Steel Pulse at the Montreal Reggae Festival

I was introduced to Steel Pulse via Elran when we met 7 years ago, so it’s exciting that we’ll be able to go review their show in the Montreal International Reggae Festival together this weekend. Here’s a video of the legendary polical beautiful reggae band doing their famous title track from their first album Handsworth Revolution earlier this year, in Miami:

Steel Pulse have a heartening history, releasing indie early on and touring with punk acts who embraced them when more racist British scenes wouldn’t, playing Bob Marley’s funeral, suing New York City Taxi for prejudice against black people generally and Rastafarians in particular, boldly mocking the KKK, and going on to headline basically every major reggae festival in the world. I’ve never seen them live beore, but Elran has, and in tiny venues, so we’ll write the review together and try to give you a range of perspectives on this incredible group of artists.

We’re not here to start a physical revolution, we’re just here to open everybody’s eyes and let them check themselves and continue in a very educational mode to change things on that tip. We’re losing ourselves and I think it’s very important for us to realize that. Too many of our youths have been lost to drugs, or by the gun, or not having the education needed to persevere and move in an upward direction.

From the Steel Pulse Wikipedia entry

The Montreal Reggae Festival is the largest Reggae event in Canada. It runs from today, July 11 to the 13th and features tons of free shows in the old port, inexpensive shows at venues in the Quartier Latin and major shows on the Main Stage. More info can be found on the website: http://www.montrealreggaefest.com/

ps- another awesome show to check out is tonight, Midnite with local Montrealers Inword opening!