As the pioneering 2 Tone band’s lead singer, Hall’s impassive style made him a star – and helped him weather the vicissitudes of fame, the changing charts and British decline
• Terry Hall: lead singer of the Specials dies aged 63
As the credits roll on Dance Craze, the impossibly exciting 1981 concert film shot at the height of the 2 Tone movement, the Specials perform Nite Klub. It’s a noticeably different version of the song to the one that appears on their eponymous 1979 debut album. The intro is long and slow, reflecting songwriter Jerry Dammers’ increasing interest in jazz and easy listening, which would controversially infect the Specials’ second album More Specials. Then the song erupts into frantic ska and the band’s members suddenly spring into life, leaping up and down, rushing backwards and forwards across the stage. Except for Terry Hall, who continues to stand more or less stock still, his face impassive, an occasional nod his solitary concession to what’s happening around him. As the song progresses, audience members start to climb on stage and dance, swamping the band. Dammers gleefully dives into their midst, but Hall has retreated to the rear of the stage, by the drums. He keeps singing about the awfulness of provincial nightlife – “Is this the place to be? What am I doing here?” – while staring balefully at the mayhem before him. The song ends and the screen goes black as Hall emits a mirthless laugh.
It was a very Terry Hall moment. Everyone remembers the Specials in their prime as a thrilling mass of cartoonish kinetic energy – when the comedy show Not the Nine O’Clock News hamfistedly attempted to parody them, it was with a song called I Like Bouncing – but Hall was invariably the eye of the storm: he might occasionally move in time to the music (and at one point in Dance Craze he climbs down from the stage and sings directly into the rowdy front row) but in comparison with his bandmates, he was a statue, fixing the crowd or the viewer at home with an unblinking, mournful stare.
