Energetic set opens with Springsteen's first performance of The Clash's Clampdown". It was played in a full-band arrangement, as a duet with Tom Morello.
Bruce opens with "Joe Hill" on International Workers' Day. Joe Hill, clampdown is second on the setlist now.
"Clampdown" is a song by The Clash from their album London Calling. The song began as an instrumental track called "Working and Waiting". Its lyrics concern those who have forsaken the idealism of youth and urges young people to fight the status quo. The word 'clampdown' is a neat cover-all term the writers adopted to define the oppressive Establishment, notably its more reactionary voices who were to be heard throughout the 1970s calling alarmingly for 'clampdowns' by government and law enforcement on strikers, agitators, benefits claimants, football hooligans, punks and other perceived threats to the social, economic and moral wellbeing of the UK. The 'clampdown' can therefore be read as a figure of dread for the Clash's generation - and the song stands as a warning to the youth to beware being part of the problem rather than of the solution.
It turned out that Clash frontman Joe Strummer was a huge Springsteen fan.
"Bruce is great," Strummer wrote in a 1995 fax to Mojo. "If you don't agree you're a pretentious martian from Venus. His music is great on a dark, rainy morning in England, just when you need some spirit and some proof that the big wide world exists."
The admiration worked both ways, and when Strummer died in 2002 Springsteen was more than happy to honor him furing the Grammy telecast with a killer performance of "London Calling" alongside Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl and Steve Van Zandt.
(Work) And I've given away no secrets - ha!