The Beat Live Review @ The Lemon Tree (Aberdeen) - 25 Mar 2011

The Beat

Live Review

Kingston Jamaica arrives in Aberdeen Scotland via Birmingham England and yet again, it's full-but still with (just) enough leg-room for your very own diminutive but charming reporter at the Pictish outpost that is the Lemon Tree here in the city's East End (check out what happened to the Legio IX Hispana (Roman 9th Legion) when they tried to strut their prissy empirical stuff up here in 66 AD, Time Team anoraks - too cold for togas, eh Hadrian).

Centre stage for The Beat is an original landmark of charismatic warm cool, the lanky, skanking Ranking Roger and his boy Murphy Junior Ranking, a smiling, toasting, rumble-'em-up dynamo. A swift glance through the throng to the stage back-line confirms that the legendary Everett Morton is - thank you, God - still on drums and Mickey Billingham blesses us with his unique Dexys / General Public presence, reminding me that, apart from The Beat's vigorous Rhythm Festival skankathon that perfect August 2009 Saturday night, the last time Mickey charmed me was with his considered, wistful re-interpretation of (I kid you not) George Formby's "I'm Leaning On A Lamppost At The Corner Of The Street" - a touching, never-to-forget experience at Dexys Gathering II in Brum's Jewelers' Quarter - OK, I'm sorry, I digress and not for the first time.

So, adjusting my time-machine and DGPS, I'm back here in the Silver City as The Beat launch energetically into "Whine and Grine" and the protest anthem "Stand Down Margaret", created in 1980, a time of high unemployment, social upheaval and dismissive, we're inside-the-tent-pissing-out government - and we realize PDQ that "Cam-e-ron" scans (near-enough) with "Mar-ga-ret", and given the state of our nations right now, "stand-down" resonates, echoes over 30, aye, thirty years, and just blows our socks off - a blast, folks. The Beat's vastly fatty, parping Birmingham sax, with MB's ingenious kb FX in the blend, is a JA-Midland Soul horn cathedral as the stonking, projectile "Mirror in the Bathroom", narcissist all-systems-go purity of perfect, resistance-futile, pop proves itself, as if it has to, one more time for the billionth, as sweet as the first, time.

Junior noises up the crude rude boys and "Too Nice to Talk To" is within spitting distance of win-win, can't lose, one-gang, audience inclusiveness, swinging like an outside lavvy door in a force-ten gale. The subtle mic-to- mix-desk-to- echo-to-fade-to-deep-echo-to-refade bounces off the walls as the slow lovers' rock of "Doors of Your Heart" breaks the pace...a few humid breaths... a few more...and then, hold tight at the back of the ska train as it cannons into the Westway, full-on and "Rock the Kasbah" rocks the Castlegate big style, scaring the shit out of the seagulls on the roof, not that they need much help, actually. Roger is cross-stage tag-team sprinting with Junior who's hii-up-hii-up rhythm toasting sits under Pop's sweet vocal and they give the Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman and Andy Williams "Can't Get Used to Losing You" an irresistible, groovy work-over. "Tears of a Clown" is dub-echo exactness and the only downer comes from Yvonne, next to me at the back, when Roger whips off his tee-shirt and hoys it into the front of the crowd. "Throw it here next time, Ranking!" she shouts...despite that, it was a night that couldn't be beat.

Peter Innes