The Specials at First Avenue, Minneapolis (07 June 2019)
|
The Specials at First Avenue
6/10 – Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore
6/11 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts 6/14 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel 6/15- Boston, MA @ House of Blues 6/17 – Montreal, QB @ Corona Theatre 6/18 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall 6/19 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall
|
English 2-tone ska legends The Specials headlined First Avenue’s mainroom on Friday, June 7th, in support of their new album Encore (Island Records).
Opening up the show was London’s L.A. Salami. We last saw him in March 2018 and mentioned, “Coming on stage to an extended band jam intro, L.A. Salami (short for his full name Lookman Adekunle Salami) confessed that he’s been “spying from the bar” to survey the crowd. He’s come to the conclusion that we were an “interesting group.” If you couldn’t tell, it was clear that he was pretty happy about the large audience, possibly thanks to his appearance at the popular local station The Current ahead of the show.”
Since the last appearance, Salami is travelling light (without a full band) and instead only had a bassist (not introduced) helping him on stage. With a stripped-down sound, Salami decided to make a full meal of his 45-min opening slot by stretching out his songs. In fact, he only played four songs, taking it nice and slow. Between songs, he also jabbered quite a bit.
At first, he asked if anyone in the audience was born in Minneapolis? Then if anyone lived here for more than 15 years. Then 20, 25, between the other songs.
If you’re not familiar with L.A. Salami, he’s more of a poet and sounds a little like Bob Dylan (because of the harmonica). Unfortunately, the slow winding and intelligent lyrical songs didn’t mesh well with the upbeat bouncy ska music of The Specials. It’s a bad pairing, it’s obvious.
Of the four songs, one had a lot of lyrics that aren’t on any of Salami’s previous songs, so I’m guessing it’s a work in progress or perhaps an unreleased song. Sample lyrics includes “The crucible is allowed to stand.”
He ended his set with “The Talisman on the Age of Glass”, which he explained was inspired by a person and author.
It’s good to have The Specials back in town. The band was last seen in town on September 17, 2016, but unfortunately, due to conflict with Festival Palomino, we could not cover that show.
As with many ska bands (which requires a full brass section), they have a large roster and often takes much effort to get everyone involved to do a proper tour.
The newest member of the group is PJ Harvey/Jazz Jamaica’s drummer Kenrick Rowe, who is replacing The Libertines’ drummer Gary Powell. The core songwriter, Terry Hall remains consistently in the band throughout the years.
Since the formation of the group in 1977 (originally called The Automatics and then changed to The Specials AKA), the band had always had a political message in their songs. One of the band’s first major concert was at Rock Against Racism in 1978. The band’s goal was trying to integrate black and white people. If you look at the rude boys’ dress code, you’ll notice they only represent two colors: black and white.
The combination of ska and a little punk and plenty of attitude sent the band’s music straight to #1 in the UK charts. Their first major hit, “A Message To You, Rudy”, was actually a cover of Dandy Livingstone’s song “Rudy, A Message To You” (but with a music choice that’s quite different). Like Cyndi Lauper’s cover of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (originally a sad, slow song by Robert Hazard) or Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” (originally a country song by Dolly Parton), The Specials became more synonymous with “A Message To You, Rudy” than Livingstone.
Like many long running bands, the Specials had their ups and down. They broke up and reform and broke up again. They were on hiatus for a while, until 2010 when The Specials were announced to play a number of festivals.
What no one saw coming was that the band was working on a new album called Encore, their first in nearly 20 years. Thanks to the promotion of the new album (which debut at #1 in the UK album chart), the band expanded their tour to the USA in 2019.
The new songs, such as “Vote for Me” and “10 Commandments”, sounded like classic Specials songs and went over well with the audience. The completely packed dance floor had the crowd jamming to hits like “A Message to You, Rudy” and “Too Much Too Young”.
Opening up the show was London’s L.A. Salami. We last saw him in March 2018 and mentioned, “Coming on stage to an extended band jam intro, L.A. Salami (short for his full name Lookman Adekunle Salami) confessed that he’s been “spying from the bar” to survey the crowd. He’s come to the conclusion that we were an “interesting group.” If you couldn’t tell, it was clear that he was pretty happy about the large audience, possibly thanks to his appearance at the popular local station The Current ahead of the show.”
Since the last appearance, Salami is travelling light (without a full band) and instead only had a bassist (not introduced) helping him on stage. With a stripped-down sound, Salami decided to make a full meal of his 45-min opening slot by stretching out his songs. In fact, he only played four songs, taking it nice and slow. Between songs, he also jabbered quite a bit.
At first, he asked if anyone in the audience was born in Minneapolis? Then if anyone lived here for more than 15 years. Then 20, 25, between the other songs.
If you’re not familiar with L.A. Salami, he’s more of a poet and sounds a little like Bob Dylan (because of the harmonica). Unfortunately, the slow winding and intelligent lyrical songs didn’t mesh well with the upbeat bouncy ska music of The Specials. It’s a bad pairing, it’s obvious.
Of the four songs, one had a lot of lyrics that aren’t on any of Salami’s previous songs, so I’m guessing it’s a work in progress or perhaps an unreleased song. Sample lyrics includes “The crucible is allowed to stand.”
He ended his set with “The Talisman on the Age of Glass”, which he explained was inspired by a person and author.
It’s good to have The Specials back in town. The band was last seen in town on September 17, 2016, but unfortunately, due to conflict with Festival Palomino, we could not cover that show.
As with many ska bands (which requires a full brass section), they have a large roster and often takes much effort to get everyone involved to do a proper tour.
The newest member of the group is PJ Harvey/Jazz Jamaica’s drummer Kenrick Rowe, who is replacing The Libertines’ drummer Gary Powell. The core songwriter, Terry Hall remains consistently in the band throughout the years.
Since the formation of the group in 1977 (originally called The Automatics and then changed to The Specials AKA), the band had always had a political message in their songs. One of the band’s first major concert was at Rock Against Racism in 1978. The band’s goal was trying to integrate black and white people. If you look at the rude boys’ dress code, you’ll notice they only represent two colors: black and white.
The combination of ska and a little punk and plenty of attitude sent the band’s music straight to #1 in the UK charts. Their first major hit, “A Message To You, Rudy”, was actually a cover of Dandy Livingstone’s song “Rudy, A Message To You” (but with a music choice that’s quite different). Like Cyndi Lauper’s cover of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (originally a sad, slow song by Robert Hazard) or Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” (originally a country song by Dolly Parton), The Specials became more synonymous with “A Message To You, Rudy” than Livingstone.
Like many long running bands, the Specials had their ups and down. They broke up and reform and broke up again. They were on hiatus for a while, until 2010 when The Specials were announced to play a number of festivals.
What no one saw coming was that the band was working on a new album called Encore, their first in nearly 20 years. Thanks to the promotion of the new album (which debut at #1 in the UK album chart), the band expanded their tour to the USA in 2019.
The new songs, such as “Vote for Me” and “10 Commandments”, sounded like classic Specials songs and went over well with the audience. The completely packed dance floor had the crowd jamming to hits like “A Message to You, Rudy” and “Too Much Too Young”.
As we previously mentioned, if you love ska music, particularly British Ska bands like The Beat, Selecter, and Madness, you really should see one of the original bands: The Specials.
|
L.A. Salami |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Specials at First Avenue, Minneapolis (07 June 2019) |