UB40's sound was straight-up reggae with a twist — political, but not overtly so, and infectiously pop-catchy. Formed two years earlier, UB40's mixed-race lineup met while queuing for monthly dole checks. It took its name from the British unemployment benefit form its members were required to fill out.

They had recently inked a deal with a local indie label and were prepping an album. But outside of Birmingham's pubs, no one really had much use for a band regarded as a two-tone ska revival leftover. Until The Pretenders tour.

Politically-charged audiences immediately latched on to "Food For Thought," an angry rude-boy discourse on Third World poverty from UB40's debut album, "Stepping Off." The single and album sailed into the British Top 10. A 1981 follow-up, "Present Arms," spun a British hit out of "One in Ten," which took Margaret Thatcher to task for Britain's high unemployment.

UB40 didn't make it to Hawai'i till early 1989. By then largely detached from its left-wing political roots, the band was touring behind a left-field resurgence of interest in its remake of the Neil Diamond-penned "Red, Red Wine." A track from the band's 1983 reggae cover album and American breakthrough "Labour of Love," the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 the previous year. (It peaked at No. 34 on the same chart in 1983.) UB40 connected with audiences here right away, drawing sellout or near-sellout crowds on subsequent statewide tours in 1990, 1993 and 1999.

Tickets to the first of UB40's two Waikiki Shell shows this weekend were near-gone in days. On top of reggae's perennial popularity with local audiences, that's proof of the enduring appeal of the band's music and live shows.

Earl Falconer, vocals/bass, sips champagne in the dressing room after a concert. UB40 has proved to be a steady favorite with Hawai'i reggae fans.

UB40 has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide in its quarter-century as a band, primarily on the strength of catchy pop-reggae remakes — Al Green's "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)," Smokey Robinson's "The Way You Do the Things You Do" — and a smaller handful of tasty originals — "If It Happens Again," "Rat in Mi Kitchen."

UB40 vocalist/percussionist Norman Hassan felt the beat in a practice session in Papeete last November.

Keyboardist Michael Virtue at a Papeete rehearsal.

The band also continues to put out new and original music, the bulk of which (thanks to milk-the-concept-till-it's-dry collections like "Labour of Love II" and "Labour of Love III") still winds up overshadowed by UB40's way with a cover song.

Released last year, UB40's 22nd album "Homegrown" got its biggest boost when the band's take on "Swing Low (Sweet Chariot)" — adopted as the official anthem of the English rugby team's pursuit of the World Cup — became an unlikely hit.

A cover of The Police's "Every Breath You Take" from the film soundtrack for this year's "50 First Dates" somehow managed scattered radio airplay despite sounding about as lazy as a "Labour Of Love III" cut-off.