Beat Happening

When the second wave of ska gained popularity in the UK in the late-'70s, The Beat – along with contemporaries Madness, The Specials and Bad Manners – were at the forefront. Over the course of their three ensuing albums – I Just Can't Stop It (1980), Wha'ppen (1981) and Special Beat Service (1982) – the band released memorable songs such as Mirror In the Bathroom, Too Nice To Talk To and Save It For Later.

Because of an American band with the same name, The Beat opted to change their name to The English Beat for international releases, but as Wakeling explains, their Australian label jumped the gun.

“When the first record came out the Australian record company brought it out as The British Beat,” he says, adding that this partly explains why they chose not to tour here in their early years. “(Not touring Australia) just became a tradition after that and it wasn't until I met with [a promoter] earlier this year that I reassessed it. The way I figured it was you only get 30 years for murder in Britain nowadays, it's been 33 years – I've left it long enough, so we can pretend it's long-awaited instead of long-overdue.”

The band's early material has recently been re-released in a couple of different formats and they've been receiving critical acclaim, including a four-and-a-half-star review in Rolling Stone.

“I was very impressed by that,” Wakeling says. “I've just come off a tour in America and it really helped the amount of people coming to shows as well, we sold out a lot of shows.”

Wakeling admits to being pleasantly surprised by the enduring success of the band's catalogue, and says he was particularly chuffed when Pete Townsend covered Save It For Later.

“It's very satisfying, I must admit,” he considers. “I mean, you always hope you'd get to do some songs and you hoped that people would like them. But that people like them thirty years later and that some of your heroes get to cover them, that's more than you would ever dare dream.”

Wakeling is equally impressed by the enduring diversity of the audiences they've been attracting on recent tours.

“One of the sweetest things we get is you've got someone who's sixteen and someone who's sixty dancing in step and they don't seem to mind each other's company either, which is nice.”

For those wondering what to expect when The English Beat touch down in Australia, Wakeling promises a two-hour show filled with hits from the band's back catalogue as well as a few tracks from his other outfit General Public. He's also quick to point out there'll be no encores.

“I hope nobody's offended by that,” he says. “But I really hate the way groups, like, run off stage with all their amplifiers switched on and then the thing I really hate is that sort of theatrical running they do when they act surprised when they're coming back onto do a song. It kills me – I cringe, I have to look away.  So over the years that just bothered me so much that now we just stay on and play a few more songs and then shake hands and say thank you to the people up the front we've been dancing with. So really, we sort of do five minutes of handshakes as our encore. 

“It will be smashing, I think we'll have a lot of fun. We're in great form and really excited about coming somewhere that's new and different and see how we measure up. I think everyone's going to love it and we might make it an annual event if it's fun.”