Dance Craze (DVD + Blu-ray)

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Drench yourself in the high-energy, sweatbox world of British 2 Tone in the late-1970s and early 1980s with this legendary concert film. Dance Craze is a 1981 concert film recorded at various venues throughout 1980 at the height of the 2Tone movement. It features exclusive live recordings by The Specials, Madness, The Selecter, The Beat, Bad Manners and The Bodysnatchers. Shot on Super 35 with Steadycam allowing total mobility, it enables us to experience the concerts from the stage. We are up there with the performers rather than watching them from the perspective of static cameras safely anchored in the stalls.

It was blown up to 70mm because at the time that was the best way of achieving true multichannel sound in a widely compatible format, as opposed to the comparative fudge of Dolby Stereo. The movie was directed by Joe Massot, who is perhaps best known these days for the 1960s cult classic Wonderwall ( available as a cheapie on Blu-ray if you haven’t got it). He also directed the Led Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains The Same a few years earlier, and following that, he planned to do a concert movie featuring Madness. The layers of archival treats on this DVD/Blu-ray release include a BBC Arenathat sent NME "cub reporter" Adrian Thrills to the chaotic offices of the record label in Coventry, where Jerry Dammers, the founder of The Specials, and the rest of the band were in fine form. Newly remastered in 4K from original film materials, DANCE CRAZE is presented here by the BFI and Chrysalis Records on Blu-ray and DVD (Dual Format Edition) for the first time, more than 40 years on from its theatrical release.

The disc will feature outtakes, a booklet featuring new writing on the film, plus other extras to be confirmed. US director Joe Massot, known for the psychedelic 60s curiosity Wonderwall and Led Zeppelin concert movie The Song Remains the Same, directed this tremendously vivid 1981 documentary about the British 2 Tone movement, this vital music being a kind of evolutionary product of reggae’s coexistence with punk the decade before.

The concert film Dance Craze is a high-energy record of a series of concerts performed from Portsmouth to London and from Coventry to Liverpool, as well as in the US. It was filmedin 1980 and released in cinemas for fans of The Specials, Madness, Bad Manners, The Beat and The Bodysnatchers. Yes, the BFI, no less. Which seems like quite an honour. It didn’t seem quite so high-brow when I was watching this on a Saturday afternoon at Bolton Odeon all those years ago. It was utter carnage for the entire screening. DANCE CRAZE premieres at the Glasgow Film Festival on Thursday 9 March and will be screened at BFI IMAX, the biggest screen in Britain – 65 foot high with a 12-channel sound system – on Wednesday 22 March. The already sold out BFI IMAX screening will be introduced by members of the bands featured. 30 x Picturehouse cinemas are holding a special one-off screening on 23 March. The Specials’ Too Much Too Young is as thrilling as ever, and as ambiguously angry and contemptuous: “You’re married with a KID/When you could be having FUN WITH ME,” they snarl, adding the despairing Alf Garnett insult: “I’d hate to have the same name as you/You silly moo.” Rhoda Dakar of the Bodysnatchers is a live wire; Buster Bloodvessel of Bad Manners is a genuine English eccentric, doing that odd thing with his tongue; Madness’s cover version of the Swan theme from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake is very weird, and the Beat’s Twist and Crawl and Mirror in the Bathroom are still compelling. A must.It was thought lost for decades, but a 70mm print from 1981 belonging to cinematographer Joe Dunton has been given the 4K restoration treatment by the BFI and Chrysalis Records. ABOUT USLouder Than War is a music, culture and media publication headed by The Membranes & Goldblade frontman John Robb. Online since 2010 it is one of the fastest-growing and most respected music-related publications on the net. Espousing the message of racial unity, the sharp suited band combined choppy Jamaican rhythms with the rawness and high-voltage energy of punk. With help from Chrysalis, they set up 2 Tone Records and just as, say, Glasgow’s Postcard label would worship at the altar of The Velvet Underground, the Coventry imprint adopted Jamaica’s Prince Buster as their patron saint. Massot intercuts the bands’ live performances withnuggets of archaic 1950s newsreels, complete with cut glass-accented observations about British pop music and dance crazes. It’s an ingenious way to break up the documentary and set the 2-Tone bands in a historical framework. Madness took their name from one of Buster’s biggest hits, while their one and only 2 Tone release was a tribute to him called The Prince, with the B-side an infectious cover of his single Madness. Their second single, One Step Beyond, was another cover. The Specials themselves naughtily stole the tune of his Al Capone for their debut single Gangsters. Too Hot was a direct cover of another of his songs, while Stupid Marriage borrowed its premise from Buster’s Judge Dread. 2 Tone owed a huge debt to the singer born Cecil Bustamente Campbell.