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Review Sun Sep 20 2015
UB40 Brought Us Back at Concord Music Hall
It's always interesting to me what kind of a crowd a throwback group is going to draw. Is it going to be the original fans or their kids? Are tickets going to be $20 or $200? Is this band even still making new music?
The answer to those questions for reggae band UB40, the British reggae/pop band formed in the 70's that brought us "Red Reeeed Wiiiiiiiiiine."
1) It was a combination - the ages of crowd members ranged from 20's to 50's.
2) Tickets were $40.
3) Yes indeed. The band's last album was released a mere 2 years ago.
The night however didn't start with UB40. It started with a dj whose identity shall remain a mystery because he never introduced himself and he wasn't on the event listing. A word of advice to music venues - there are a lot of fun surprises in life. Surprise birthday cake? Awesome. Surprise raise? Amazing. Surprise free beverage on your Starbucks card? The best.
A surprise dj set that lasts 2 hours before the band comes on? Not so much in my book.
I was in the minority on this one though -- the crowd, young and old, was getting down to the mystery dj, who brought us reggae favorites like Bob Marley's "Everything's Going to be Alright" to warm us up for the night's attraction.
Finally our anonymous dj left and UB40 took to the stage. They came out in pieces -- the backing band consisting of a trumpet, saxophone, guitar, trombone, keyboard and drums took to the stage first and jammed out for a couple of minutes. The group sounded strong and was in sync with each other, literally and figuratively, as they all stepped and swayed with each other in time to the rhythm. This current tour for UB40 features original members Astro, Ali Campbell and Mickey Virtue, and the crowd made plenty of noise when they took to the stage.
The band started things off with Al Green cover "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)" and moved into "Homely Girl" before switching off lead vocals to Astro who told the crowd that they were going to give the crowd what they wanted, the hits new and old. The group did a good job keeping things interesting, mixing up the lead singers and going into the back catalog to keep the crowd engaged. While some bands seem to eschew this as pandering (the one and only time I saw Bob Dylan I didn't recognize a single song he played. Although to be fair that might've also been because he was unintelligible) UB40 seems to get it. You gotta give the people what they want.