Live At Shea Stadium [Live]

Live at Shea rather remarkably captures the band conquering the soon-to-be-demolished stadium, turning the cold, sprawling space into a sweaty Brixton club.

It is, more importantly, a fine record of a dynamic live performance by a hugely influential band who transcended their punk origins.

Live at Shea Stadium is a very welcome addition to band’s already superb catalog of albums.

Live at Shea Stadium has its flaws: Devotees will rightly quibble with the set list, which is light on rarities and cuts from the Clash's brilliant debut. But the album captures a rousing, crystalline-sounding Clash show.

Dub dropouts and freestyle toasts monkey with the beat; the rap on 'Magnificent Seven' yields to 'Armagideon Time,' then returns for more. Many people probably danced. [Nov 2008, p.89]

The passion and power generated by Messrs Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Chimes make the proceedings feel like 10 minutes. [Nov 2008, p.170]

A worthy addition to the Clash canon. [Nov 2008, p.126]

The set most vividly captures the Clash's most enduring qualities: the triumphs and tribulations of being populist punks.

There were some signs prior to this 2008 archival release that this particular gig was pretty good--some of the cuts surfaced on the posthumous live 1999 comp "From Here to Eternity" and the video to 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' came from this gig--but all the decades of disastrous myths help turn Live at Shea Stadium into a pleasant surprise.

The sonic and theatrical muscle it takes to project to 50,000 people who've paid to see another band adds a sense iof purpose that can't transfigure the superb material but does give the music its own charater. [Nov 2008, p.81]