The Specials

O2 Academy, Glasgow

Four Stars

THERE has been no shortage of criticism as much-depleted ska legends The Specials charged nearly £50 a ticket for their current tour which has landed in Scotland.

In Glasgow three original members provide the spine of the band from the familiar eight [if you include the late saxophonist Rico].  The voice, Terry Hall, without which it really would be utterly pointless, joined guitarist Lynval Golding and bass player Horace Panter in this incarnation - ten months after the death of drummer John "Brad" Bradbury at the age of 62.

The Specials, who had their breakthrough hit in 1979, split two years later with Hall, Staple and Golding forming Fun Boy Three.

Glasgow Times:

But comments from some fans were hardly flattering in the run up to the new gigs pointing out that what was left would only actually make a Fun Boy Two, with toaster Neville Staple joining keyboardist Jerry Dammers and guitarist Roddy Radiation among the absentees.

Alan Kidd said: "£92 the pair for only 3 original members, fools/money/parted. No Jerry, Roddy, Neville or Brad (RIP). Still Special?"

Another fan said: "If Fun Boy Three, the band Terry Hall, Neville Staple and Lynval Golding formed after the Specials originally split up, got back together and toured, I wouldn't be able to resist that no matter the ticket price."

Hall, himself, has explained that the band had worked on the dates two months before Bradbury's death and that "we know he would want us to continue with the plan he helped to put together”.

So is this a band on the slippery slope?

Glasgow Times:

Not when you open with the haunting strains and still politically astute 1981 number one single Ghost Town - a tune whose atmospheric reggae aesthetics appear noted by current chart favourites Twenty One Pilots in their worldwide hit Stressed Out.

Hall may be as cutely deadpan as ever, often staring downwards as if relying on an autocue for the words,  but this is the perfect ice-breaker and those who packed the 2500-capacity O2 Academy and were more than happy to pay the prices, simply erupted.

A few songs in and the always-sullen faced Hall says the first of his eight spoken words to the audience: "Hello".

Glasgow Times:

The craggy featured 57-year-old British music icon goes on to stroll unenergetically through a golden hour-and-a-half leaving the 65-year-old Golding to provide the vibrance.

Golding's surprise cover of Bob Marley's Redemption Song may have lacked the Jamaican legend's poise and grace, but that was more than made up for by his unpretentious passion.

For the pork pie-hatted faithful, this was manna from heaven; a hark back to the times when you could be political if you had a tune.  And boy, do/did The Specials have tunes.

Glasgow Times:

We get to the sign off song, You're Wondering Now, and the barely sweating baggy blue-grey jacketed Hall utters, "it's your turn", for a chorus before he signs off with: "Thanks a lot".

Did he care?  Maybe not.  But the hundreds rolling back the years, dancing, screaming, shoving and giving it large, did not mind one jot.

This is quite simply a nostalgia-fest; there are no new tunes.  But the menu of glorious faithfully-delivered blue beat hits from Do Nothing and Stereotype to Gangsters and Too Much Too Young only serves to underline how they remain one of the great British bands.