Phoney Beatlemania had bitten the dust...so they said...and yet is the Clash, opening for the Who...and at Shea Stadium no less. Doesn't seem very punk, that. Not that they'd been punk for quite awhile. Recorded on October 13, 1982, as the Who were in the middle of their first last tour, I wasn't expecting much. I was surprised. It is a good album, songs from every stage of their career, played with energy...arguably more than I remember the headliners showing on that tour.

We polled the Dadrock 101 editorial board as to why they don't listen to  Sandinista     as much as other Clash albums. "Too long." "I used too...guess it didn't stick." "It sucks." "Bullsh!t, it's great...the Mose Allison tune is a gem." It's not an easy album. How do you follow up on a specially priced,  meisterwerk   double album ? The Clash issued a stopgap compilation of odds and sods and then put out a triple. Why a triple? The story goes that they were peeved at the fact that while they had to fight with their record company to put out London Calling as a double. Did they have six sides of music? Yes, six shortish sides, but then they padded it. Five of the songs are doubled up with dub versions of some sort...one of them a backward tape with effects. Vital and riveting, to be sure. Mickey Dread, a girlfriend (on hiatus from Meatloaf gigs), an old friend, and the keyboard player's kids all contribute some g...