, we’re a rock’n’roll band. It’s like the band against the Army and the Ulster Constabulary.”

The band had decamped to the Europa, where Bernie Rhodes reviewed the options. Joe and Paul stepped outside the perimeter fence and explained to some fans that the show was happening up the road. Gear was being shifted to the Queen’s University Student’s Union. They put up equipment in the small bar. The capacity was 400 yet there had been 800 advance sales for the Ulster Hall. There were rumours that punks would be excluded, but Joe came out and reassured them that this would not be the case. Still, it was problematic. Eamonn McCann, the Social Secretary, wanted it to happen but his superiors said no. The band offered to cover any potential damage, but this was declined. The band exited from a side entrance into a series of Ford Cortinas on order from Fonacab.

The fans deserved a statement, and this was the duty of Kyle Leitch, who worked the counter at Caroline Music on Ann Street. “At the request of the band I had to stand up on a chair inside the Students’ Union and tell a lot of angry punks that we’d failed and that refunds would be available from my shop the next day. Someone threw a bottle, which smashed against a nearby light, and then we all scarpered.”

Some of the fans made it back to the Europa and found a welcome or sorts. “When I arrived at the hotel,” says Gavin Martin, “Mick was holding court on the bed. Joe had lost his voice. He was unable to talk.”

Next day, the band took the train to Dublin for two shows at Trinity College. But it was the Belfast experience that was reported at length in the music papers, and the Adrian Boot shots that became emblematic of a band in a political crossfire.

“When I got back to London,” says Adrian, “the record company was very upset with me. I thought I would never work with CBS again. They said I was irresponsible and immature and that I shouldn’t have considered risking their band in places like Belfast. But of course, the same picture of the band with the soldiers appeared in Sounds, NME and the Melody Maker. So the anger shifted from CBS to the music papers, who were very pissed off that I had supplied the same picture to all the papers. It wasn’t me who supplied the pictures, incidentally, it was CBS. They had sent out three or four pictures, as they used to do those days, and of course they had all chosen the same picture, coincidentally.”

At the time, Brian Young was playing in Rudi, the first proper punk band in town. His expectations were also tested. “The Clash media people turned it into a trip to a warzone – staying in ‘the most bombed hotel in Europe’, when it was actually the most luxurious. But we did get to meet them. They were genuine enough people. And at least they tried to play, that was the main thing. And they did come back and play. Their McMordie Hall gig [December 20] was one of the best I ever saw in my life.”

In 2002, Joe Strummer was contacted by the authors of a punk book, It Makes You Want to Spit. They asked about his impressions of Belfast in

1977 and the importance of music at that particular moment. He responded with a quote in November. It was one of the last public statements he made before his passing, a month later: “The punks informed us they were the only integrated people in the whole country. Let the child teach the man! When punk rock ruled over Ulster, nobody ever had more excitement and fun. Between the bombings and shootings, the religious hatred and the settling of old scores, punk gave everybody a chance to LIVE for one glorious, burning moment. Let it provide inspiration.”

‘The band had provoked a riot by accident. This was band mythology being actualised.’

Taken from Trouble Songs: Music & Conflict In Northern Ireland by Stuart Bailie. Used by kind permission. For more information and to purchase, please visit www.troublesongs.com