{"id":964,"date":"2016-10-20T20:52:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T20:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=964"},"modified":"2026-06-27T20:54:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T20:54:33","slug":"the-english-beat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=964","title":{"rendered":"The English Beat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

July 2003, Respectable Street, West Palm Beach, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was 1984, and I was over at a friend\u2019s house while his older brother was playing I Just Can\u2019t Stop It<\/em> on the tape deck.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is that?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe English Beat,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t know them?”<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, but they\u2019re amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s too bad they broke up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And that was that. I went out and bought the three albums \u2014 Wha\u2019ppen<\/em> and Special Beat Service<\/em> the other two \u2014 and settled in knowing it was a band I would never see live. When I learned Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger joined to form General Public, I bought those albums too. I know David Steele and Andy Cox went on to form Fine Young Cannibals, but when having to choose who to side with on the band\u2019s breakup, I clearly side with Dave and Roger.<\/p>\n

The one time I had a chance to see General Public ended badly, a date from hell that saw us late for the band\u2019s set. It was not meant to be.<\/p>\n

Fast forward some 20 years, and news comes Dave Wakeling is coming to a small club in West Palm Beach for a Monday night show. Not once did I think this was an English Beat show, but simply Dave playing some solo songs, hoping to attract a crowd based on his name recognition. Whatever, I was in, I love me some Dave Wakeling and his teardrop guitar.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m there with my wife and our friends Rich and Kim, and I edge up to the stage and there, taped in front of the mic stand, is a setlist. \u00ad\u201cTwist and Crawl\u201d? \u201cTears of a Clown\u201d? \u201cI Confess\u201d? \u201cMirror in the Bathroom\u201d?<\/p>\n

Wait, this is an English Beat show? Yes, it was. How fucking glorious.<\/p>\n

Dave was the only original member \u2014 he did have a guy doing Roger\u2019s part somewhat OK \u2014 but the songs were all there, with his familiar voice, and the fantastic English Beat sound. We started dancing, and it never seemed to end. \u201cClick Click,\u201d \u201cSave It for Later,\u201d \u201cRanking Full Stop\u201d. He added \u201cTenderness\u201d and \u201cNever You Done That\u201d from the General Public catalog, it was a show of riches, and there were maybe 40 people there to see it.<\/p>\n

The show ended with \u201cMirror in the Bathroom,\u201d which is simply one of the best dance songs ever written (\u201cRock Lobster\u201d and \u201cGroove is in the Heart\u201d two other top-rate dance tunes). When the show was over we walked out the club into a driving rainstorm, walking happily to our cars in the drenching rain.<\/p>\n

I have since seen The Beat a couple times since then, and even had a chance to interview Dave Wakeling for a magazine article. He was genuine and friendly and gave me just what I needed to write the article I needed to.<\/p>\n

Dave Wakeling gives the people what they want. God bless him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 2003, Respectable Street, West Palm Beach, Fla. It was 1984, and I was over at a friend\u2019s house while his older brother was playing I Just Can\u2019t Stop It on the tape deck. \u201cWhat is that?\u201d I asked. \u201cThe English Beat,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t know them?” \u201cNo, but they\u2019re amazing.\u201d \u201cYeah, it\u2019s too […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[168,167],"class_list":["post-964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-respectable-street","tag-the-english-beat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":966,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions\/966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}