I Heard You Looking

“Lean, ravaged and always with a cigarette dangling from his lips, the Birthday Party’s Rowland S. Howard pummelled his guitar until it could howl no more…”

theguardian.com

The Clash attacked by an angry crowd of German punks during their infamous Markthalle gig in Hamburg, 1980, which ended in a riot, as seen in these photos by Ilse Ruppert.

The band was seen by some as sell-outs or traitors of the punk spirit, after sealing a major record deal with CBS, and on top of that, the cost of the tickets was twice the price paid for other international acts at the time. A large goup of around 100 punks tried to boycott the gig, barricading the main entrance of the venue, and ended up in front of the stage, spitting, shouting “Punk Is Dead” (from the title of the Crass song) at the end of each song and provoking The Clash, even stealing the mic, forcing the band members to try and retrieve it.

Things got really ugly when Joe Strummer finally crashed his guitar on the head of one of the punks constantly provoking them and the show ended with the police entering and handcuffing Joe, while people in the audience started singing “Police & Thieves”.