It doesn’t seem five minutes since The Selecter became a household name on the 2 Tone Ska scene. But here we are, some thirty five years later they are in Nottingham to celebrate the anniversary of their debut album, Too Much Pressure.
Fronted by Pauline Black, her performance was something that not many people pushing 60 could easily pull off, but the lively performance Rock City witnessed suggested that there’s still plenty of juice left in the tank yet!
With tracks such as Three Minute Hero, They Make Me Mad, the brilliant Missing Words, Murder and the outstanding James Bond theme, there was nobody leaving the venue into the rainy cold night that wasn’t enthused by tonight’s proceedings. The nearly capacity Rock City crowd acting as backing singers may not have been able to hold a tune, but blimey, they all knew the words.
The Selecter is one of those bands that have somehow managed to recapture the youthful exuberance that made their early years at the forefront of the Ska revival scene so exciting. Treating us to that debut album almost in its entirety, they delivered with great gusto and with the abandonment that you would expect as arguably the greatest Ska band rolled back the years and showed that class is always permanent.
Closing the show with Too Much Pressure and On My Radio, the band worked overtime for this appreciative crowd, with Pauline Black looking as if time had truly stopped.
If you want a night of energetic trance inducing dancing to Ska music, then The Selecter is your best bet. This was most certainly a gig that you just had to be at with it being a special night of musical magic and mayhem.
By Kevin Cooper
