The reggae bush telegraph (yes there is one) has been running hot with the news that Steel Pulse is on its way. The influential reggae outfit is playing Sydney, Byron Bay and Brisbane in late January and early February.
That’s not a lot of dates so, as they say, book early and often. This three-show tour, care of Bluesfest Tours, celebrates the band’s 50th anniversary.
It’s amazing that they are still going because the story of reggae is littered with bands and artists who never went the distance. In the bad old days violence and other causes of premature death took a high toll. We lost Dennis Brown, Bob Marley, Jacob Miller, Peter Tosh, Prince Far I and Augustus Pablo, to mention a few, long ago. Mostly lives cut tragically short.
The Steel Pulse we will be getting early next year is not the full original band but the good news is that frontman David Hinds and keyboard player Selwyn Brown remain central to a band born of the punk era and one that once shared stages with The Stranglers.
I came to Steel Pulse from a compilation album that featured their hit song Sound System, one of the great reggae songs. Then I delved deeper and I have come back to them from time to time.
Hinds and Brown formed the band in Birmingham in 1975, channelling their experiences of racial inequality and social justice into music. Reggae’s social conscience has always had appeal. As well as The Stranglers, Steel Pulse shared stages with Bob Marley, Santana and even Bob Dylan.
They are known for their pioneering blend of roots reggae, punk and rock. They have inspired generations with timeless albums such as their first, a cracker – Handsworth Revolution (they are from the suburb of Handsworth in Birmingham) – and later classics such as the Grammy Award winning Babylon the Bandit in 1986. More great albums followed.
Purists might have judged them because they were, despite being mostly Jamaican, English rather than Jamaican. Any snobbery about that was forgotten when they played at Sunsplash IV in Montego Bay in 1981. In the liner notes for the self-titled Steel Pulse album on Island Records, reggae archivist Roger Steffens recalls that gig:
“There was a moment at Sunsplash IV in Montego Bay when the entire throng shouldered together in the stadium at Jarrett Park and became one,” he writes. “It was at the end of Steel Pulse’s revelatory set, when they began playing Ku Klux Klan, and a white-sheeted figure swirled onstage. Shrieks split the air, thousands of people clapping in unison, caught for that instant in the space between mystery and release. It is precisely this theatricality of Steel Pulse’s that reaches audiences who have hitherto been impervious to so-called ‘British reggae’. Their blend of witty costuming and carefully choreographed stage antics are the cutting edge of a group that has been sharpening its act since the early ’70s.”
I’m hoping we get to hear classic hits such as Sound System, Ku Klux Klan and Drug Squad, as well as the music that followed. There’s so much music, I’m not sure that they could fit it all into one gig.
What I do know is that reggae fans are in for a treat and it’s a rare treat because we don’t get to see as much reggae as we’d like. I mentioned to a reggae devotee mate that they were coming and he shot back immediately: “I already have my tickets.”
I told him I would see him there and that afterwards I expected to feel, well, Irie. Google it, it’s a good thing.
Bluesfest Tours’ Steel Pulse 50th Anniversary Australian Tour dates are The Metro Theatre, Sydney, January 31; The Green Room, Byron Bay, February 1; and The Triffid, Brisbane, February 2.
bluesfesttours.com.au