We speak to Norry from Lost Glasgow about when The Clash came to Glasgow

National World - LocalTV

In 1985 legendary punk band The Class embarked on a busking tour which involved a set at the Rock Garden on Glasgow’s Queen Street. We spoke to Norry who saw this live.

Transcript

00:00Norrie, transport is back to the 16th of May 1985 at around three o'clock in here.

00:05I was 18 and working in my first job, just left school at the reading room at Glasgow University

00:14Library. You have to understand this is long pre the days of mobile technology or mobile phones

00:22and my boss sticks her head out her office and goes Norrie there's a phone call for you.

00:27I've never had a phone call at my work before in my life. So I went in, hello and it was my

00:33best mate calling me and he said guess where I am and I said god knows, he says I'm in the rock

00:38garden. I said so what we're always in the rock garden and he was like aye but the Clash are

00:42playing in here in about 45 minutes and we knew from the NME and the music press that the Clash

00:50were doing this busking tour and apparently the previous night they played round in the Fix

00:57in Miller Street. I stuck my head back into my boss's office and went I've got an emergency at

01:02home with my mum and she said well why don't you go home. So I basically ran out the building

01:08Wednesday lunchtime, jumped in a taxi, came straight here, got in, ended up down in the

01:14basement. Sure enough like 15 minutes later the Clash started playing. Joe Schrummer and Paul

01:20Simmons standing up in the tables and chairs giving it absolutely loudy for, it wasn't a huge

01:26set, maybe about half an hour, 40 minutes. They didn't even have a drum kit, the drummer was

01:32basically playing on the table or the backs of chairs. Joe was using the wee sort of spotlights

01:38in the ceiling to spotlight the members of the band, spotlight the crowd as well which is quite

01:43fun and he dyed his hair absolutely bright red at this point. So we followed them and we walked

01:51out to the West End with them and we stopped outside, I think it was an Odd Bins on Woodlands

01:58Road. At that point we'd all run out of drink and the Clash busked again on the pavement outside

02:04the Odd Bins until we got enough money for another pallet of beer and a couple of bottles of vodka.

02:09Went in and got that and then kept wending our way out the West End and I'm not actually sure

02:15where we split up, but the word was that night they were going to play in a bar called the

02:20Cul-de-Sac in what do you call it, Lane? It's now the Williams Brothers sort of tap room. So we all

02:28headed there for about seven o'clock. You could see there was crowds of folks sitting about doing

02:33the same as us all sitting in pints going, are the Clash gonna appear here? Are the Clash gonna

02:38appear here? And then eventually Paul Simonin came in and I sat in New Den from the Rock Garden

02:46slightly well enough to go up and go, are the Clash playing in here tonight? Paul Simon went,

02:50nah it's full of houses, full of bloody houses playing in a wee place round the corner called

02:56Dukes. At which point I went over to my table and went, they're playing in Dukes.

03:00And we sort of sidled our way out and then ran like hell to Dukes.

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