The English Beat's Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger have decided to cash in on their early Eighties "save it for later" plea seventeen years after they made it. No, the ska-revival band, which disbanded more than a decade ago, isn't exactly back per se, but their music and the music of the spin-off New Wave group General Public will be this summer. Wakeling and Roger, members of both groups, will co-headline a retro tour with the synth-pop group the Human League, who got their chops on the nostalgia trail opening for Culture Club and Howard Jones on last summer's Big Rewind Tour. The tour will be billed the Human League and General Public, featuring the music of the English Beat.

"It seems as though the radio stations are playing more General Public and more English Beat than they did when the damn records came out," says General Public/English Beat singer/guitarist Wakeling. "Eighties nostalgia may have something to do with millennium fear." A full-scale English Beat reunion will remain on the backburner until bassist Dave Steel finishes work on a solo album, according to Wakeling. "So, he'll do [the reunion] when he's done with it," says Wakeling. "So he says and I believe him ... probably."

The tour will kick-off July 7 in Seattle and wind up on August 29 near Salt Lake City, according to tour organizer James Fitzsimmons of CMR booking agency. The tour will encompass thirty-eight shows in North America, including four in Canada. "When this opportunity came out I jumped on it 'cause I'm kinda ready to show off now," says Wakeling, who's been touring as a solo artist for a number of years. "After twenty years, I've finally learned how to play the songs properly."

The group -- basically Wakeling, Roger, and Wakeling and/or Roger support staff -- will split their ninety minute set evenly between General Public ("Tenderness," "General Public") and English Beat ("Save It For Later," "I Confess") material, and also include a few new tunes. The band will likely open for the Human League, simply because the latter has a more complicated stage show.

The tour will be timed to coincide with the re-release of the English Beat (on London Records) and General Public (on DreamWorks) catalog, both of which will include "greatest hits" packages. An English Beat retrospective may include rarities as well, says Wakeling. "I'm told the labs in England had found some live tapes and maybe we'll put some of that on it," he says. "Somebody said there was an idea that they'd found a couple of tracks on the master reels that we'd never finished. Ah, 'contains previously released tracks.' It's probably because they were s---."

BLAIR R. FISCHER
(May 17, 1999)