English Beat in San Jose
As part of “Music In The Park,” San Jose’s free summer concert series, the English Beat played in Plaza de Cesar Chavez. Beers were $6. I drank a Refreshé brand bottled water that I had purchased in bulk at Safeway earlier in the week. Since the English Beat, (not to be confused with The Paul Collins American Beat) had their heyday in the early to mid 80’s there were a lot of old people there:
I arrived during the The Odd Numbers set, who were playing in the support slot. They looked a little balder, older and less mod than when my band, Love Gone Mad, opened for them at Marsugis over 10 years ago. During that show the guitar player’s strap broke and he was forced to borrow my wide, ugly leather strap, ruining his sharp mod appearance. At that time they all wore matching 60’s suits complete with skinny ties. I also believe all guitars were Rickenbacker. He looked slightly disturbed inititally, but continued on to play a great set. This time, no such misfortune, just good old “The Jam” sounding rock.
Some of the old people noticed that when the announcer introduced the English Beat, he mentioned just about every musical genre except country and ska (ska being the correct categorization of the music they play). The only original member and apparent owner of the “English Beat” trademark was Dave Wakeling. Joining him on guitar was Lynval Golding, the original guitar player for The Specials, another original Two Tone british ska band from the ’80s.
They opened with “A Message to you Rudy,” which is actually a Specials’ song, but I like them too, so it sounded good to me. Very good indeed. They proceeded to play only good songs, which included almost the entire first album “I Just Can’t Stop It.” Then they played the hits from later albums (3 or 4 in total, I believe), and closed with another Specials song “Enjoy Yourself.”
This is what the show would have looked like if you forgot your glasses:
Instead of an encore, we were presented with members of the “Kids of the World International Conference” or something like that. International kids involved though, so can’t complain. Just be politely cleared out of the park by the SJ Police. Worked for me.
After reading your post, I thought you might like to check out
http://groups.myspace.com/marsugisreunion
Gary Singh from Gas Chamber Orchestra
is behind this idea/movement & is looking for interesting ‘Tales of Marsugis’
Late,
Nate