The Clash Live in Tokyo, 1982: Watch the Complete Concert

In late Jan­u­ary and ear­ly Feb­ru­ary of 1982 the Clash played eight shows in Japan. The band was embark­ing on a month-long tour of the Far East that, as fate would have it, would be the last tour with their clas­sic line­up. When it was over, drum­mer Top­per Head­on was kicked out because of his dis­rup­tive drug habit, and the band would nev­er be the same. In this video we roll back the clock to see and hear the Clash in the twi­light of their hey­day.

The con­cert was appar­ent­ly filmed on the fourth night of the tour, at the Nakano Sun Plaza in Tokyo on Jan­u­ary 28, 1982. Accord­ing to music jour­nal­ist Chris Salewicz’s book Redemp­tion Song: The Bal­lad of Joe Stum­mer, the Clash had refused to play in Japan pri­or to this tour because of the Japan­ese cus­tom for­bid­ding audi­ence mem­bers to stand up. They agreed to play after a com­pro­mise was struck: The fans could stand, but only at their seats.

The band had just fin­ished record­ing Com­bat Rock, but none of the songs from the unre­leased record are in the film. At one point, bassist Paul Simonon’s wife Pearl Har­bor (a.k.a. Pearl E. Gates) of the new wave band Pearl Har­bor and the Explo­sions joins the Clash onstage to sing “Fujiya­ma Mama.” Here’s the set list:

1. Lon­don Call­ing
2. Safe Euro­pean Home
3. (White Man) in Ham­mer­smith Palais
4. Brand New Cadil­lac
5. Char­lie Don’t Surf
6. Clam­p­down
7. This is Radio Clash
8. Armagideon Time
9. Jim­my Jazz
10. Tom­my Gun
11. Fujiya­ma Mama
12. Police On My Back
13. White Riot

The Clash’s charis­mat­ic front­man, Joe Strum­mer, died ten years ago this Sat­ur­day, on Decem­ber 22, 2002. You can read a lit­tle about him in our Aug. 21 post, “Remem­ber­ing the Clash’s Front­man Joe Strum­mer on His 60th Birth­day.” But per­haps a good way to remem­ber him would be to watch this film, a rare visu­al record of a con­cert by the group many called “the only band that mat­ters.”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Clash: West­way to the World

Mick Jones Plays Three Favorite Clash Songs at the Library

Doc­u­men­tary Viva Joe Strum­mer: The Sto­ry of the Clash Sur­veys the Career of Rock’s Beloved Front­man