Sham 69 Hurrahs New York 4th December 1979 (10 For Rebellion #3)

 

Sham 69 were heralded into the US with much fanfare... maybe not literally, but their arrival for the first time was widely announced in the press. I believe that Sham had tried to gain access to American audiences before, but past criminal convictions put a block on the band's ability to get US visa's, a saga captured beautifully in 1978's 'No Entry'.

'They wanted us to go

To New York shitty

But the man at the embassy

Said "Oh, what a pity!"

"We know all the things you've done in the past

But never mind son, carry on smokin' the grass"

They didn't want us in the USA

We didn't wanna go there anyway

They don't want us in the U S of A'

Sham at this time were still plugging 'The Adventures Of) Hersham Boys' so that album is quite well represented along with set regulars from 1977 and 1978. Also included is 'Give A Dog A Bone' which would appear the following year on the patchy 'The Game' album.

This is a great recording from the rarely captured Sham (thanks to the original Dime uploader (theGrape). It's odd that for a band with such a high level of exposure in the UK (Jimmy and Co. were regulars on Top Of The Pops and rarely a week went by when they were not in the new pages of the music weeklies) to have so little in the way of archive recordings. Maybe tapers were wary of the possibility of their previous recorders being smashed to smithereens in an all to common Sham 69 melee! 

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-wWUuZUkEZoEMZ5bM

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-fpQ29mYBF383Yhhd

Jimmy and Co. take to the Empress Ballroom stage on Friday (23:00 - 00:00).