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Monday 2 March 2015

Uptown Top Ranking


The Beat were a blast on Saturday night. You'd have to be a proper sourpuss not to find some enjoyment in ska played live and fronted by someone as irrepressible and happy as Ranking Roger (with son Ranking Junior on co-vocals). They played all songs you'd want The Beat to play, a few new ones, a full on dub version of Mirror In The Bathroom to follow the usual one and a cover of Rock The Casbah. As we'd walked up the ramp to the Waterside Roger was outside having a smoke. He met me in the eye and said Hello. Fifteen minutes later he was bouncing around on stage to the delight of the middle aged of Sale. A good night for babysitters.

In 1982 Roger recorded some vocals for a different, unreleased version of Rock The Casbah. Mick Jones intended it to go on his idea of what became Combat Rock but was over-ruled. It's been available on bootlegs ever since.

Rock The Casbah (Ranking Roger version)

They encored with Save It For Later, a minor classic of the early 80s and proof that it wasn't all ska, ska, ska.




5 comments:

Dirk said...

This makes me really jealous, SA! It must have been a wonderful gig indeed ...

C said...

Wow - he's looking great, hasn't aged a bit!

Swiss Adam said...

That was the view of some of the female members of my party especially when he did the encore shirtless

Scott said...

Found this recently on You Tube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwAsIsvAuzo. Considering it was in 1980 the quality is excellent. That was one gig I would have loved to have been at, but as I was only 10 years old at the time and living in East Kilbride I will have to make do with the wonderful footage.

Brian said...

Sounds like a great show, Adam. I never heard this version of Rock the Casbah before. Did you ever hear RR's "So Excited"? Wonderful single.