about bowling down California highways. I mean, it meant nothing to me. Although the Damned and the Pistols were great, they were only exciting musically; lyrically, I couldn't really make out a lot if it ... [T]o realise that [the Clash] were actually singing about their own lives in West London was like a bolt out of the blue. The Clash also inspired many musicians who were only loosely associated, if at all, with punk. The band's embrace of ska, reggae and England's Jamaican subculture helped provide the impetus for the 2 Tone movement that emerged amid the fallout of the punk explosion. Other musicians who began performing while the Clash were active and acknowledged their debt to the band include Billy Bragg and Aztec Camera. U2's the Edge has compared the Clash's inspirational effect to that of the Ramones—both gave young rock musicians at large the "sense that the door of possibility had swung open." He wrote, "The Clash, more than any other group, kick-started a thousand garage bands across Ireland and the UK ... [S]eeing them perform was a life-changing experience." Bono has described the Clash as "the greatest rock band. They wrote the rule book for U2." While the Sex Pistols’ debut gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall has been acknowledged as the starting point of that city’s punk scene, The Clash’s first gig at Eric’s, supported by The Specials, served as a similar watershed for Liverpool. The gig was witnessed by Jayne Casey, Julian Cope, Pete Wylie, Pete Burns, Bill Drummond, Holly Johnson, Will Sergeant, Budgie, and Ian McCulloch, who went on to form Big in Japan, The Teardrop Explodes and Echo & The Bunnymen amongst other bands. In later years, the Clash's influence can be heard in American political punk bands such as Rancid, Anti-Flag, Bad Religion, NOFX, Green Day, and Rise Against as well as in the political hard rock of early Manic Street Preachers. California's Rancid, in particular, are known as "incurable Clash zealots". The title track of the band's album Indestructible proclaims, "I'll keep listening to that great Joe Strummer!" Outside of rock music, Chuck D has credited the Clash as an inspiration for Public Enemy, in particular for the way their use of socially and politically conscious lyrics gained attention from the music press: "They talked about important subjects, so therefore journalists printed what they said, which was very pointed...