Shea Stadium
The Who. The Clash. Two bands from East London playing in the eastern borough of NYC.
There is a great photo of The Clash all suited up in an open convertible Cadillac driving through Queens, quite classic.
This was the only time I saw either of these bands, and not much can be said in words that can possibly put them in perspective other than words like…Quadrophenia… and London Calling… Wow, what can you say except that this was a big year for concerts.
For many years previous, Shea Stadium was a near and dear place for me, because I started attending Mets games in 1969 at the age of 8 and was in attendance on the evening of September 24, 1969 when, in the words of Newsday “one of the most improbable events in human history occurred”.
At the show we stood toward the back of the field. During the Clash set it seemed like mass hysteria going on near the stage.
Near me, some poor dude couldn’t seem to rid himself of whatever he drank, and his vomiting went on about as long as in the classic Monty Python segment from Meaning of Life. Another dude took control of the situation - first he ordered the vomiting man to leave the vicinity, yelling at him incessantly; next, he pulled out a pocket knife and started to cut the tarp on the Shea field. Without even hesitating, he cut a big square of tarp around the vomit area - he then started rolling up the square of tarp, neatly trapping the vomit inside. Just like that, the vomit was gone and the audience there on the field spread out over the nice swatch of the green grass of Shea just sticking right up through that square hole in the tarp.