The Specials

Olympia Theatre, Dublin Sun 8pm €49.20 (sold out) 0818-719300; St Georges Market, Belfast Mon 8pm £35.50 0818-719300

Anyone who watched the regrouped Specials belting out the hits at this year’s Oxegen would have been surprised, perhaps, at the energy coming off stage. You can’t beat a set of good songs, of course, but for the Coventry band to return fighting fit, 30 years after their heyday, to an atmosphere of social and economic turmoil seems more like perverse serendipity than good marketing.

The socio-realist punk- ska-pop still retains potency – inner-city paranoia ( Concrete Jungle), the work treadmill ( Rat Race), teenage pregnancy ( Too Much too Young) and violence on economically bedevilled streets ( Ghostown) have retained not just relevancy but also engendered more than a hint of influence in the work of (among others) Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen. Sharp suits optional.

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Jay Reatard Monday, Dublin, Whelan’s