After
a couple of years of plodding through the same old songs, Smash It
Up, Love Song, New Rose blah blah blah I was really beginning to feel
that after the thrill of seeing the Damned on the Grave Disorder
tour, with their new (and I would say better) material – and
so their new lease of life, it was really getting to the stage where
they truly were past it and I would have to break my tradition of
seeing them every year with my brother (as we have both done since
we have looked old enough to get in!).
However
this year, again with a new song, they were brilliant. Once again
they had raw energy, life and they actually looked like they wanted
to play the songs! They were as tight as I have seen them, the Captain
was kept in check so there were no meandering, self indulgent lead
lines and he and Dave had a chemistry that I haven’t seen before.
The
set was good, it had a quite a lot of the old stuff which is great
when they are playing as well as they were on the night and the new
single which is brilliant but...
Message
to the Damned
I
must say that, as a 20 year old, and so one of the new generation
of fans WHY WON’T YOU PLAY MORE OF THE NEW STUFF??? Grave
Disorder is far better than the old songs. It is better produced,
tighter and we haven’t heard them all hundreds of times before!
We all love to here the classics but if the Damned are going to appeal
to a new generation why won’t they play their new songs? Absythe
has got to be the most boring track on the album and yet it is one
of the only new songs included in the set each year, why??? Please
play some of the good tracks such as W, Democracy or
Neverland. I love the Damned but I honestly don’t know
how long I will continue to pay to see them each year if they aren’t
going to play some of the new material which it looks obvious to the
audience that they themselves prefer to play as well!
This
time please don’t do what you did after the Grave Disorder
tour and build up our hopes that you have more to give and then return
to only appealing to the same old nostalgia audience that just want
to swear at the Captain and throw beer on the stage – give the
new fans something to come to see as well!
S.
Abel