Here is a great quality recording of The Specials in Berlin promoting the 'Encore' album. There was an occasion when I saw them play at The Troxy in 2014. It was a gig I came away from absolutely crestfallen. I said at the time that it was like watching a band that had had the heart ripped out of it (of course there are some who say that with Jerry Dammers absent The Specials reformed had no heart to start with ... I was not one of those). However, the Troxy gig was a low for me after the thrilling five years of gigs that preceded it. At that time, Neville had gone and so had Roddy and it was clear where the band were trying to fill in the substantial gaps left in their wake.
After lockdown or during one of the brief windows of lockdown respite, I can't remember which, The Specials returned, playing the Roundhouse in September 2021. I was apprehensive with memories of the night at the Troxy still in my head. If anything, there was the potential for things to be even worse (in the interim we had lost Brad)... but it didn't turn out that way at all. Since 2019, the band had released a second album of new material, 'Protest Songs'. Thus with two albums worth of new material, the gig was out of this world. Despite the fact that the six originals of 2009 were now down to three, the inclusion of new material propelled the band into a new era of lyrical defiance of many of the world's injustices. Sadly this new era was short lived as Terry Hall succumbed to cancer little over a year later in December 2022.
I am so glad that the Specials and I parted on such a high since, regardless of my love of The Stranglers, The Specials remain as the most important band to have emerged through the '70s and early '80s.
Thanks to the original uploader on 'Live Bootlegs'.
MP3: https://we.tl/t-xEyYqJd0oN
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-0xk3Jb7VSo
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