Watch The Specials perform ‘Gangsters’ live on SNL
The Specials were a band intrinsically linked to working-class British culture, and despite their greatness, their sound never translated overseas. At a time when they were Britain’s favourite band in 1980, the Specials voyaged to America and performed as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live.
To call the Specials pioneering would be a significant understatement. Ska was not only offering music fans a completely new sound, but the two-tone group also stood together as a defiant multicultural outfit, which was an unfamiliar sight in the late 1970s. The Specials offered hope and showed the working class from all backgrounds were united against Margaret Thatcher’s government.
They never sought commercial success and never sold out on their principled beliefs to achieve hits. If a band came along in 2022 who were openly anti-racist and stood together to fight in the face of social injustice, they would undoubtedly be scorned by certain sections of the media. However, when the Specials arrived, Britain immediately took them to their hearts, and remarkably, they achieved seven consecutive top ten hit singles.
‘Gangsters’ was their debut single, and as an introduction to the Specials, it was the perfect trackt. On the band’s website, guitarist Lynval Golding explained the song’s origin: “The songs intro ‘Bernie Rhodes knows don’t argue’ is for Bernie, and the ‘Can’t interrupt while I’m talking, Or they’ll confiscate all your guitars’ comes from the hotel incident.”
He continued: “My line in the song was ‘They use the law to commit crime.’ Everything in Gangsters was about that trip, and it was a brilliant trip in the end because it gave us our first hit record – can’t complain about that.”
Despite being a hit in the United Kingdom and various European countries, the mainstream American audience never bought into ‘Gangsters’ or the Specials as a band. In early 1980, they spent an intense six-week period trying to establish themselves in the States, which included supporting The Police in arenas. Although they made celebrity fans in John Belushi and Blondie’s Debbie Harry, it had a destructive effect on the band.
“America broke us,” bassist Horace Panter told the New York Times in 2010 about the jaunt, which included an eight-show residency at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. “We were so knackered that pharmaceuticals took over. We definitely came back to England a different group than went out.”
At the time of their visit to the States, it seemed like the Specials were only at the beginning of their journey. However, 18 months later, despite their continued success, they called an end to the band and didn’t play together again until 2008.
On their reunion, the late Terry Hall told the New York Times about how his suicide attempt in 2004 changed his outlook and want to have his bandmates back in his life. He explained: “All I wanted to do was rekindle our friendships, because we spent such a long period together and an intense period, and then it disappeared. That was the issue really for me: one by one gather those friends back in. That’s been better than any gig, just that they’re there again.”
During their second chapter, the Specials played to a packed-out Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, had a number-one album in 2019 with Encore, and, most importantly, made up for the lost time. Although America never took them to their heart, despite this fine performance on Saturday Night Live, the Specials curated a culture-changing legacy
