The Specials are no more! Horace Panter remembers days when it was ‘like walking on air’

Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 00:27 - First gig: The Pop Proms 05:49 - Learning to play 07:50 - Meeting the rest of the Specials 12:01 - First Specials gig 16:30 - The 2-Tone Tour 18:17 - The final Specials record 22:22 - A tribute to Terry Hall ---- Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock & Roll going:   / wordinyourear   ---- The Specials have officially disbanded, bowing out with a swansong album recorded in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral in 2019. Horace Panter looks back at the first shows they played - when Jim Callaghan was still PM! - and the rigours of mastering ska when some of the group thought it was “old man’s music”. Along with … … the dignified way for any band to retire … the 2-Tone tour of 1979 – “like a school trip with no teachers” … bonding with Terry Hall over comedian Ken Platt: ‘I won't take me coat off, I'm not stoppin'!" … the day Jerry Dammers came to rehearsal with Prince Buster’s Greatest Hits – “for all your rebellious needs!” … the poignancy of playing in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral when you start the set with an air-raid siren … seeing the Faces and Mott the Hoople, “once in my school uniform” … the sensory overload - “The space! The volume!” - of Led Zeppelin at the Albert Hall when you’re 15 and from Kettering … “strange to think few people under 60 have ever seen the Specials” … the bassist he pretended to be when posing in the mirror ... the Bilzen Festival in 1979 “when the chain-link fence was broken down and I came offstage like I was walking on air” … and creating the 2-Tone look with ex-Mod tonic suits Order ‘Live From The Cathedral’ here … https://shop.thespecials.islandrecord...