Once again looking through old music press, specifically from January 1981 I saw once again reviews of a gig that as they say I would have given my eye teeth to have been at... or perhaps not given what transpired.
The reviews coupled with my own reading arould this gig lead to a darker more tragic place. Please read on.
Two contemporary reviews follow, coupled with some more recent online articles that appeared in the Irish Press at the time of Terry Hall's death in December 2022.
THEY MIGHT have raised a few eyebrows with occasional jolly japes like when they cheekily
switched bass players to liven up an otherwise-uninspiring new year Top Of The Pops, but The Beat and The Specials have surprisingly never toured together before.
Yet the two groups have plenty in common, not least that both have practically stood alone in broadening the musical base of punky-reggae, developing rather than re-hashing the new ska that prospered in the slipstream of 2-Tone's initial outbreak two years ago.
Hence this low-key Emerald Isle engagement, the first ever joint Go-Feet/2-Tone revue, hastily put together following a chance meeting between the two groups for the benefit of various local charities.
The gig at Ulster Hall in Belfast alone raised over £2,000 for an inter-denominational HELP set-up who arrange holidays for both Catholic and Protestant children in the west of Ireland. Proceeds from the Dublin Starlight show, on the other hand, are earmarked for a group of local anti-nuke activists.
"More bands should play places like Belfast. The audience is great, probably better than most of the audiences we've played to in England!" – Ranking Roger.
"Just look at The Beat. They're really bubbling, even before they go onstage. Watching them makes me feel like a real old campaigner!" - Sir Horace Gentleman.
THE BEAT bound around a stage with so much naked enthusiasm and fresh-faced spirit, you would be forgiven for assuming that every gig was their first. They are still absorbed by the thrill of it all, just being there, and reflect that ebulliance in two sets that reverberate with upful, positive sound.
Feeding off the fervour of an over-appreciative crowd the Belfast audience in particular - The Beat's insatiable verve more than ' compensates for some live musical shortcomings. Only sedate saxophonist Saxa - more incongruous than ever in a pair of ludicrously patterned canvas baggies topped by trendy Johnson's T-shirt - and drummer Everett Morton are exceptional musicians, but the crosscut rhythms of guitarists Andy Cox and Dave Wakeling give everything a melodic edge and resonance that characterises the group's sound.
David 'Shuffle’ Steele, meanwhile, stands in the great British tradition of the physically stylised bassist (Matlock, Simon on, Hook, Gentleman ...), his shuffling and pirouetting at the back of the stage confirming my deep-seated suspicion that most bassmen are far bigger posers than guitarists can ever hope to be.
But the visual focus, as always, is the irrepressible man in black, Ranking Roger, prince of the freeze-frame skank and ongoing grin. With The Beat instrumentalists - including for the Irish gigs new organist Blockhead - concentrating their attention on musical detail, the onus falls heavily on Roger to project the group, which he does in fine style, eventually becoming so carried away that he forsakes his jacket, shirt and even that sacred stove-pipe hat by the end of the set.
"We've got really interested in dancing over the last year and looking at the effects that dancing has at a gig. It can make for a really optimistic feel without having to preach, help people go away feeling a bit stronger." - Dave Wakeling.
WITH A SECOND LP, tentatively titled 'Dance Yourself Stupid' due to be cut soonish, The Beat previewed a brace of new unrecorded songs: the bouncy and repetitive 'All Out To Get You', continuing in the racey vein of the sublime 'Too Nice To Talk To' hit; and the rockier 'I Am Your Flag', inspired by party political adverts the group saw on American TV during the recent election campaign.
The Beat are still at their best on record however, the studio giving them the extra time and space to breathe and indulge their more inventive instincts. Live, they might still lack the impressive upfront dynamism of The Specials, but they are coming on well.
It's great watching them learn.
"These gigs are probably the last time we are doing some of the older songs. The thing is it's a very young audience and probably the first time most of them are seeing us, so it's basically a greatest hits set." - Jerry Dammers.
SOME MIGHT maintain they have never fallen from grace since the golden beginnings of 2-Tone, but The Specials have 'never forgotten what made them great in the first place - the energy and vitality of their stage show plus the incisive wit and morality of their lyrics.
Starting both shows with a twin-pronged opening shot of 'Concrete Jungle' and 'Gangsters', The Specials immediately put their hatred of violence and corruption on the line. But it's the newer stuff that really catches the ear: while bassist Horace might be slightly off the mark in a claim that 'International Jet Set' is the best thing the group have ever done, it certainly does stand out as a uniquely disconcerting track. Like much of the 'More Specials' LP, its risks and musical maturity are becoming more apparent with hindsight.
But while The Specials have been either credited or lambasted for "going muzak" on their second LP, the fuller integration of the Rico/Dick ' Cuthell horn section into their sonic maelstrom has been practically ignored. That horn section - plus the' occasional addition of Paul Heskath on sax - has given the group's uptempo skank an added carnival stridency.
Singer Terry Hall, too, has come on tremendously as a frontman and focal point of the band. Time was when he was more or less submerged by the lunacy of Dammers, Staples and Golding that surrounded him. Now he is the unfussy vortex of the group's newly refined attack.
When a few pissed-up lunkheads threaten to overrun the Dublin date, to the disgruntlement of the rest of the crowd, Hall deals with a potentially nightmarish situation with sensible aplomb, his calming sarcasm making a mockery of his recent conviction by Cambridge's answer to Judge Rougneck.
The disruptions, however, do destroy any continuity The Specials' set might have had and it ends amid an ugly stage invasion, the sort of thing that should have gone out with gobbing.
But at the
heart of things, The Specials are keeping their hand in. Sometimes musical tensions
and the strain of touring seem to be on the verge of pulling them apart; sometimes
they look
distinctly jaded as they plough through the likes of 'Too Much Too Young' one more time; sometimes The Specials myth seems to be an albatross of Clash City proportions around their necks, but the spirit lives on all the same. Don't Hargue!
"But we're just being a bit more realistic about things: let's try talking about things and maybe doing something rather than just ignoring it, cause it won't go away by just ignoring it." - Sir Horace Gentleman.
And
remember. It's good to be wise when you're young.
Adrian Thrills may have downplayed the violence that marred the Dublin gig but he was insightful regarding the tensions that were starting to show within The Specials' ranks. The band would be no more within six months or so of these Irish dates.
Totally Dublin 16th January 2019
Brian McMahon
“The kids who burst through the doors at opening time at this down at heel ballroom were all set to have a real good time, a riot. Which is exactly what happened.” So said English pop magazine Record Mirror in its review of the Specials at Dublin’s Stardust ballroom in January 1981. The review continued, “All the pent-up frustration and boredom of living in Dublin’s roughest suburb was beginning to explode. It’s difficult to persuade bands to play gigs in Dublin and after tonight I can see why.”
Trouble started during support act The Beat who, also, had to contend with some “morons at the front with their stiff-armed salutes.” Concerned for everyone’s safety, The Specials threatened not to perform. But they did, and after just two minutes, “the blockheads at the front started to beat seven bales of shit out of one another as the band were forced to stop for the first of many interruptions.” Lead singer Terry Hall pleaded, “No violence, we hate violence,” as the mob invaded the stage twice, causing mayhem and stealing microphones and other sound equipment. When a stack of PA speakers came crashing down on stage for the second time that night, the Specials gave up and walked off.
Despite the chaos, violence and poor organisation, the gig (a charity event to raise funds to take children from Northern Ireland on holiday to the West of Ireland) was memorable for many. For 16-year-old Paul Heller, the music and performance was so inspirational that he is a lifelong fan and became friends with some of The Specials. Paul has “bad memories of the violence but the gig was electric. My parents didn’t want me to go – even they predicted trouble – but I sneaked out the bathroom window and jumped onto the flat roof of our kitchen.” Paul lived in nearby Beaumont so it took only five minutes to get to the Stardust where he joined the long queue and “saw a black man, for the first time in real life.” This wasn’t unusual back then. Even Record Mirror noted that “the black guys in the bands were the only coloured people I saw the whole time I was in Dublin.”
The striking young man Paul had seen was actually another Dubliner; Jeff Keogh a 15-year-old from Dundrum. Wearing Doc Martens, a red Harrington jacket and a pork pie hat borrowed from his father (Ray Keogh, the first black footballer to play in the League of Ireland!), Jeff looked the part. He remembers queuing outside from lunchtime and when “someone mistook and called me Ranking Roger, a doorman looked at me and let me squeeze in the side door because he thought I was with the band. I ended up coming out on the side of the stage and got a roar from the crowd.”
Four weeks later, in the early hours of the 14th February, the sirens
of the emergency services woke Paul Heller in his Beaumont bedroom. Worried and
not knowing what was happening, Paul’s father did a head count check of his
children. All were safe and at home. But outside, they heard the news of the
horror happening at the nearby Stardust and of the fatal fire which killed 48
young people.
The Irish Times 30th December 2022
‘No violence – we hate violence,’ Terry Hall pleaded the night The Specials played Dublin.
Two songs in and already the bottles were flying. “No violence – we hate violence,” Terry Hall, the lead singer of The Specials, pleaded. But the crowd crammed into the Stardust wasn’t listening. Minutes later came the first stage invasion. Punches flew. Mics were knocked over.
The English ska band, from the hard-knock city of Coventry, had never seen anything comparable to the anarchy at the 1,400-capacity nightclub – housed in a former jam factory in Artane, in north Dublin – that night of Thursday, January 15th, 1981. Not that they hung around to take it all in: Hall, the Specials songwriter Jerry Dammers, and their bandmates were soon barricaded in the dressing room, praying for the madness to subside. It never really did.
“All the pent-up frustration and boredom of living in Dublin’s roughest suburb was beginning to explode,” the reviewer wrote in Record Mirror, the British music weekly. “It’s difficult to persuade bands to play gigs in Dublin and after tonight I can see why.”
Hall’s death, on December 18th, at the age of 63, has prompted an outpouring of emotion. As the Specials frontman he was the voice of such bruised classics as Too Much Too Young and Ghost Town, a howl of anguish for a Britain riven with racist tensions and about to be plunged into the economic nuclear winter of Thatcherism.
Ghost Town went to number one in Britain, and to number three in Ireland, in the summer of 1981, six months after The Specials’ notorious Irish tour. Of the three shows, Dublin was the undoubted lowlight. Violence erupted almost the moment the band went on stage, and the performance was finally abandoned. Accounts from people in the crowd suggest the gig was somewhere between a fracas and a fascist rally, the trouble spearheaded by shaven-headed thugs in the front row.
The violence also had an air of desperation. North Dublin was a backwater of a backwater in 1981. Any opportunity for mayhem was to be seized by the lapels. “The kids who burst through the doors at opening time at this down-at-heel ballroom were all set to have a riot,” Simon Ludgate wrote in Record Mirror. “Which is exactly what happened.”
Ironically, The Specials expected Dublin to be the calm after the storm, having kicked off their tour in Belfast, at that point more war zone than city. But Dublin would be worse – a concert that dissolved into chaos. (A month later, on February 14th, the Stardust was engulfed by a blaze in which 48 people died and more than 200 were injured. The Republic’s worst fire disaster, it has entered the Irish psyche as a byword for tragedy, of young lives cruelly snatched away. An inquest is due to open in 2023.)
The Specials hadn’t expected a smooth ride in Ireland, which they toured with their fellow ska act The Beat as support. With conflict raging in the North, British artists were generally reluctant to cross the Irish Sea. But Dammers had founded The Specials with the explicit goal of uniting divided British communities. Taking that message to Ireland seemed the logical next step.
The first gig, at the Ulster Hall, in Belfast, on Wednesday, January 14th, had been tense. National Front skinheads had taunted the audience queuing outside. (They were rebuked by punters who chanted: “Skinhead, skinhead over there / what’s it like to have no hair?”
That afternoon two sets of skinheads came in. They told us they were ever so pleased we’d come to Belfast. They appreciated it so much that one set would stay downstairs and the other up on the balcony, so there was no fighting
“We were nervous – of course we were,” Dave Wakeling, The Beat’s lead singer, would later tell me. “That afternoon two sets of skinheads came in – clearly different sets, because they wore different uniforms.” The Beat feared the worst. But the message was that they had nothing to worry about. “They told us they were ever so pleased we’d come to Belfast, as a lot of people weren’t. They appreciated it so much that one set of them would stay downstairs and the other up on the balcony, so there was no fighting.”
He recalls feeling hugely relieved. “It was fantastic until the encore – you look up and there is a line of people standing on the balcony [urinating] over the edge.”
“I’m very proud of the fact that The Specials, along with The Beat, played in Ireland,” Horace Panter, the group’s bassist, told the Irish Examiner last year. “We played in Belfast when nobody else would.”
With Belfast behind them, The Specials and The Beat concluded that the difficult bit was over. Crossing the Border, they were off to Dublin and then Cork. What could go wrong? Lots, they realised as they took to the stage at the Stardust and were greeted by a row of skinheads who, according to Record Mirror, were giving “stiff-armed salutes”.
“We were driving to Dublin, and everyone was bright and cheery: ‘Oh, it will be dead easy now.’ It wasn’t,” Wakeling said. “Lots of skinheads got up on stage while The Specials were playing, and a fight broke out – beer was being thrown all over the place.”
The Beat were in the dressing room when The Specials came hurtling in, followed by a hail of bottles. “The band did a runner, and the fight carried over backstage. There was blood on the walls and broken glass on the floor. We noticed all the exits at the back were chained up and padlocked,” Wakeling said. “There was no way out. So we went back into the dressing room and put up a sofa against the door until they had finished bottling each other. Later we read about the fire.”
What struck Simon Ludgate was the resentment that seethed from the audience. “Irish kids ... seem to hate everything and everyone in a big way ... An English accent was reason enough to get beaten up outside. The black guys in the bands were the only coloured people I saw the whole time I was in Dublin ... It’s not hard to be unacceptable in Ireland.”
He said Ireland but perhaps meant the capital. The gig in Cork, on January 17th, could not have been more different, according to Wakeling. When they performed at the Arcadia Ballroom – a venue, near Kent Station, that also hosted The Cure, XTC and U2, among others – the vibe was mellow and welcoming.
“In Cork there were a lot of people singing and dancing. We were very pleased,” Wakeling told me, his voice still full of relief all those years later. “It had been an odd tour.”
Irish Mirror 22nd December 2022
The night the Specials and The Beat got trapped playing Stardust nightclub - weeks before fatal fire.
The late Specials frontman Terry Hall had close ties to Ireland.
Hall and The Specials performed at the Stardust nightclub back in 1981 – a month before the tragic fire at the Artane venue.
The band played what was described as a “chaotic” concert at the Stardust on January 15, 1981, and told of their fears at trying to flee the venue from a riot – but all the exit doors had been locked.
It was reported that the show was marred by anti-social behaviour by a minority of those attending, despite repeated appeals for calm by both bands.
Dave Wakeling, lead singer with The Beat, said in 2018: “We played the Stardust, which burned down about 10 days later. Lots of skinheads got up on stage while The Specials were playing and a fight broke out – beer was being thrown all over the place.
“The band did a runner and the fight carried over backstage. There was blood on the walls and broken glass on the floor. We noticed all the exits at the back were chained up and padlocked.
"There was no way out. So we went back into the dressing room and put up a sofa against the door until they had finished bottling each other. Later we read about the fire.”
Records also revealed that concerns over alleged overcrowding and other issues relating to the event were raised a number of days later by Dublin Corporation in a letter to the owners of the Stardust.
The venue, on Kilmore Road, was licenced to hold a maximum of 1,400 people but it’s believed more than 2,000 were at the concert that night.
In June of this year, Antoinette Keegan, chairperson of the Stardust Victims’ Committee, said she was determined to meet members of The Specials when they were due to visit Dublin’s Trinity College in July.
“This was one of the biggest concerts ever held in the Stardust and we would love to find out if anything stands out about that night in the original band members’ minds,” she said.
“Given that it happened just weeks before the fire, we are hoping they might remember something of significance that could assist us in our search for answers.”
In 1981, Hall left the band to start Fun Boy Three, his new wave project with Specials bandmates Lynval Golding and Neville Staple. They released their self-titled debut LP in 1982 and followed it up with 'Waiting' the following year before disbanding.
In 1984, Hall formed another band titled the Colourfield, which released two albums: 1985’s 'Virgins and Philistines' and 1987’s 'Deception.'
Additionally, Hall joined the bands Vegas and Terry, Blair & Anouchka, and released two solo albums. He would also go on to co-write the Go-Go’s 'Our Lips Are Sealed' and collaborate with a wide range of artists, including Sinéad O’Connor, Gorillaz, Tricky, M.I.A. and Lily Allen.
Hall also recorded Dana’s All Kinds of Everything with Sinead for the 1998 album "A Song For Eurotrash".
In 2008, Hall reunited with the Specials for a number of tours and concerts. They went on to record two new albums together: 2019’s 'Encore' and 2021’s 'Protest Songs 1924-2012'.
His death was announced by his family on Monday. He was 63.
Dublin Live 22nd June 2022 Kim O’Leary.
Families of Stardust fire victims hoping to meet The Specials over 'sparks' at venue before tragedy.
The families of the 48 people who died in the Stardust fire are seeking a meeting with British ska band The Specials, who performed at the Artane venue just one month before the 1981 tragedy.
The legendary band, whose hits include Ghost Town and Concrete Jungle , will be in Dublin next month to play a sold-out gig at Trinity College on July 2. Speaking to Dublin Live, survivor Antoinette Keegan - who lost her sisters Mary, 19, and Martina, 16, in the Stardust fire - said that they are hopeful that they can get in contact with The Specials.
A number of people who were at the gig in 1981 later told gardai they saw “sparks” in the ceiling during the performance.
Ms Keegan said: "We want to see if they can remember anything at all from the night they were in the Stardust, even something at the thing they didn't think to be important could be significant to us in the lead up to what happened on February 13 and 14. My sister Lorraine wanted to go see The Specials the night they performed in the Stardust but my dad said no, and she is still a fan all these years later.
"We would really appreciate if they could contact us."
A number of people who were at the gig later told gardai they saw “sparks” in the ceiling during the The Specials performance the month before the tragedy. Antoinette said that the families are "hoping and praying" that The Specials will get in contact and agree to meet them.
There were 48 people killed and over 200 people injured in a fire at the Stardust nightclub on 14 February 1981. Ms Keegan said she is hopeful that the full inquest hearings into the tragedy will go ahead in September, with a preliminary hearing taking place on July 21.
She said: "On July 21 is the next preliminary hearing for the inquest, it'll be the first time me and my family won't be there because my mother is being presented with the Spirit of Mother Jones Award in Cork."
Her late mother, Christine Keegan, campaigned for many years to get an inquest into the deaths of her two daughters at the Stardust fire. She sadly passed away in 2020.
There was recently a breakthrough in a dispute between the Stardust families and the Department of Justice over payments for inquest jury members, with legislation brought in to pay the jurors for their service.
I do not know whether Antoinette Keegan did in fact meet with members of the special, but the an inquest into the fire did conclude in 2024, some 43 years after the event.
The Guardian 18th April 2024
All 48 victims of 1981 Dublin nightclub fire unlawfully killed, inquest finds.
Survivors and relatives of those who died in Stardust club on Valentine’s Day in 1981 wept and thanked jury.
Forty-eight young people were unlawfully killed after an electrical fault started an inferno at the Stardust nightclub in Dublin in 1981, an inquest jury has found.
The jury delivered the verdict in a coroner’s court on Thursday more than four decades after a disaster considered one of the darkest moments in Ireland’s history.
Survivors and relatives of those who died applauded, wept and thanked the jury for a decision that appeared to deliver catharsis after a long quest for justice and accountability.
The conflagration in the north Dublin suburb of Artane on Valentine’s night killed 48 people, aged 16 to 27, injured 214, and left questions over how it started and why it claimed so many victims.
The jury concluded the fire stemmed from an electrical fault in the hot press in the bar of the Stardust Ballroom and that polyurethane foam seating and carpet tiles on the walls contributed to the fire’s spread.
Smoke, heat, lack of staff preparedness, ignorance of the building’s layout and emergency lighting failures impeded people’s ability to escape, the jury found. Asked if locked, chained or otherwise obstructed exits impeded the ability of any of the dead to escape, the jury foreman said “yes”.
After the verdicts relatives embraced and rose to applaud the jury, with one person shouting “thank you”. The inquest lasted 12 months.
Families said previous efforts, including a tribunal of inquiry, a victim compensation tribunal and two legislature-appointed reviews, were rushed, perfunctory or botched, reflecting official indifference to working-class communities.
The tribunal of inquiry that convened within three weeks of the fire found the “probable cause” was arson, outraging the families who said it smeared the dead and allowed the nightclub manager, Eamon Butterly, to claim £580,000 compensation for malicious damage.
The arson finding was removed from the public record in 2009 but families said only a fresh inquest could absolve those who died.
The coroner, Myra Cullinane, paid tribute to the families’ persistence in obtaining a fresh inquest. “To the families, I acknowledge the deaths of these 48 young people is a source of ongoing grief to those who loved them and it remains the defining loss of their lives.
“However, I hope that family members will have taken some solace from the fact that these fresh inquests were held, that the facts surrounding the deaths were examined in detail, that moving testimony was heard from many of those involved in the events of the night and, most importantly, that you the families felt fully involved in proceedings, however difficult it was to hear all of the evidence.”
Families marched to the Garden of Remembrance carrying photographs of those who died and a black banner that said: “They never came home.” Some called for a state apology over flaws in the investigation of the blaze and what they termed callousness towards survivors and relatives.
President Michael D Higgins said the inquest findings were a result of tireless campaigning.
“I am very conscious that today will be a day of the deepest emotions for the loved ones of those who died,” he said.
“A day of vindication and of honour, but also a day of the deepest sadness and regret. I think in particular of those whose passing means this conclusion comes too late for them.”
The taoiseach, Simon Harris, said the families had carried the weight of the disaster with strength and dignity.
“The Stardust tragedy was one of the darkest moments in our history, a heartbreaking tragedy because of the lives that were lost, the families that were changed forever, and the long, drawn-out struggle for justice that followed.
“Their relentless pursuit of truth and accountability, their profound commitment to justice, even in the face of overwhelming challenges and setbacks, was not only a fight for their loved ones but a campaign to ensure that such a disaster never happens again.”
The government will consider the verdict and the jury’s recommendations, Harris said.
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