Sunday, November 14, 2010

Hands Off She's Mine!

... they had us from the first note.


The Beat. Seeing them last night was significant in so many ways.
Roger Charlery - "Ranking Roger", remains one of my favourite vocalists. That's his son, Ranking Junior, right there next to him. He's a master toaster. Horace the Gentleman from The Specials on bass. I am in the front row, beside myself. My oldest friend is with me, we've known each other since we were ten. This is 2 tone ska and rocksteady. It's punk rock and reggae. We danced to these songs in our teens, at parties in our parents' garages. We wrote the lyrics in ballpoint pen on our satchels and school desks.


Their rendition of Rock the Casbah was like having Joe Strummer in the house.
Mirror in the Bathroom lifted the roof. It ended all dub-ified, with the audience singing the last verse. Mingling with us rowdy folk were some of South Africa's music elite - Freshly Ground, The Springbok Nude Girls... all of us together - smiling, laughing, shouting, jumping up and down.

These fantastic people gave us a five song encore.
Afterwards we danced until two, with Angel spinning the oldies.
I don't do this enough.

 Twist and Crawl.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ken jy dit gevoel waneer mens so 'n warm gevoel in die bors kry en daai warmte deur jou hele lyf vloei....als veroorsaak deur "flashbacks" genereer deur enkele woorde....The Beat...hede en verlede...deel van my lewe !oxo

the sourcerer said...

Absoluut.