“Bruce is great. If you don’t agree, you’re a pretentious Martian from Venus.” — Joe Strummer to Mark Hagen, 1995
Bruce Springsteen and Joe Strummer had more than a bit of mutual admiration between them, each citing the other as an influence.
It’s a wonder then that Bruce hasn’t covered Strummer and The Clash more often. There are exceptions, like “London Calling” and “Coma Girl,” but rarely does Bruce give one of Joe’s songs multiple outings in concert.
That changed in Pittsburgh on the High Hopes Tour, when temporary E Streeter Tom Morello joined Bruce on vocals to open with a cover of a song Morello was more than a bit familiar with.
The Clash released “Clampdown” as a single in Australia only, the second single off their landmark 1979 album, London Calling.
“Clampdown” never charted, but the punk anthem galvanized audiences, influenced young rockers, and inspired a host of covers with its galvanizing rallying cry.
One such band heavily influenced by The Clash was Rage Against the Machine, who covered “Clampdown” in their very first show… ever. In fact, “Clampdown” was only the second song they ever played live, and it was miraculously captured on video. Here’s that performance from 1991, featuring a 27-year-old Tom Morello:
So when Bruce decided to make “Clampdown” their show opener that April evening in Pittsburgh and asked Tom to join him on vocals, Morello was more than up to the task.
It was a brilliant decision: “Clampdown” rocketed the show out of the starting gate. Bruce was so pleased with the way it turned out that he went on to perform it not once but five more times over the next four weeks (although he would drop the horns immediately after that debut performance in Pittsburgh).
By their third performance a week later in Sunrise, they’d nailed both arrangement and performance. Within days, Bruce released an official video of that performance on his YouTube channel.
Bruce, Tom, and the band continued performing “Clampdown” through the end of the High Hopes Tour. When Morello left the band at that point, The Clash’s anthem went too. But with Morello a frequent guest star on E Street tours and “Clampdown” now firmly established in the E Street repertoire, don’t count it out for an encore appearance.
Clampdown
First performed: April 2, 2014 (Pittsburgh, PA)
Last performed: May 17, 2014 (Uncasville, CT)
