Photograph by Ian D. Hall
The Selecter have announced a 22-date U.K .Tour throughout February and March 2015 to celebrate 5 years since their reunion and to support the release of their brand new album Subculture, released in Spring 2015. The tour, which begins in Gloucester on February 19th, will visit such towns and cities as Salisbury, Brighton, Bury, Edinburgh and Newcastle before coming to Liverpool’s East Village Arts Centre on March 19th before finishing appropriately in the home town of Coventry at the University of Warwick’s Copper Rooms.
During the past half-decade, The Selecter, led by their legendary frontwoman Pauline Black, have become increasingly aware that their championing of 2-tone/ska music is firmly rooted outside of today’s mainstream genres (indeed, Ska doesn’t even exist as a music category on iTunes.)
Despite this anomaly, with over 110,000 Facebook fans and many more across other social networks, The Selecter’s following is worldwide and they remain figureheads for a wide stratum of subcultures e.g. skinheads, mods, punks, northern-soulers, and many other groups who similarly define themselves at variance with the status quo.
Pauline Black says, “We are great believers in calling things ‘as we see them’. We realise that Ska/2-tone was, and still is an umbrella for many subcultures. This feeling of inclusivity is reflected in ‘Subculture’, which seeks to celebrate our diverse musical influences – from Soca & Calypso, to Reggae, to Electronica – and reflect the concerns and tastes of the subcultures that readily embrace them. We deliver songs that are unafraid to discuss the current situation in the Middle East, the intricacies of sexual politics, or the violence of social unrest.”
In the last two years alone The Selecter have headlined hundreds of gigs, toured with bands as diverse as PiL and The Levellers, played Glastonbury, Isle Of Wight and Coachella festivals and performed extensively across the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Wherever they perform, however big or small the event, The Selecter never fail to win the audience over to their infectious musical style and message.
The world has moved on since 2-tone first arrived on the scene in 1979, and The Selecter have committed to moving right along with it. For them it is about moving away from the nostalgia debates that predominate with bands of similar longevity and focusing on the contemporary and revitalizing optimism that their live performance engenders in audiences all over the world. It’s in their D.N.A.
Tickets for this gig are available from the East Village Arts Centre Box office.