SKA legends announce Hampshire tour date report the Southern Daily Echo

SKA icons The Selecter have announced a UK tour that includes dates in Southampton and Salisbury.

Celebrating five years since their reunion and supporting the release of their new album Subculture the band will play Salisbury City Hall On February 20 and The Brook, Southampton, on February 21.  

During the past half-decade The Selecter, led by their legendary frontwoman Pauline Black, have become increasingly aware that their championing of two-tone/ska music is firmly rooted outside of today’s mainstream genres. Indeed, ska doesn’t even exist as a music category on iTunes.  

Despite this anomaly, with more than 110,000 Facebook fans and many more across other social networks, The Selecter’s following is worldwide and they remain figureheads for a wide stratum of subcultures such as skinheads, mods, punks, northern-soulers and many other groups who similarly define themselves at variance with the status quo.  

Pauline Black says: “We are great believers in calling things as we see them. We realise that ska/two-tone was, and still is, an umbrella for many subcultures.  

"This feeling of inclusivity is reflected in Subculture, which seeks to celebrate our diverse musical influences – from soca and calypso, to reggae and electronica – and reflect the concerns and tastes of the subcultures that readily embrace them.  

“We deliver songs that are unafraid to discuss the current situation in the Middle East, the intricacies of sexual politics, or the violence of social unrest.”  

In the last two years alone The Selecter have headlined hundreds of gigs, toured with bands as diverse as PiL and The Levellers, played Glastonbury, Isle Of Wight and Coachella festivals and performed extensively across the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.  

Wherever they perform, however big or small the event, The Selecter never fail to win the audience over to their infectious musical style and message.  

The world has moved on since two-tone first arrived on the scene in 1979 and The Selecter have committed to moving right along with it.  

For them it is about moving away from the nostalgia debates that predominate with bands of similar longevity and focusing on the contemporary and revitalizing optimism that their live performance engenders in audiences all over the world.  

It’s in their DNA.