Friday 21st November 2014?
Me? I was at The Troxy having a SKA party with
The Troxy is, to be blunt, at the arse end of nowhere. Limehouse to be exact. Just heading to the East End is enough to unsettle this West End Girl, although you do get to pretend to drive the DLR. (I think that's the law.)
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| If it's not the law it should be. |
Used to having our pick of pre gig party venues we were thrown by the stark surroundings of The Troxy. The Railway Tavern was heaving and scary, the White Swan derelict and this place????
Ahem. So, having spurned BJs we found ourselves in an Irish bar, no bigger than my living room only with fewer crisps. We got talking to a couple of old school friends (of each other - not ourselves) with Harrington jackets and a 'women shouldn't have to pay for their own drinks' attitude which was old school but friendly. But the world seemed a little out of kilter it has to be said.
Janie and I finally waved goodbye to our new friends and fought our way through a mass of ticket touts to make it to The Troxy.
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| Does this 2 tone girl look like the kind of person who wants to sell her ticket to The Specials???? |
The Troxy was, like the adolescent me, beautiful only on the inside. It is all art deco splendour with high ceilings and ornate twiddly bits. It was also packed to bursting.
A sea of pork pie hats and braces, 2 tone ties and harrington jackets. I thought I'd found my spiritual home. But there was a definite undercurrent; the heady mix of nostalgia, alcohol and ageing skinheads was only just on the right side of madness and this was before Terry Hall had even hit the stage. For the first time ever we eschewed the mosh pit and took up camp to the left of the sound desk.
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| This picture is not the night of The Specials but you can see the sound desk and where we took up position. |
The erie, inimitable introduction to Ghost Town filled The Troxy and I kid you not the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I love it when a band come on stage to one of their biggest hits and I was grinning like a loon and dancing along utterly under the sway of the melancholic and strangely beautiful Terry Hall.
Friday Night Saturday Morning was EPIC! Sorry I am reduced to the vernacular because at that moment I was a teenager. But things were feeling ominous in our little area of The Troxy. We were the only women in our small corner and were aware that we were receiving unwelcome attention. Bumps and knocks you expect but these were gropes pure and simple. Obviously I wasn't the only one to be transported back to my teenage years by the music, remember when you tried to get the attention of the opposite sex by annoying the f**k out of them? Well when some idiotic man-child took my hat for the 4th time I turned around to face them all and gave a torrent of abuse which ended with the words don't you EVER F**KING TOUCH ME AGAIN!!!!!
A man to my right in a white T-shirt took it upon himself to come over all gallant (like Toby Jordan in the 5th form) gave the guys a 'stern talking to' and assured me that it wouldn't happen again. All was ska-tsatic until …….
At which point there was a surge! An avalanche of the men your mother warned you about when you were 16, high on ska and beer. A cross between pogoing, the hokey cokey and British Bull Dog ensued and people were knocked to the ground by the seething mass. I was eyeing the barrier around the sound desk, wondering if I could scramble over it in a dress aware that I was in real danger of being sucked into the 'dance' like Toto into a tornado, when white t-shirt man appeared again and planted himself firmly between me and…..IT. Safe. But there were to be frequent recurrences of 'the dance' throughout the set.
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(Stiff Little Fingers cover)
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(Prince Buster cover)
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(Toots & The Maytals cover)
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(Dandy Livingstone cover)
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- Encore:
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(The Skatalites cover)
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(The Skatalites cover)
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Now, I love SKA the rawness of the music and the passion it inspires in its audience. It does harken back to a harsher more confrontational time and I wouldn't have minded being caught on the wrong side of the arm flailing, leg lurching, jumping that passed for dancing. It was the intimidation that I felt being a woman in that audience that took me by surprise and coloured the whole evening. It was a case of constantly being on your guard, ensuring you didn't make eye contact with anyone and not going to the bar for fear of leaving your dance happy buddy alone although I doubt we could have made it to the bar, hemmed in as we were. We had to fight our way out - cue more groping when we decided after Too Much Too Young, to call it a night.
On a happier note - a word on Too Much Too Young. It can't be easy to play the 'albatross songs' time after time but Terry Hall with the help of the best Henchmen in the business Sir Horace Gentleman and Lynval Golding still made it sound fresh and raw. A song about birth control is still gloriously shocking and they are still angry about it despite the fact that this 'burden on the welfare state' would be a man of 35 by now. It was loud and proud and fantastic RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE BOYS!
Walking back through the barren landscape of Limehouse we mused about how unlucky we had been with our gig neighbours when we were joined by a gay couple who told us that they had never been in an audience that was so blatantly disrespectful to women. They'd also witnessed women being on the receiving end of unwelcome physical attention, so alas it would seem that the RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE BOYS simply attract rude boys.
But the specials are special. They always were. Their look and sound were unique and this mixed bag of talented musicians can still make that beautiful sound.
And if you'll excuse me - I have a book to read.
