#brad engstrom

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The English Beat Live Show Review: 12/4, City Winery Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

When The English Beat (or The Beat, as they were known in the UK) started in the late 1970s, inflation was out of control, people were living under the threat of nuclear war, and you couldn’t trust any politician to give a shit. “Totally different from today!” facetiously joked Dave Wakeling during the band’s show last night at City Winery. Really, the group’s unique status in the music landscape back then holds true today, too. Though toaster Ranking Roger passed away in 2019 and had long been performing under a separate incarnation of the band, even the current Beat lineup’s diversity belies homogeneous trends in punk. From current toaster Antonee First Class--London-born and of Jamaican descent--to keyboardist Minh Quan and saxophonist Matt Morrish, each player brings their own distinct musical background in interpreting fused renditions of new wave, punk, and ska. When Antonee gave the generic speech you hear all the time about music bringing “Black, white, brown, Asian,” etc. people together, he grouped it with the idea that the band brings together different subsets of reggae subcultures, too, from rude boys and girls to skinheads.

Really, before the band got into the hits that transcend genre and have, like, sound-tracked films--General Public’s “Tenderness”, “Save It For Later”--they dove deep into ska. Walking out to Harry J. Allstars’ eternal “Liquidator”, Wakeling challenged the crowd to beat the previous night’s in terms of energy. (“I can confirm that 3-4 people can dance on the tables and they won’t break,” he said.) Appropriately, they launched into their version of Prince Buster’s “Rough Rider”, “Hands Off...She’s Mine”, and “Twist & Crawl”, from their debut I Just Can’t Stop It. Their performances of “Too Nice to Talk To”, with Morrish’s saxophone blaring, and “Doors of Your Heart” reflected the worldbeat the band experimented with as they grew, widening their reach beyond even the borders of London and the Caribbean. “For people who aren’t there,” Wakeling said before performing the latter, “We dance for them.” In their following performances of “Ranking Full Stop”, segueing into “Mirror in the Bathroom”, it felt like the spirit of Roger Charlery was there, anyway. The beat goes on.