THE SELECTER / THE BEAT | LIVE REVIEW
Tramshed, Cardiff, Fri 14 Apr
I have attended many gigs over the last few years at the Tramshed and this is the most full I have ever seen it. It’s wall-to-wall people, young and old. A real mixture of the people who remember the initial wave of the two tone movement and the younger crowd who have picked it up retrospectively.
Starting off the proceedings are The Beat, featuring UK ska icon Ranking Roger accompanied by his son Ranking Junior. The set was a mixture of well-known classic tunes and solid new songs which mixed seamlessly with the set list. Crowd interaction is at play and the horde does not stop moving – high energy and pure joy.
Co-headlining, meanwhile, we have a band that need no introduction: The Selecter, a seminal Coventry ska band fronted by Pauline Black and Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson. The energy does not stop, the band is on top form and Black is in complete control of the audience, evoking the spirit of Eartha Kitt in the 1966 Batman.
This gig is not a stale remembrance of a music gone by but it is a celebration of an important part of music heritage with a message of unity. The setlist is great, with a few unexpected surprises thrown in, and the crowd don’t stop skanking. The encore is an astounding collaborative cover of Too Much Pressure from both The Beat and The Selecter, which brings down the house. Leaving the venue I felt I had witnessed something I had not seen in a while.
Tonight’s band delivered what the UK is in desperate need of in this crypto-fascist time: music with a political message of unity, hope and togetherness that everyone can dance to.
words LIAM BARRETT