"For all lovers and rockers" ran the dedication at the end of Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock, the second instalment of his Small Axe series (BBC1/iPlayer), and so it should have done. Lovers Rock was a wonderful evocation and celebration of the joyous music and joyous dancing of the early eighties blues party era, when Britain's black youth - disenfranchised by, and sometimes disallowed entry to, the mainstream club scene - found their own way of partying.
Partying that was full of wonderful music, wonderful dancing, and moments so moving they bordered on the transcendent. From the preparation (getting a massive sound system into an upstairs room, filling the fridge with Red Stripe, cooking up goat curry) via the snogging up against flock wallpapered walls, blowbacks in the garden, and patois fuelled exchanges in the hallway, and on to the eventual end of the night when the partygoers either go home alone or together, Lovers Rock covered the arc of one such night out.
Much like any young person's experience of clubbing in that respect. As are the snazzy shirts (not least as sported by Franklyn (Michael Ward) who, along with Martha (Amarah-Jae St Aubyn), make up the couple at the centre of our story), and the dancing as a vertical expression as a horizontal desire. But there is telling period detail too, not least in the sight of huge beatboxes being carted around on original Routemaster buses.
Even an old fashioned ticket inspector makes a guest appearance. As does the legendary lovers rock producer, Matumbi member, and Linton Kwesi Johnson collaborator Dennis Bovell. But Lovers Rock is not really about the characters or the narrative as much as is it is about a feeling. A feeling of youth, a feeling of hope, a feeling of escapism, and a feeling of adventure.
A feeling, perhaps more than anything, of possibilities. The sort of possibilities rarely available to black youth in West London in 1980 when racist mobs are shown to still be loitering around Ladbroke Grove. Not that every partygoer behaves impeccably. There are confrontations, threats of violence, and even a sexual assault, but these incidents only go to underline the authenticity of McQueen's piece.
The music, of course, is impeccable. Dennis Brown's Money In My Pocket, Gregory Isaacs, Jah Stitch, and, I think I heard, Augustus Pablo's wonderful melodica sound later on when the dancing got rowdier and, quite noticeably, blokier and the overlap in the Venn Diagram between lovers and dub was blurred beyond distinction. There are even disco tunes. Even novelty disco tunes like Carl Douglas' deathless Kung Fu Fighting.
But no scene stands out more than the one in which everybody sings Silly Games unaccompanied except by the sound of their own shuffling feet. It's extraordinarily moving and illustrates music's ability to lift us out of ourselves and elevate us, for a beautiful and shared moment, to a higher level of humanity.
Janet Kay, famously, hit a legendarily high note in her recording of Silly Games, music regularly provides the high note of many of our lives, and, in Lovers Rock, Steve McQueen replicated both those high notes with such skill that the resonance with which they echoed was palpable and sublime. If it left you unmoved perhaps you just ain't a lover or a rocker.
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