Amazingly,
after 29 years of anarchy, chaos and destruction, The Damned are still
full of surprises.
Armed with the wonderful knowledge that they have been recording new
material, with an album due out next year, I was fully expecting three
or four new songs to be aired on this tour, as happened before Grave
Disorder came out. Instead, they played just the one new song
- the single, Little
Miss Disaster which, I can happily report, has instant appeal
and easily maintains the high standards of the Grave Disorder
material.
Those of us who are regular Damned gig-goers have come to expect a
certain order to proceedings. Smash It Up will be the big finale,
Neat Neat Neat will have an extended jam section in the middle,
I Just Can't Be Happy Today will be high up the set list, Eloise
will be in the encore. Well, this time none of that happened. Smash
It Up was in the middle of the main set, Neat Neat Neat
was shorter than it's been for years, and the other two songs weren't
played at all.
Instead, we got Absinthe pushed high up the set list, and we
were treated to a rare rendition of Alone Again Or - the first
time I can remember them playing a track from the Anything
album since...well, since the Anything tour, maybe!
The Academy is a great venue, and the sound quality was, as always,
pretty good, with the exception of Monty's keyboards being a tad on
the quiet side. The band were obviously enjoying themselves, too.
Captain and Dave were smiling and chatty throughout, with Captain
delivering a couple of lengthy monologues about Cliff Richard and
The Jam, and Dave's humour remaining intact despite the boorish minority
oh so predictably throwing their beer on to the stage. Seriously,
at two quid-odd a pint, drinking it is a much better alternative.
I'd feared that the band might be a bit under-rehearsed for this tour,
with Captain having spent the past couple of months on the road with
Dead Men Walking, but on the whole things were pretty tight.
There were just a couple of exceptions, with Dave forgetting the words
to Little
Miss Disaster, and both he and Captain making quite a mess
of Machine Gun Etiquette. Still, the occasional shambles is
all part of The Damned's loveable appeal. If we wanted a word perfect,
note perfect, sounds-just-like-the-CD kind of night, I suppose we'd
all go and watch Radiohead instead and be bored to tears.
Just one more thing - how many bands could get a place rocking by
opening their set with a 21-year-old B-side? Not many!
All in all, another great concert from The Damned!
The set list was:
Nasty
Disco Man
Little Miss Disaster
Absinthe
Alone Again Or
Noise Noise Noise
Neat Neat Neat
Smash it Up (parts 1 and 2)
Curtain Call
Street of Dreams
Would You Be So Hot
Melody Lee
Machine Gun Etiquette
Love Song
History of the World Part 1
Ignite
New Rose
Grant
Macabre