There was a good turn out on Feb. 25 to see Roddy Radiation of The Specials play with his American band, The Skabilly Rebels, at B. Ryder’s Sports Bar and Grill. The Specials have rocked the United Kingdom for over 30 years, and this was Roddy’s first time playing in Bakersfield.

Danny Dean, guitarist for the Skabilly Rebels, has been “waiting for eight to ten years for [Roddy] to tour in the US.”  To him, it was well worth the wait despite his now-busy schedule. The band spent the previous night in San Jose and is soon off to Australia and Italy for their tour.

Roddy enjoyed the turn out.

“I like a mixed crowd. It’s nice having all ages in,” he said.

Throughout the night, Roddy was quite worried about the band’s tour manager, who when standing up caught her head on a table and may have been mildly concussed for the better half of the night, but she was still dancing and swinging to the music which was a nice mixture of rockabilly and ska genres.

From his younger days, Roddy told a story about when he injured his head.

“I tried to jump down a whole flight of stairs and knocked me head on an eighth story beam. I had to wear a Liverpool hat the whole tour,” he said.

He said they wouldn’t give him painkillers when they stitched his head after shaving a horseshoe into it because of the fact that he had been drinking.

Roddy, who will be turning 57 in May, is not as young as he once was, but still knows how to rock ‘n’ roll. He does recognize the fact that he’s getting older, evidenced by the arthritis that has set into his shoulder from playing a Les Paul since he was 13 which has made him switch to a lighter guitar. Also, the fact that on his last tour one of his teeth just fell out when he was singing on stage and he just spit it into the crowd.

All Roddy could say about these facts was that, “someone upstairs… he’s sure taking a piss. It’s like all you want to do is relive it, or do it all over again.”