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Robin Campbell, Duncan Campbell and Martin Meredith of UB40 perform at the Royal Albert Hall in London in June. (KGC-138 / STAR MAX / IPx)
It's September 25, 1985 at the Palace Theater in downtown New Haven, Connecticut, and the steady pace of the staccato guitar, its light sax and an 80s synth-pop has it all.
UB40, which has since prompted countless people around the world to pour a glass of red wine, is on stage. The British reggae-pop band has just released a very hot new single, a silky revival of Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" on a Jamaican drum beat, propelling the band into the Top 40. And the crowd, Yale's full of students and many enthusiastic "prepubescent girls" are "extremely excited" about the show, as one student wrote in the Yale Daily News.
For UB40, the night is only an important message on the 30 years of the group. But Brett M. Kavanaugh, a Supreme Court candidate, was deeply involved in the dramatic narrative that surrounded his confirmation hearings – bringing back the 80's group named after a UK unemployment (UB40).
On Monday night, the band became a trendy hashtag on social media as a result of a report in the New York Times. The Times was reporting a brawl in a bar on September 25, 1985, according to police, involving Kavanaugh, his friends, and a randomly chosen person for UB40's lead singer. The new report comes as the FBI was investigating three allegations of sexual behavior by three women, each allegation involving alcohol consumption being determined.
After the show that night, Kavanaugh, then 20, and his friends were drinking in a bar called Demery's when they spotted a guy looking like UB40's frontman, Ali Campbell, whose classmate Kavanaugh, Yud and former Yale basketball player, Chad Ludington, told The Washington Poster. They started looking at him, said Ludington. Ludington went to the guy's table and asked if he was Campbell.
"It turns out it was not him," Ludington told the newspaper. "It was difficult in New Haven. He said something aggressive like, "Watch out".
This is where things have degenerated. According to the police report, Kavanaugh would have thrown ice on the guy, causing what Ludington described as a brief scrum. Ludington said Campbell's look-alike responded by taking Kavanaugh into a momentum. And Kavanaugh's friend responded by throwing his drink on the man, hitting his ear and making him bleed, according to the police report.
Kavanaugh "did not want to say if he was throwing ice or not" when he was talking to the police, the report said. The report does not say if anyone was arrested, according to the Times.
The reaction of social media to this recently revealed information? A heavy dose of nostalgia for "Red Red Wine", UB40's cover of Neil Diamond, and confusion as to why UB40 and "Red Red Wine" were suddenly in fashion.
By the time Kavanaugh was perhaps a fan or not in 1985, UB40 was about to experience a boom, he had just been named by Rolling Stone as the reggae band of the year and was considered by some to be the next best thing since. Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff brought reggae to the mainstream.
Members of UB40, who were childhood friends, met in the British industrial city of Birmingham in 1978, while most of the members were unemployed – hence their group name . One day, Campbell was compensated for an accident in a bar and used it to buy drums, as Robin Campbell, Campbell's brother and a member of the original group, told Gannett News Service in 1985.
When they started practicing in a Birmingham cellar in 1978, none of the eight band members – a mix of Jamaicans, Britons, Scots, and Irish – had extensive experience in the practice of instruments, reported People in 1984.
But in 1980, they had abandoned their first record, "Signing Off". It was a political statement more in tune with traditional reggae, denouncing the social ills of the day, cementing their first image of the neglected working class.
On "Madame Medusa", they called Margaret Thatcher's head. On "Tyler", they decried the wrongful conviction of a black man. Their idea of a Christmas song – "Food for Thought" – underscored the hypocrisy of feasting on vacation while people starved in Africa.
But with more glory, more pop was born, with the hymn of the lover of the vino "Red Red Wine", for which we remember the best of the group.
UB40 is still on tour these days – but two groups share this name, the result of a split in 2008. Ali Campbell, the lead singer whose resemblance caused a fight in a bar, left the group. Two others followed. They play under the name "UB40 with Ali, Astro and Mickey". The other UB40 claims to be the official. This seems to be a point of contention.
Neither the UB40 Band responded to The Post's request for comment regarding its impressions of its appearance in the network of allegations relating to Kavanaugh's hearings confirmation hearings.
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