It’s been 21 years since 2-Tone veterans The Specials have released any new, original material. Their legacy would have been preserved just fine if they decided to continue touring the classics, and audiences would still keep coming out to the shows even if all they did was keep playing the hits. It would seem that a band best known for their activist roots and songs with shrewd, biting observations about class warfare, racism, economics, and such, would only start writing again if the current world situation were to inspire it. And, sure enough, this year’s Encore is a full length response to the rise of fascism throughout Europe and the Americas.
The record isn’t an angry one. It’s exasperated. It’s 10 tracks worth of, “After 40 years of fighting and progress, I can’t believe you people are still doing this shit.” The songs are a little slower, but the stories the songs are telling are some of the most intense of their career. They brought this record to the Fox in Oakland on Memorial Day weekend, and it was an intense one to say the least.
The Specials in their current lineup have an interesting live set up. The bulk of the band, which currently includes original members Lynval Golding on guitar and Horace Panter on bass, are all performing at top energy, dancing around while playing and having a great time. And, right in the center, we have original singer Terry Hall standing nearly motionless, singing these dark songs about poverty and corruption. It’s like he’s in the middle of a party and everyone is ignoring him when he’s trying to let us know the kitchen is on fire and we need to do something about it. It’s powerful stuff.
The set itself seemed to be divided into two parts. The first half consisting of slower material, largely pulling from the new record, but also early tracks like “Rat Race” and “Blank Expression.” Songs where the message is right up front, and the tone of was very much “I’m sick of this bullshit.”
It all slowly kept building up until they brought out activist Saffiyah Khan to perform “The 10 Commandments,” which is a full song rebuttal to Prince Buster’s hyper sexist song of the same name about what your wife is and isn’t allowed to do. The song, which opens with the line “Thou shalt not listen to Prince Buster,” is spoken with a melancholy reggae that borrows from an older Specials AKA song and is a passionate piece of lyric about empowering yourself and taking the wind out of sexists.
From this point, the tempo started increasing, and we moved from deflated to feeling fully empowered to finally destroy fascism. This is when people started dancing harder, with folks skanking even in the VIP area on the floor. During “Nite Klub,” Golding and keyboardist Nikolaj Larsen staged a fake knife fight. It was such a big party after that build up that the irony of the band covering Prince Buster later in the set was almost missed! (To be fair, although Prince Buster wrote “Gangsters,” The Specials made it a classic)
The tone kept raising until we hit the encore, and the band decided to level us out again, with songs like “Breaking Point” and “Ghost Town” reminding us that it’s our job to end racism, fight poverty, take down the patriarchy, and learn how to treat all fellow humans with dignity and respect.
