Springsteen’s love for the Clash (and vice versa)

Springsteen’s American tour is giving fans several surprises. We are no longer in the days of the concerts of about ten years ago, when the E Street Band changed the set list every night and hidden gems were dug up – the structure of the Boss concerts, from 2023 onwards, is quite rigid and with a “narrative” set list which includes few variations. But every now and then he comes back to surprise: the other evening he performed in Los Angeles for the first of two evenings and included a cover in the setlist, as he had done in the opening in Minneapolis, when he performed “Purple rain”. In LA Springsteen dusted off an old love of his, the Clash, performing “Clampdown”, one of the central songs of “London Calling”, the masterpiece of Joe Strummer’s band. It had not been sung live for 12 years, since 2014.
Here is the video of the performance, where Springsteen sang the song together with Tom Morello, an additional member of the E Street Band for this tour.

In the past Springsteen has also sung “London Calling”, on stage at the 2003 Grammys when he performed the Clash classic accompanied by his faithful Steve Van Zandt, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters and Strummer’s long-time friend Elvis Costello – and then again in a memorable 2009 concert in London which later became a film and before that.
Springsteen’s love for the Clash was reciprocated: Joe Strummer was a big fan of the boss. The musician from New Jersey had a somewhat surprising influence on the music of the Clash, an influence that also reverberated on Strummer’s subsequent solo work. The British singer-songwriter who passed away on December 22, 2002 at the age of fifty, even went so far, in 1995, to write a letter of appreciation for the Boss entitled ‘Bruce is great’.

Bruce is great…if you don’t agree with this, you are a pretentious Venusian Martian.

Bruce is great…because he will never be knocked down and overwhelmed by his problems. He is always ready to explode. His music is great on a dark, rainy English morning just when you need spirit and some proof that the big wide world exists. The DJ puts on ‘Racing in the Streets’ and life seems to come back to life… life seems to be in cinemascope again. Bruce is not on an ego trip…Bruce is really into the music…we need people like this…today a lot of records are made by people who just want to fuel their own fame. Bruce is amazing…it’s just great music, great lyrics and an ocean of talent. I? I love Springsteen.”