While the other former Clash members drift inexorably towards where-are-they-now land, Joe Strummer still knows exactly where he's going. With his shipmates, The Mescaleros, in tow, Strummer stopped off at the Olympia to deliver a cargo of rock 'n' roll, punk, ska, reggae and even a smidgen of Celtic blues.
Strummer's crew includes keyboard player, guitarist and all-round geezer Martin Slattery and legendary fiddle hero Tymon Dogg, who showed his form on the opening instrumental, Minstrel Boy.
Clash fans got a double dose of dub with Junco Pardner and Rudie Can't Fail, just to clear the way for new songs such as Johnny Appleseed, Bhindi Bhagee, Shaktar Donetsk and Mondo Bongo, all from his new album, Global A Go-Go.
Strummer is still spitting out sharp social observations and hitching them to snarling, dock-rocking melodies. Police & Thieves brought things up a notch, but its edge was dulled when the venue's perhaps heavy-handed security milled into the mosh pit and ejected an unfortunate pogoer. The guy missed Police On My Back and I Fought The Law, as well as covers of Jimmy Cliff's The Harder They Come, Toots & The Maytals' Pressure Drop and The Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop.
Hard-core Clash fans may have felt rationed, but for the rest of us it was a feast of raw, unrefined rock 'n' roll.
