America for another three months.
Combat Rock itself could be seen as a more concentrated version of the musical formula debuted on Sandinista!, largely eschewing straight-ahead rock numbers for more angular and open compositions. When Rhodes critiqued the new material he heard in rehearsal as long meandering “ragas,” Strummer slyly incorporated the remark in the opening line of a new song, “Rock the Casbah.”
The album also echoed Sandinista!’s themes. That record had been given the catalog number “FSLN 1,” another nod to the Nicaraguan revolutionaries; Combat Rock now took “FMLN 2” as its number, a reference to the Salvadoran guerrilla coalition, the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN).
The group was named after Salvadoran Communist leader Farabundo Martí, an ally of Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto César Sandino, for whom the Sandinistas were named. Martí had led a peasant uprising against the military and oligarchy in 1932. It ended in “La Matanza” (The Massacre), with perhaps thirty thousand killed—including Martí—in less than a month in retaliation for the rebellion.
This slaughter found an echo in the mounting atrocities committed by the Salvadoran military, armed by the Reagan administration. In just one example, the Atlacatl Battalion—trained and advised by the US military—killed as many as one thousand men, women, and children suspected of supporting the guerrillas in the northern village of El Mozote on December 11, 1981. This single massacre equaled the entire death toll of the Falklands War.
When New York Times reporter Raymond Bonner helped expose these killings in January 1982, Reagan officials viciously attacked his objectivity, denying the atrocity had taken place. Amid intense pressure from the administration, Bonner was transferred to another post, and the slaughter went on.
If most of the US populace looked away, The Clash was paying attention, with sixties icon Allen Ginsberg adding references to Salvadoran death squads to Combat Rock’s “Ghetto Defendant.” As with Sandinista!, the ghost of the Vietnam War hovered over the record, even as El Salvador was in danger of becoming another such quagmire, with the US drawn again into defending a corrupt and brutal ally in the name of “fighting communism.”
Behind the scenes, the CIA was working to unify fractious anti-Sandinista counterrevolutionaries—known as “contras”—into a fighting force to harry and ultimately overthrow that regime. Using clandestine allies like Israel and Argentina, Reagan extended his backyard offensive throughout the Central American and Caribbean region.
As The Clash pressed its own campaign on the concert trail, a seismic shift was occurring. Combat Rock was garnering strong reviews, but even greater sales. First, “Should I Stay or Should I Go” ascended the charts, replicating the success of “Train in Vain” three years earlier. Then a new video music channel, MTV, sent a second single, “Rock the Casbah,” into the Top 10. The endless gigging was exhausting, but The Clash was breaking big in the largest market in the world, headlining larger and larger venues.
Then The Clash got an unusual offer: the Who wanted the upstart unit to join a “farewell” American tour. Commercially, this was a no-brainer, exposing The Clash to an audience far beyond their existing one. Artistically, the appeal was less certain. The Who represented the “dinosaur rock” The Clash had set out to displace, and the band would be on enemy turf, playing huge stadiums.
The Baker knew where he stood: “We were packing up the gear after a show and [Clash guitar tech] Digby said to me, ‘What’s going on in the dressing room? The door is locked and there’s no fans in there.’ I ran back to the dressing room and found the band in heated discussion with Bernie and Kosmo about the prospect of supporting the Who. At the time it seemed to me that Mick was for it, Paul was on the fence, and Joe seemed to be just listening, undecided. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and resolved—against my better judgment—to offer my own protest even though I knew I was in danger of being told it was band business.”
The Baker cited all the obvious drawbacks, but to no avail: “The Bernie/Kosmo force majeure was pounding the table about ‘taking it to the next level’ and ‘competing with the music business on its own playing field.’ Tempers flared—I couldn’t believe we had come this far holding onto some of the most precious tenets of the early days, only to give in to big business. I was accused of being ‘unrealistic’ and trying to live in the past.”
When Rhodes shouted, “This ain’t fucking 1976!” The Baker gave up and stormed out of the dressing room. If beaten in the argument, he remained skeptical: “I felt Joe knew they were making a mistake but that there was nothing else to do. His unshakable trust in Bernie’s instincts once again won the day.”
In the end, the band decided it couldn’t turn down the money or the challenge. But it was one thing to decide to do it, and another to actually play on gigantic stages to a distant audience, many of whom had not come to see The Clash, and who were impatient to see the headliners.
The Clash had played to big crowds before, including some 80,000-plus in London’s Victoria Park for Rock Against Racism on April 30, 1978. That gig, however, had a political urgency and purpose, helping to defeat a rising neo-Nazi threat in the form of the National Front, amid acts of racist violence.
One of those in attendance was a teenage Clash fan named Billy Bragg. Years later, Bragg would recall, “That was the first political activism I ever took part in, and I went because The Clash were playing. It totally changed my perspective. There were 100,000 kids just like me. And I realized that I wasn’t the only person who felt this way. It was that gig—and that audience, really—that gave me the courage of my convictions, to start speaking out.”
Bragg was not alone in feeling the day was a transformative experience. In 2008, leading UK newspaper the Guardian wrote, “For those who attended the concert in 1978 it was a show that changed their lives and helped change Britain. Rock Against Racism radicalized a generation, it showed that music could do more than just entertain: it could make a difference.”
Victoria Park carried an extraordinary resonance—but Strummer found that stadium shows rarely had such a vibe. They were engineered to include as many fans, and make as much money, as possible, with little thought to the quality of the experience. Bands would generally be visible only on gigantic video screens, blurring the line between experiencing live music and watching TV.
This meant hard work for any group serious about connecting with its audience, often resulting in an exhaustion that was more psychic than physical. The Clash was a band that fed off its fans, enjoying the chaos and spontaneity. The businesslike tick-tock of these huge shows was alien to them, and the immense distance from the audience took its toll.
At New York’s Shea Stadium, Strummer chided the crowd for chatting during the songs. After another gig, a visibly exhausted Strummer—sitting slouched over and hiding behind sunglasses—was asked about the band’s responsibility to the fans. He responded curtly, “I’m not strong enough to carry anything like that right now.” When the interviewer followed up with Jones, asking how he felt about the music industry, he replied, “It’s not any worse than any other prostitution business.”
That Jones would say this is striking because, of the band’s original cohort, he was perhaps the one most open to this level of success. It did not mean, however, that he handled the breakthrough well.
Jones had never been known for punctuality—in the movie Rude Boy he is scolded on camera by road manager Johnny Green—but after Combat Rock broke big, it got worse. Whether this was due to his late-night lifestyle or a power play is not clear. Whatever the cause, Jones regularly left the band waiting. Added to existing musical and ideological differences, a chasm was growing.
