Live Review: The Selecter, The Ska Vendors

Pleasantly misleading in title, The Ska Vendors rollick through a diverse set of rocksteady, soul, reggae and punk. With a set highlighted by inspired covers of Keith & Tex’s Stop That Train, The Bodysnatchers’ Let’s Do Rock Steady and The Clash’s The Crooked Beat, they provide the ideal warm-up for the genre legends soon to grace the stage.

In Australia to celebrate the 35th anniversary of their debut album Too Much Pressure, British ska band The Selecter are as fresh and firing as ever. They play their acclaimed album in its entirety, whilst interspersing tracks from their broad discography, and it’s a greatest hits set of sorts as The Selecter roll out back to back classics including On My Radio, Three Minute Hero, Missing Words, Celebrate The Bullet and, of course, Too Much Pressure. Off the back of what has already been a hectic touring schedule this year, which included a Glastonbury performance, the band has every element of their live show down pat as they beam with relentless energy and constantly interact with an audience that is imaginably reminiscent of the Coventry punk clubs in the late ‘70s. Articulating the world’s problems by mixing the social and political, with an ever-present sentiment of positivity, The Selecter provide a voice so often neglected in the quest for record sales. Tonight, frontwoman Pauline Black speaks out about the G20 summit and gun culture, while her lyrics touch on multiculturalism, social unrest and nationalism; issues that are, sadly, still as relevant today as when they were written in the early ‘80s.

This is only The Selecter’s second Australian tour in their long history. It isn’t a nostalgic or sentimental tour, but rather a band continuing to do what they love. With their last album String Theory released in 2013 and another planned for 2015, The Selecter aren’t disappearing and nor should they.