tonyb@sco.COM (06/20/91)
***************************************************************** Special Beat, Mad Cow at the T&C2, London, 18/06/91 =================================================== When I arrived, Mad Cow were already on stage. From their appearance, they seemed more in tune with the Manchester Indie scene and the first few numbers backed up that notion. The audience was a mixture of skins and hippies and nobody seemed to want to move. As the set went on the music improved and about 50 or so people at the front started dancing. The addition of a sax player halfway through brightened things no end and soon half the people there were bouncing. The lead singer was quite energetic but the rest of the band were pretty motionless. Overall I thought they seemed a decent enough support for what was to follow. Things went quiet during the interval at the arrival of Lee Thompson and Chris Foreman (Ex-Madness, now the Nutty Boys) with Si Birdsall and John Hasler. Then fingers started pointing and tongues wagging "is that Joe Strummer (Ex-Clash) over there?". I will never know for sure. Most of the Special Beat entered the stage, Horace Panter greeting us with "It's nice to be back here, at the Hope & Anchor!" before the band launched into `Guns of Navarone'. Neville, Vinny and Ranking Roger joined them and kicked off with `Enjoy Yourself' (No poncey "Hi I'm Terry and I'm going to enjoy myself first" here though!). Soon all the old classics came thick and fast, `Too much too young',`Gangsters',`Jackpot',`Rough Rider', `Nite Klub',`Rudy, a message to you',`Best Friend',`Mirror in the bathroom', `Concrete Jungle', `Monkey man', and many more. When Ranking Roger asked if anyone was unemployed before the band played `Get-a-job', both Chris Foreman and John Hasler put their hands up! I thought "Is this 1991 or 1981? Perhaps some things will never change afterall" The whole place was skanking by now, even the technicians and bar staff and you could feel the sweat in the air. Three to four hundred people packed into the club and I don't recall seeing anyone standing still on the rare occasion I stopped dancing for a swig of beer. For the first encore, they played `Longshot kick de bucket', `Liqiudator' and `Skinhead moonstomp' and the whole place just went barmy. Several minutes passed and chants of "Specials! Specials!" brought them back out again, when Roger asked "Do you want to hear a Selecter song?" and they play `Madness' (much to the obvious delight of Lee and Chris). They finish off with `You're wondering now' and I think only the many girls in the audience were the ones who knew what to do, as they stormed for door which led backstage while us blokes milled around knackered and/or drunk and in a lot of cases, dazed. A brilliant performance (O.K. so I'm biased) and although I've only mentioned the old stuff, they played a few new numbers which were just as danceable. I would've given you the titles but I was in such a state of drunken excitement that I only remembered the "oldies" because I still play the records at home and have done regularly for the last 11-12 years. The Special Beat fly into Boston, MA, on July 2nd (<- O.K. Eric?) and are then touring the States (I asked them about the Edge, Emily, but at the moment they have no plans to play there). I really recommend you go see them, so if any of you are in college/Uni start saving your pennies NOW! You won't regret it. Cheers! Tony. tonyb@sco.COM