On the evening of November 8 I had the unmitigated privilege of seeing Britain’s Two Tone ska legends the Selecter for the third time in just over a year. Quel honneur! This show commemorated the 40th anniversary of Two Tone ska.
The Selecter is fronted by the very charismatic Pauline Black and Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson, who sing duets as well as trading lead vocals. Pauline in particular was all smiles as she emerged on stage slamming a tambourine. Both she and Arthur were non-stop moves, strutting and dancing about the stage. Both of them have incredible pipes.
Almost immediately Pauline brought up our political situation. She told the crowd that they better think carefully next time they vote because England doesn’t like him either. We all knew to whom she referred. After a couple more songs she brought up the caravan that was headed our way from Central America and to remember that we are all human beings and to show some compassion. This brought several cheers from the audience.
Then it was back to the music. As much as Pauline twisted and bounced about the stage, she never seemed to break a sweat. Dressed in a black suit and her signature hat firmly in place, she looked sharp the entire set. Likewise, Arthur looked dapper in a vest and white tie and his hat also remained firmly in place and the two of them performed some stunning two-part harmony.
When they performed On My Radio Pauline sang, it’s just the same old show, then thrust the mic into the crowd and they’d yell back, on my radio.
Toward the end Pauline stood beside drummer Winston Marche (who oozed charisma) and slammed some cymbals. Then the band left the stage only to return a few short moments later sans Pauline but with Rhoda Dakar (from the Body Snatchers and who spun records before the show to warm things up) to take over on vocals. She looked great and sounded great. She wore an orange and black tight double knit dress and high heel red shoes. She oozed charm. Then Pauline returned to the stage and claimed the two of them together added up to 125 years of womanhood. They lit into Too Much Pressure, which melded into Pressure Drop. There wasn’t a still body in the house. Then the show was over.
Besides the aforementioned members, the Selecter also was compiled of, Will Crewdson, guitar (who made his strings scream and shriek), Luke Palmer, bass, Lee Horsley: Keyboards (who played so fast I was sure he melted the keys every night), and an incredible horn section of Neil Pyzer-Skeete on tenor sax and Orlando LaRose on baritone sax.
My only complaint about the show was the lighting. Bathing dark skinned people in dark lights makes them almost invisible at times and impossible to get decent photographs. That combined with some security guy telling me I could only shoot the first three songs (the first three songs were bathed in such dark lights there was no way to get decent pictures), I gave up trying to get pictures. I am including what I took when I saw Selecter in Portland last year.
– All photos property of Holly Homan, all rights reserved.
